Interview: “Pete’s Dragon” Screenwriter David Lowery

Posted on November 15, 2016 at 8:00 am

“Pete’s Dragon” screenwriter David Lowery answered my questions about updating and transforming the Disney classic for a live-action 21st century remake, and how being the oldest of nine children helped him learn how to tell stories. The movie is available on DVD/Blu-ray November 29, 2016.

How did you decide what elements of the original were important to you to keep and what new elements you wanted to add?

The only elements I wanted to keep from the original was a dragon named Elliott who could turn invisible and a boy named Pete who was an orphan. And I took those elements and thought that if I just maintained those and kept the title I would have the flexibility to tell a completely new story that would stand alongside the original on its own two feet. And that was it, I took those elements, I didn’t go back and watch the original. I just really wanted to focus on telling a new story and creating something the audience could appreciate and love just as much as they loved the original.

How did growing up with so many younger sisters and brothers help you become a writer? Did you read to them, tell them stories?

Oh man, that is a great question. I have eight younger brothers and sisters and it really taught me how to tap into a childlike sensibility. I definitely read to them. We wrote stories together, we wrote comic books together, we made movies together. Whenever I made a movie, my siblings were the actors. So we were creative together all the time. My parents encouraged us to always be expressing ourselves creatively through the arts, whether that be through movies or music and books, or drawings or paintings. And it really, I think, has had a big effect on who I am today as a filmmaker, not only in terms of my sense of collaboration but also in the way I approach storytelling. I always approach every movie I make whether it’s for adults or families with a very childlike sensibility and I think that’s because I spent so much of my life growing up around so many other kids and it really has an effect on how I see the world, how I want to see the world and how I feel I can best tell a story.

When you began working on the film what did you learn about the capacity for special effects or technology that inspired some of the storyline?

One of the things that was fun about this movie was getting to do visual effects on a scale that I never had done before. I knew a little bit about how CGI worked and how visual effects worked and I knew that Elliot would be entirely created on the computer but there was a lot that I had to learn, especially once we got done shooting and were in post production and I saw all the work that went into making him do anything. If they wanted him to blink his eyes it required a lot of steps to get him to blink his eyes right. It is an incredible team at Weta who brought him to life. There are modelers and sculptors, there are animators, there are people who are in charge of putting the 20 million hairs of fur on the body and making sure that that fur moves right if the wind is blowing. It’s just really incredible and so I learned a lot. There is no shortage of boring technical details that I could fill in here but it’s really amazing what is possible with modern digital technology. At the same time it’s important to learn the limits of it. You don’t push it too far because at the end of the day you want the movie to feel real. You want to feel like it is really happening. You want actors to feel like they belong in this world and so you have to find the right balance with it as well.

Your work often focuses on children who are on their own. Why is that a good basis for a story?

If a child is on their own they have somewhere they need to get, there is somewhere they need to be and that automatically gives your story a narrative arc because all of a sudden you have a journey that must be embarked upon. Whether it is a little kid that has run away from home or a little kid like my first film “St. Nick” or a little kid who is lost in the woods like “Pete’s Dragon” or even a grown-up who thinks he’s still a little kid like in my last film “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” where the Casey Affleck character in that movie a full grown man who is on the inside just a 7 year old playing with a gun and trying to find where he belongs in the world — I have gradually realized it is one of the key tenets of all my movies. It wasn’t intentional but I think part of it comes from having such a strong home life, of having such a strong family that I’m coming from that the thought of not having that has been the basis for so many of the stories I have sought to tell on the big screen. You tell stories of what you know but also you imagine yourself in different circumstances and how you would react to that. And I try to imagine myself in a world where I didn’t have the things I had growing up or I wasn’t surrounded by such a strong family that cared for me. That is great food for thought but also a great basis for exploring various stories.

Okay this is a two-part question, do you remember the first Disney movie you saw?

The very first Disney movie I saw was also the very first movie I ever saw, period. and that was “Pinocchio.” It was re-released in theaters in the 80s and my parents let me go see it and I just was spellbound. I had a huge crush on the Blue Fairy. There was a big cardboard stand of the Blue Fairy in the lobby of the theater and I wanted to take it home. I was just madly in love with her at the age of three or four, however old I was. I guess my favorite Disney animated character would probably be Ariel from “The Little Mermaid” because I was just obsessed with that movie. I really love that I really connected to her character and I still love it. I remember when we were shooting “Pete’s Dragon” when we moved locations as I got to another hotel and turned on the TV and “The Little Mermaid” was playing and I just sat down and watched the whole thing and that was one of the happiest moment in the entire shoot.

