The Real Life Inspiration Behind Kirk's New Movie Lifemark | Kirk Cameron on TBN

i remember when you called me uh i didn't have your number we had never talked before and i remember i was leaving one of my law school classes and i was driving and and i answered the phone and i remember you saying hey it's kirk cameron i saw your documentary this has got to be a full-length movie i remember just hearing that and being in shock much like when i got the first message from melissa and we i i remember just being very excited about it and i just the fact that this story is now going to be taken to levels we could have never reached and i'm as excited god is using the story now through you guys to continue to share this message [Music] i want to talk now about the the circumstances that led to you guys meeting what was what was going on that allowed you to connect when he was getting ready to turn 18 i had looked over at my husband and said you know he's about to turn 18. i should update my records with kirsh encourage pc and that way if he tries to find me he doesn't have to go on a long journey to try to find me so when i did that they had communicated with the scottish and said hey melissa's looking for an update are you interested and bam there it went and the the timing of that was was just perfect because i had just shared our story for the first time exactly a month before and so we go home and we had the you know the voice machine and we hear it's cursing curse your birth mother has ensured an update and so at that moment i it was just unbelievable because we had never heard anything i mean we didn't have any identifying information all these years yeah and so we decided to to say yes and i wrote a letter and in my letter i asked if if she had facebook and if she did she could add me on facebook and sure enough a few weeks later we started communicating on facebook and yeah wow now here we are melissa did you think that he would want to meet you i was very unsure i i just didn't know if he would hold resentment toward me and i didn't know i hadn't told him that he had a sister so i had a lot of news to share with him and i didn't know how he'd react i i didn't was there anyone in your circles that were that was advising you not to meet him that maybe this would be a bad idea actually no um david was a secret for 19 years even from my own mom and dad when i was pregnant nobody knew that i was pregnant other than the birth father nobody i carried him full term all nine months delivered him and nobody knew nobody and when i met my husband shawn coles i've worked on 16 years of marriage he is the only person that i've ever shared that with and he looked at me and he said oh he's like you have got to tell your mom and dad and you have got to tell courtney and he's like and you've got to share this story somehow he's like this is too big for you to carry that is so much weight for you to carry and that was the first time that i had ever mentioned it in my life wow and david how did you react was your initial reaction oh cool or was it holy cow like this is my birth mother who's uh like what is she i mean what went through your mind when i got the first message from her yeah it i remember getting that first message and i was overwhelmed i mean it was an overwhelming moment caught me off guard even though i knew it may be coming it was just it was just a lot of emotions coming at me and you can ask my mom i am not a very uh emotional guy and so uh it was tough it was a it was exciting but it was scary it was another part of your life that that you didn't really know and it was coming at you and so i responded to our first message and we started communicating slowly and melissa wanted to meet and i and i wasn't ready yet we talked for about a year before i was ready and then what what what went through your mind with with regard to how am i how's my mom and dad going to feel about this did that worry you that that really did uh i have a very small family and we're gonna make me tear up over here too um you're not an emotional guy don't worry about it yeah uh we're really close and i love my family so much and that was a big part for me i didn't want them to worry about feeling replaced or that i was searching for something more and when i told my parents about it they um they were more ecstatic than i was they were very happy they wanted to see melissa and say thank you for giving us your our son and so they really encouraged me that this is a really good thing and we're not we're not scared we love you we know you love us and they they're they were nothing but supportive and positive throughout the whole experience when you met how many days did you spend together before you went back to your to your homes in different states yeah maybe maybe four three or four i think we spent two days with with you and then two days of my biological father brian and we did activities yeah we did we even went skydiving you went scott you knew each other for two three days and you went skydiving together that was all right it was not it wasn't both of us when you guys heard that alex and stephen kendrick and i wanted to make a movie about your story what was your initial reaction i remember when you called me i didn't have your number we had never talked before and i remember i was leaving one of my law school classes and i was driving and and i answered the phone and i remember you saying hey it's kirk cameron i saw your documentary this has got to be a full-length movie i remember just hearing that and being in shock much like when i got the first message from melissa and we i i remember just being very excited about it and i just the fact that this story is now going to be taken to levels we could have never reached and i'm just excited god is using the story now through you guys to continue to share this message i on the other hand had a different experience when i got the phone call i hung up on somebody twice [Laughter] so um and why did you hang up on them multiple reasons at first i kind of thought it was a prank and then i was he's like um he calls me back he's like um no this is so and so and i don't want to name names and and he's like i'm speaking on behalf of and i'm like i'm not interested the story's not first not for sale because i had been speaking about i lived on parker avenue and i mean i was sharing from my heart and for the right reasons and i didn't want somebody coming in and taking away something that i worked