Interview: Ali Faulkner of “The Song”

Ali Faulkner is in every way the heart of the new faith-based film, “The Song.” She plays Rose, who inspires the title song and marries the musician who wrote it for her. Unlike most films, this one does not end with the wedding — it is only after they get married that the story really begins, as their marriage is tested when her husband spends most of his time touring. We are honored to have an exclusive clip about the film to share.

I spoke to Ali about the challenges of playing a good person and how she helped to define her character with some important costume decisions.             

“When I first tried out, I definitely was intimidated because I first thought ‘this person is perfect and I’m far from that. How am I going to do her justice?’ But then I got some really good advice from an acting coach. He said, ‘Her name is Rose and every rose has a thorn.’ And that just really struck home with me and so it kind of gave me a little bit of freedom to know that even though this is an incredibly beautiful person, she still has her weaknesses and but of course no person sees their own weaknesses until something big happens. So I just tried to rely on the truth of who she was. I mean you can’t get round the fact that she’s a wonderful person but her flaws showed up naturally in the film and I just tried to be as true to that possible.” Writer/director Richard Ramsey reassured her not to be afraid to give Rose a lightness and sense of humor. “He was like ‘Don’t be afraid to let her be beautiful and shine in her own way and have fun. She doesn’t have to be matronly.’ That is something that you definitely wanted to shy away from because no young girl is going to relate to that.”

The story covers many years and several different stages in the relationship, but they shot out of order. Ali and co-star Alan Powell had to go backwards at times, from the complicated scenes of hurt and betrayal to the earlier scenes of easy intimacy. “It’s just about talking, recognizing where you are in the relationship and the physical stuff helped a lot. I tried to wear like bangs when she was younger and then have a more mature look when she was older. Naturally you’re just thinking about what they’ve been through at moment right before the scene and then that kind of helps. I wanted her to wear a lot of light colors because it just felt unnatural to have her wearing black. In fact the only time I really wanted her to wear black was at her dad’s funeral,that’s it. And even there was one part where she wears a little sash around her dress and it was originally black and I changed it to brown. I don’t know it is one of those things where she’s just such a light spirit that I couldn’t, I just couldn’t put her in dark colors so Rose wore a lot of creams and ivories that really looked and felt beautiful and sweet and conservative but still at the same time womanly in her own way.”

Ali’s first interest in performing was singing. “Singing was my first love and then I got into musical theater and really loved that and just fell in love with the acting side of it and about seven years ago I decided to get into the film world and I just loved it and haven’t a looked back since. I just feel like film gives such opportunity to create things that live on. Our human instinct is going to create thing that will live on in some way.” She is guided by the advice not to try in acting, but “to allow. If you are open enough you can really allow yourself to connect with certain characters but if you try too hard you kind of get in your own way. So that I think is the biggest challenge and struggle that I’m always working on and that I feel like is really important.” Her early inspirations included opera and big, epic films like “Gladiator.” “They seem to pull me into a world that just resonated so deeply and I love it so much. Those are the films that inspired me the most probably.” The movie she’d recommend for a date night is “Love Actually,” which she describes as uplifting and warm.

Ali hopes that the couples who watch this film learn that “no matter where they are in their life we see things in a different way. I just want to them to take away whatever touches them or what ever aspect of the film speaks to them in any sort of positive way. But specifically I guess that challenges can be overcome, that there is hope for relationships that have been broken. And that the beautiful thing that forgiveness is and that forgiveness can heal.”