One thing that I loved about the film is that the bad guy is not entirely bad. What do you think makes a good movie villain?

David: You know a really good movie villain is someone who you love to hate, who is very enjoyable to watch even though you don’t like him but also one who you understand. You might not agree with him but you understand where he is coming from. With the character Gavin, I think the character is kind of a big dummy, he’s not the brightest, he is not the sharpest tool in the set but he doesn’t want to be a bad person, he thinks he is doing the right thing, he thinks he is protecting the town or protecting the kids and I think that’s important. I think it’s really important especially in this day and age to have empathy for people you don’t understand and you don’t agree with. And to understand they are not necessarily evil even if you strongly disagree with what they’re doing. So Gavin does some horrible things in this movie, he does some really bad things, but I wanted to make sure he was someone who can learn, who can grow because I believe that all people can and who ultimately isn’t that bad of a person because I do believe everybody has goodness in them and I wanted that to be present in this character.

There are some great movie villains who are just purely evil, I certainly enjoyed a lot of them over the course of movie history and sometimes it’s really fun to see someone you just purely hate and you’re happy to see die at the end of the film but I personally wanted to make a movie where the bad guy was someone who wasn’t purely bad but who got better, who grew as a human being. I really think that it’s important, especially for children, to see that there is more than one side to every story. There are perspectives that you are going to have to learn to adjust to as you grow older and as you meet people of different beliefs and different values and to understand that people make mistakes and come back from them and be better for it. I think that all those things are important for kids to understand and I wanted to just touch on that a little bit with the character of Gavin.

The forest in the story feels magical all on its own. How do you see the role of the natural world in the film and why is that important?

I think nature is spectacular, I really think it’s full of mystery and wonder and so many amazing things that we don’t even, we can’t even see. The ecosystem in the natural world that is beyond our comprehension is proof that magic does exist in the world. I don’t think that magic exists in terms of spells or witchcraft or anything like that but I do think that magic exists in the natural world and the forest. And I wanted the forest in the film to convey that sense of wonder and awe and mystery and magic because I do believe that that’s what you find in the real world.

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David A.R. White on His New Memoir, Between Heaven & Hollywood

Posted on October 25, 2016 at 10:58 pm

David A.R. White is one of the most recognizable actors and producers of faith-based films, best known for his starring role in the “God’s Not Dead” film series.

In his two-decade career, David has starred in more than 25 films and produced over 40 films, and is a founding partner of Pure Flix Entertainment, the largest indie-faith film studio in the world.

David grew up as the son of a Mennonite preacher, near Dodge City Kansas, where his early jobs included rock picking (such a job exists!). But as a young man, David felt a yearning to pursue a career in the entertainment industry.

After graduating high school, and upon his father’s urging, enrolled in the respected Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. It was there David was expected to graduate with a pastoral degree and find a wife.

At nineteen years old, David dropped out of college and moved to Hollywood without a job, home, or many friends. He never imagined the vital role prayer and determination would play in pursuing his life-calling in the entertainment industry. Early in his career, David worked with stars like Billy Bob Thornton, Hilary Swank, Leah Remini, Candace Cameron Bure, Kevin Sorbo, and Burt Reynolds.

In his book Between Heaven & Hollywood: Chasing Your God-Given Dream (Zondervan), David shares with wit, wisdom and spiritual encouragement the journey (and roadblocks) to pursuing your God-calling, and how your talents and gifts can have a positive impact on others.

What is your God-given dream for you own life?

I know that it is in being the father and husband that God called me to be. On the career side, it’s been to build a faith and family studio that can impact culture for Christ, and to enlarge that footprint around the world. Also, it’s to use my performing side in unique ways to accomplish those goals.

How can you tell if a dream is yours or God’s?

This is a little more complicated, and I reveal more of my answer in my book. But one way, is the overall question of, “is your dream bigger than you?” So often we have these dreams growing up, and by the time we reach adulthood, we’ve cut them into very manageable pieces, so we don’t get disappointed. I think that is the opposite of what we should do. We should set higher goals, as our God is the author of bigness not littleness 🙂 If the dream is bigger than you can achieve on your own, then there is a good chance that it’s from the Lord.