so hard for and going out and speaking and sharing the story of i lived on parker avenue is changing so many lives still today and right now just that i know of 10 babies have been saved just that i know of from abortion and 11 families have been guided to resources to help them parent and i know those aren't big numbers but when you think of each child each child is a whole generation that's right and i didn't want anything to come between that what was it like meeting the actors who played you in the movie it was it was awesome remember we went on set and uh raphael rizzero walked out and just to see him it's it's so hard to put in the words but to see him and get to know him and see how beautiful of a person he is and he he had a heart for sharing our story and to meet somebody that wanted to share our story in that role and to see him even have the scar on the back of the back of his head i mean it was just it was it was incredible and i fell in love with dawn long the moment i laid eyes on her i was sent a photo as someone that was considered to be playing my role and the moment that i saw that picture it was instilled in me somehow that i knew that this was the person for the role so every time i spoke to everyone in the film i'm like don't forget dawn don't forget dawn every time i spoke i was adamant i'm like that is the only person that needs to play me she is meant for this role and she nailed it she sure did she's perfect oh man and we have become like sisters i just i love her so much dawn and and raphael i mean i can't think of anybody else who who could have played you and i can't think of anybody else who would have played uh jimmy than me yeah you know and uh what was so much fun for me and and this is one of the cool things about the movie is that the movie takes place over this span of time of 20 years or so so from when uh melissa is there at the clinic and giving birth all the way to when when you connect again and so i had to you know put all this like gray hair in my hair i've got some of my own now but all this gray hair and wrinkles and kind of age me to be older than i am and then we'd do the scenes where i had to be young jimmy uh who was just getting david from the hospital 20 years earlier and so all the gray had to come out all the wrinkles had to go away uh some of the gray stayed some of the gray stayed i just left some of it in none of it's natural this is all movie magic um something i do need to i don't want to forget marissa young melissa that played me marissa hampton oh my goodness she did an amazing job as well oh that's right because you have you have two actors i do who played you yeah the young melissa and the mature melissa thank you i was glad you didn't say old melissa so yes but he's still young enough he didn't have to go through all that and so marissa she did an amazing job as well and all three of us have become very close wow and and we were talking earlier i i'll never forget when young melissa was um in that abortion clinic and she was filming that scene that you just described for us a few moments ago while you were sitting outside the set watching on the monitors as your moment was being reenacted after all of these years and when she was finished with that scene she was so drained emotionally from having to do that over and over again that she came off that set and i think she almost collapsed into your arms and into dawn's arms she did and we went back to the dressing room and we just stayed in there and we all prayed together and comforted it comforted each other it was very emotional for everyone i think one of the scenes too that we i think i we really enjoyed seeing it was the reunion scene when we drove up in the van to your house yes and it was surreal to see actors playing out the scenes such as scenes the quotes because we live those scenes yeah and to see to live it see it in the documentary for years and then now see actors recreate those scenes it was surreal look like us it looked exactly like us and think of the providential timing of lifemark coming out now right on the heels of the supreme court overturning roe versus wade yes melissa what do you want for expectant mothers who may be experiencing an unplanned pregnancy right now what do you want what do you want to say to them i would want to say to them to one please don't give up hope i want them i want them to know they are not alone that there is hope there is resources available there are moms and dads that are moms and dads that don't have their children there are only two adoptions per 100 abortions and there are so many families that they're just they're just looking for their children and i just i would ask to please consider the adoption option david what what would you like to say to the young men and women who find themselves in this crisis like ryan and melissa did all those years ago and they're wondering what in the world do we do and and now maybe maybe abortion is not even an option um what what could you say to them about the adoption option i am here today because of adoption adoption is a loving option mothers who choose adoption are heroes they really are they choose life in circumstances that were tough and because of a decision saved a life and built a family just like melissa saved my life and allowed us to have a family and that's what i hope they get out of lifemark that birth mothers are heroes and that adoption saves lives hi i'm kirk cameron thanks for watching my interview with david scotton and melissa coles whose real life stories are featured in an exciting new film lifemart produced by the kendrick brothers and me please be sure to like and subscribe so you never miss any of our videos and don't forget to share your takeaways from this conversation in the comments below

Channel: Kirk Cameron on TBN

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Keywords: kirk cameron, kirk cameron interview, lifemark, lifemark movie, kirk cameron movies, kendrick brothers movies, adoption, adoption story, story of adoption, hollywood, movies, christian movies, inspiration, parenting, adoptive parents, family, God, Bible, love, care, life experiences, life experiences story, skydiving, mother and son, family story, i lived on parker ave, kirk cameron on tbn, tbn, takeaways, kirk cameron takeaways, kct10121979, 1012kct1970, kc10121970t, children, hollywood movies

Id: rGLxcg424fI

Length: 13min 35sec (815 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 26 2022