What’s the role of faith in chasing our God-given dreams?

I think it always centers around God’s will for your life and the freedom that he also gives us in pursuit of those dreams he puts inside of us. You have to be in tune with God to know His plans for your life as the plans may change over time but also faith allows you to stay inspired and keeps your dream alive but also helps you stay accountable to the person that ultimately holds your future.

Let’s talk about your own personal journey. You have met with quite a few obstacles. What were a few of them?

In life, there’s always a lot of challenges along the way, from health…to family…to career setbacks. But the key to remember is that through those setbacks and challenges, for every hardship and failure you endure, they could very well be the stepping stones of success and the realization of God’s dream for you.

How are we to view obstacles? How can you differentiate between an obstacle and a closed door?

So often we are riddled by fear and self-doubt. But I think we need to remember, that our courage is not the absence of that fear, but the triumph over it. As you go through those hardships and obstacles, often time you’ll discover God’s real plan for you.

What do you say to someone who questions their purpose?

This is a primary reason why I wrote my book “Between Heaven and Hollywood” because I wanted to lend some insight, knowledge and understanding into the issue of what is inside of someone, their God-given dreams and desires and how they can utilize them.

Some people need some soul searching time. They need time to figure it out. Sometimes we force our kids at twelve, seventeen or eighteen to know exactly what they should be doing, and oftentimes we don’t. I think that it’s okay. The number one thing should be to stay in the Word of God than on your own, and to pursue God first and foremost.

It will unveil itself. You will learn why you were created. I truly believe that each and every one of us are called here to have a dream, a goal, or a specific reason for living. Romans 12 talks about different measures of gifts that were given to each one of us. We all have a reason and a purpose for being here. It’s a matter of uncovering it, and finding out what that is.

What do you say to a middle-aged person who is just not satisfied and doesn’t feel like they belong where they are? How do you speak truth into the excuse that they are too old to follow a dream?

It goes along with the someday myth. If you look at the calendar, you are never going to find that day. *laughing* There is no someday. It starts today, right where you are at. You need to take that fear and self-doubt, and you need to embrace it and move forward as opposed to pulling back. You are never too old! Colonel Sanders was sixty years old before he started KFC. He had failed at a lot of businesses before he stumbled upon something that worked.

What led you to become a founding partner” of Pure Flix Entertainment?

I had been producing Christian films for man years. I think that my first one was in 1999. Myself, three other actors raised eighty-seven thousand dollars. We made a little movie called, “The Moment”.

In the process, we as producers were learning how to feel our way through the marketplace. I think, at the time, I had produced about four or five different Christian films along the way. None of the original guys were PureFlix, but I had a good relationship with Michael Scott and Russell Wolfe. The three of us had the same vision about having this content on a consistent basis, and knew that we wanted to make more of it.

However, we needed a way to put it out there because studios were just shutting down evangelistic movies. They would start a faith label, and then shut it down. Then the cycle would repeat. So, that’s why we really felt the need to start PureFlix production-distribution company.

You seemed to have a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit early on in life. How do you think that you ended up cultivating it?

I think that it was something the Lord put in me. One of the giftings that He had given me at an early age was connecting with people. I guess the entrepreneurial spirit came in as I didn’t want to do what I had been tasked to do. The entrepreneurial spirit came out of how do I do what I want to do, not what I have to do.

It’s an interesting thing, as oftentimes we see ourselves as stuck doing what we don’t want to do, and yet those times turn out to be the best times in our lives because it gives us an opportunity to think about what we really want to do. So, it makes us get out of our comfort zone to chase what it is that we are really desiring.

Conversely, some inventions were born out of a desire not to do certain tasks. There’s a great catapult for going into God’s plan and calling in your life. By simply designing something to get you out of doing a chore that you absolutely hate!

In Between Heaven & Hollywood, you talked about your touching last conversation with your dad. What was the conversation about? And what did he say?

My father, the night before he passed, had just randomly called me to say hi, and to tell me that he was proud of me and what I was doing. I didn’t realize that would be my last conversation with him. But, I’m so thankful that the Lord allowed me to have it. It meant the world to me.

For more information on David A.R. White and his book “Between Heaven and Hollywood” please visit http://DavidARwhite.com

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Interview with Kara Holden of “Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life”

Posted on October 14, 2016 at 3:01 pm

Writer Kara Holden says middle school is when “your eyes are being opened to the world and you’re not as sheltered as you once were able to be. You’re growing up. That’s a part of growing up, being disappointed and coming across difficulties unfortunately. But there’s also the turmoil of hormones and changing and feeling the difference between boy and girls. It is just so many changes at once that just reaches a boiling point.” That’s the setting for her new film, “Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life,” a comic revenge fantasy with a lot of insight and a lot of heart. It is based on James Patterson’s novel about Rafe Khachaturian, who rebels against a tyrannical middle school principal with a series of pranks. In an interview, Holden spoke about her own middle school experience and what she does to keep her focus when she’s writing.

Did you ever play any pranks or engage in any rebellions when you were in middle school?

I wish, no. I was definitely goody two shoes for sure but in my head. I had a rich imaginative life much like Rafe but I wasn’t able to act on much of it. So I would write stories or I would write things in my journal about what I wish I could do. And I was never was quite bold enough to go as far as he went which was what was fun about writing this. It’s very much wishful filming.

Of all the pranks in the film, which is the one that you vicariously fantasized the most about doing yourself?

I love the sprinkler one. It’s definitely my favorite. I just love the idea of everyone getting out of class, dancing in the hall. There was something about it that just made everyone loosen up and have fun and have a huge party in the middle of a school. I would love to have that happen. No matter who you are, you are going to love a crazy experience like that.

It’s refreshing that the girl characters in the film are complicated, real characters.

That was incredibly important to me. I did want not want them to be the boilerplate girl character, the annoying sister character. I definitely wanted them to be full of life like the girls that I know and to have that spunk. Actually my niece Jane, not that she is Georgia, but she has a lot of that fun, spunk and spirit. She will stand up for herself and I wanted that message to come across. At the same time there this that tenderness. Georgia is bold and strong but she’s not afraid to show her vulnerability which I think is very important also, that we could be well-rounded. And I love Jeanne, she’s my alter ego of what I wished I could be. She’s smart and she’s cool and I love that she’s the one who runs the audio-visual club, that she was doing the investigating, and she’s tenacious. She had a voice and she wasn’t afraid to use it and I loved that. I just enjoyed writing them both and of course the mom as well. I think that more people need to speak up, boys and girls really to speak up for what they believe is right. And that’s what Rafe did as well, he uses his gift for art to raise awareness of what was right. So that’s great.

The movie has some great comedy and fantasy revenge, but it is grounded in a reality that acknowledges some very real losses and problems.

It was really important to me that all of these characters are grounded in the heart and in a reality that can feel real. Every person, especially kids, we all experience hardship and there are some things that can’t “be fixed.” But we can grow, we can learn from these things and we can move on in a positive direction and I wanted that to really be a part of it. And truly hats off to the actors who were able to play all so well, to do the comedy and the drama, I think that added to it but really the comedy stemmed from the base of the bedrock of the movie, which is a very heartfelt thing. I don’t want to give away any spoilers but I think that was underneath in my head in every scene I knew why the things were happening that were happening and I was grounded in character and that is I think what makes it work. If the humour comes from the character, from where they are and not just on top of a bunch of jokes, then it’s going to feel cohesive when you move from comedy to drama.

Leo is a wonderful character, too.

I mean I’m amazed by all of them I think they all did incredible work but Leo gives Rafe the confidence that he needs to pull off these things. Leo believes in him so Rafe discovers and learns to believe in himself. I think the fact that Leo has good intentions in all that he does is what makes him so great. He is a hellraiser for good. So I think that’s what makes him so likable and that’s why you care about him and the relationship between Leo and Rafe. It feels real and you root for them. I think it’s important that we see that they are there for each other.

Tell me about your writing day. What’s the first thing that you do when you wake up in the morning?

The first thing I do is, I go in and I wake up my son, he’s a year and a half. I don’t wake him, he usually wakes me up. I hear him in his room, and I can take care of him and I take care of my animals and then I get ready and I go to an office outside of my house. Actually before I leave I do a little bit of my emailing and things because I don’t have Wi-Fi at my office on purpose. It’s the most perfect place. It has no windows. It’s just a room with a desk and a computer and I have to work and that’s good for me because like most writers I’m very procrastination-prone. Once I get to my office it’s all good.

You’ve worked in a variety of genres. As a writer, how do you locate the audience in the world they will be entering?

That’s a good question because for me pretty much the connecting fibre from all of the films I’ve done, whether it be inspirational sports or more of a drama or is also a comedy and a drama as well, is that they all have humor hopefully and heart. I try to do that in all of them even though they are in different genres from family to more adult or the inspirational world. I try and get the characters up front. With “Middle School” I immediately had the idea that I wanted to just get into how much his art meant to him and having that fun little animation bit at the beginning clued us in that this is going to be fun and a little bit of a wishful film and have some fantasy right on the very first page. You just set it up from the get-go what you are in store for by some sort of a visual or an action that a character is taking that you recognize as either funny or more serious. In a comedy it feels good to get a surprise, to switch things up a little, to give you something serious. Sometimes you just need a break in a drama so it feels good to laugh. And by the way that’s life. It’s a great combination — comedy and sentimentality and difficulty all mixed up. So I like to have something sort of heightened but the reflection of life so we can recognize ourselves in it when we see it and that’s what makes us love it.

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New Book: The Oliver Stone Experience

Posted on September 19, 2016 at 3:54 pm

From “Scarface,” “Midnight Express,” Natural Born Killers,” “Wall Street,” “JFK,” “Nixon,” “W,” and “Platoon” to this month’s release, “Snowden.” Oliver Stone has been one of the most provocative writers and directors in movie history. Also one of its most lauded, with awards and nominations that include three Oscars in two separate categories: Best Adapted Screenplay (“Midnight Express”), and Best Director (“Born on the Fourth of July” and “Platoon”).

A new book, The Oliver Stone Experience, is part memoir, part critical assessment of Stone’s work over three decades. Working with critic Matt Zoller Seitz, Stone shares memories of serving in the Vietnam war, his childhood, his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, and his continual struggle to reinvent himself as an artist. The book includes never-before-seen material that dates back to Stone’s childhood in the 1950s, personal snapshots, private correspondence, annotated script pages and storyboards, and behind-the-scenes photography.

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Interview: “Sully” Screenwriter Todd Komarnicki

Posted on September 7, 2016 at 3:44 pm

Todd Komarnicki is a Hollywood producer (“Elf”) and writer whose screenplay for this week’s Clint Eastwood film, “Sully,” is exceptionally well-crafted. It was a great pleasure to talk to him about telling the story of Sully Sullenberger, the pilot who made an emergency landing on the Hudson River, and about why Tom Hanks keeps making movies about real-life stories of transportation disasters.

Everyone remembers the news stories about Sully and the images of the passengers standing on the wings of the plane in the middle of the Hudson River. But that was a while ago. How do you draw people back into that story?

The secret was Sully, just meeting and getting to know Sully. He had the untold story which is the bedrock for our film. He had it in his own experience. He didn’t put it in his book but he was able to share it with me. And so going deep with Sully allowed me to uncover all the stuff that the world just didn’t know and because of that it immediately it was obvious that we had a scintillating movie.

The movie begins just after the emergency landing but takes us back in time to help us understand what happened. How did you decide when to give us more information?

I have this storytelling theory which is “the eternal now.” It works for certain stories really, really well and perfectly plugs into Sully. That theory is that everything that has ever happened to us immediately leading up to this phone call between you and me, everything that’s ever happened to us is with us. We have it with us. We can access some of it by memory, some of it just by a sense of feeling. Most of it we don’t remember, but it’s all in there. Then there’s what’s happening right now at the present and then there is of course how the present impacts the moments that follow and so on.

It’s always eternally now and all these things are cooking inside of every human being. So as a storytelling trope that really works because I don’t like the idea of flashbacks. I want everything to feel connected, so just by drifting past the character’s shoulder in a present situation you can go anywhere you want as long as you come back to where we started. That allowed me to go on these memory tributaries with Sully as he was trying to patch his life together. And because he was under such stress with PTSD everything was a trigger for him anyway. So it reminded him of the crash, it reminded him of what he was at stake often losing, they could’ve taken his pilot’s license easily and much more than that. So using memory as a trigger for how to react to the present allowed me to structure the movie that way.

It is so striking that instead of referring to the people on the plane as “passengers” he calls them “souls.”

Yes, I believe that we are all souls so there were certainly 155 souls in that plane. I just want people to remember that it’s not just this crazy impossible thing that occurred but it involved 155 people and their families and their loved ones. The fact that they all survived means that for generations their family tree is going to continue to sprout and that brings me deep joy. To tell that story, that’s really the happiest ending part — these people are alive and are thriving. And because they survived such a dark moment, they are even more effective in the world. Nobody got off that plane and became a worse person; everybody improved after that. So the world is a brighter place because of what happened that day.

One thing that I thought was a very telling detail and very true to life is that nobody paid attention to the safety talk at the beginning of the flight.

Yes, I’m so glad you noticed that. That’s in the script, absolutely. I wanted to highlight that because nobody ever pays attention.

So, do you listen now when you’re on a plane?

Are you kidding me? I elbow everybody near me and I pay total attention! I’ll tell you where your seat cushion that can be used as floating device is or whatever you need. I’m on it.

The phone conversations between Sully and his wife, who are never together throughout the time period of the film told us a lot about who they are and what was going on.

It’s interesting that you singled that out. It works as a metaphor for isolation — that the person you love the most is the one person you can’t help nor can they help you. They’re really stranded on the other end of the telephone line, and they’re stranded on opposite end of the country. There is a deep sense of helplessness. That’s really a chore for actors to convey all that, the relationship via phone. Our actors were at the top of the chart, so they were able to pull it off. It’s very, very difficult to do but the journey for the Lorrie character is from confusion and agitation to finally understanding that she almost lost the love of her life, and that’s really the journey.

So I love that as a storytelling tool. The only artistic license in the film is the fact that I had to compress the time of the investigation, which actually lasted nine months. I had to collapse it into a handful of days. So, that’s why he didn’t go back to California and knowing that I couldn’t have him go back to California allowed me to infuse those phone scenes with all the powers that they needed to really sparkle.

What did being a producer teach you about creating a script?

As a producer the hardest and the most frustrating thing is getting the writer to not give up. A lot of writers reach rewrite fatigue. They take it from the 5 yard line, to the 4 yard line, to the 3 yard line, but then they run out of gas and often in Hollywood writers get replaced for that reason. It’s hard and it’s frustrating and as a writer who produces some of the producers have the instinct of just saying, “If I could just fix that scene.” But that doesn’t work either because you can’t take the power and the respect away from the writer you are working with.

So in this case I had such incredible partners in Alan Stewart and Craig Marshall creatively during the development process and also Kipp Nelson, the Executive Producer. So they were such strong guys that as I was writing and developing, I knew that we were just making it better and better. And because I had no plans to go anywhere as long as they were happy with me I was going to stick around. So it was a great working relationship and a real blessing. And also, I need to give a shout out to Jonathan Coleman who runs my company and he is my editor. He is the first person that sees the material before anyone and he always forces me to make everything as good as the best scene in the script. So that means constant rewriting and something that had worked for five drafts suddenly up against the new scene doesn’t work anymore. You’re always forced and forced and forced and pushed. You need a gadfly like that and I’m grateful for Jonathan.

I know you are a person whose faith matters deeply. Do you have a favorite Bible verse?

I definitely try to remind myself to live by Romans 8:28 which is “All things lead together for good for those who love God.” It allows me to just relax and trust that the God of the universe is in charge and is on my side and it makes life a lot more peaceful. It’s been easier to do that as I’ve gotten older. I’m 50 now and at 30 I believed the same thing but I struggled a lot more with letting it sink in. And so what I would say now is that, that Scripture has allowed me to stop wanting what I want and only want what God wants and by doing that it has made my life a lot sweeter.

I think we have got time for just one more question. I’ve noticed that Tom Hanks seems to be playing real-life people responsible for saving people on vessels a lot. He was on Apollo 13, he was Captain Phillips — what is it that makes him so trustworthy in that role?

Tom is drawn to characters of deep spiritual worth. Tom is a great guy and he wants to play people that are inspirational. He makes choices outside of that too but I would say if you look back at his career he has always played someone that is very soulful even if they are searching. He is not a guy that runs out and plays a bunch of bad guys. He is our Gary Cooper and we’re so blessed to have him.

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