The World Over February 10, 2022 | FATHER STU: Mark Wahlberg with Raymond Arroyo

my first guest tonight is a two-time academy award-nominated actor as well as a successful producer and entrepreneur he has a passion project he's been working on for years and it may be his most personal film yet it's called father stew and it tells the amazing true story of a self-destructive boxer turned priest i sat down with him recently in los angeles to talk about how father stu's story tracks with his own life and struggles and the catholic faith that saved him here's my exclusive interview with mark wahlberg [Music] i want to start with where you first heard about father stew i've never heard of this man i cover this stuff for a living i literally never heard of father stewart long how did you encounter this story okay i'm at an italian restaurant in beverly hills with two priests um and we're just trying to me and one of the priests are just trying to enjoy our meal and uh and a glass of wine and the other priest is adamant about pitching me this movie idea and then uh my wife had heard the picture said oh my god you got to do this and then he told me the pitch again i said why do you keep pitching me this movie you know nothing about movies in hollywood and uh and and uh and then something just caught my attention about the story what was it what was the one thing that you went i have to do this this is in what 2016 yeah maybe yeah 2016 25 it's been about six years in the making um i don't remember exactly what it was but i just said start from the beginning and then when i started to hear the story you know it's like everything happens for a reason so i've always been kind of thinking about how do i continue to pay forward all the blessings that have bestowed upon me i know god didn't put me in this position to kind of forget about where i came from i've been doing lots of stuff in my own community where i grew up and working with inner city kids and at-risk youth but he doesn't give you the the gifts and the talents until it's time to utilize the right way and for him and not for yourself so i've always been kind of saying okay what is my mission what is my purpose and planting this seed letting it blossom and then utilizing that to to to continue to spread his word you financed this movie yourself as well this was not easy to make it's not like the studios were yapping to get the father's stew story uh yes i broke the the cardinal rule you never put your own money into a film but um i didn't even really go out to a lot of people i didn't send it to any major studios i had a couple of friends who i had made kind of small independent uh movies with or people that i made a couple of true stories with and they didn't even really respond to it so i said you know what i'm just going to do it on my own father stu is this priest he's kind of a wayfarer he's trying to find his way he's a he's a roused about guy um at one point well to put in my life it's a family audience mark uh he says he tells the rector when he's denied access to the seminary he says the church need what the church needs is somebody who will fight for god do you agree absolutely absolutely you know i mean i love the church but for me it's not about the church as so much as the guy who died to build it and his message um everybody else are human beings working to serve god at the best they can we're all weak uh and you know i get that but uh he he was he found his calling and he was he was really ready to commit to uh to serving god in a very different way there are parallels here mark between your journey and father stu's journey which is the first thing on second watching i went wait a minute i mean he had a few brushes with the law so did you and your youth was it about finding through suffering your purpose and your direction and and with faith is that what yeah always but you know it's one of those things where uh did i think it was a great part for me to play yes but it was more important to tell the story and get the story out there and encourage other people to find their own faith and their own purpose in life and bring bring labs catholics back to church i just felt like it was it was a it was a story and a message that everybody needed to hear um and so yes do i always try to find some sort of personal connection to a role absolutely i need to identify with it some way is this something that i identify with more than anything else absolutely is this my mission to now continue to do stu's work um and and take on that responsibility yes i've spent 50 years working on mark wahlberg whether it was the good part of mark wahlberg or the bad part of mark wahlberg and now it's about you know doing more giving back what is stu's mission that you feel you're you have to continue you know stu was one of the most brutally honest i i actually remember now what the thing that stuck out to me oh good uh father ed was telling me a story about how you know stu was already in the assisted living home um there was a giant line of people waiting he was a very prideful guy so he wanted to continue to take care of himself even you know as his uh his sickness um worsened and he was just trying to wash his face in the sink and this woman barged in and she basically cut the line and she was a big contributor to the church so she felt like she had the right to to access stu at any time i'll give you the mild version i will give you the hard rated r language that stu used at the time but he was there just trying to wash his face and she was complaining her car window had gotten broken they stole her computer and he looked at her and he said good you probably deserve that and the guys probably need it more than you do now give some more money to the church and get out here i got people that i need to talk to uh and again i changed the wording a little bit for our family audience but um i was like whoa it was uh he was he was a really honest brutally honest guy but you know he touched so many people so many people could relate to him yeah and he told the truth and you know um and it's an amazing story of suffering um accidents uh hardships that he can't fathom or understand or make sense of which i think everybody feels at some point or another yeah they ultimately embrace those things and that's what that's what god gives me so much hope and so much understanding because you know death is inevitable you know sickness all of those things are inevitable we're going to face those but how you how you face those things and how stu is able to embrace those things and as this feels physicality started to deteriorate his spirituality just soared and people recognized that and they recognized the truth in that and it wasn't like smoking mirrors like oh no this is a he was glad that this happened to him it allowed him to get closer to god through his suffering and it gave him the ability to share that with other people in a very honest way that was very relatable life's going to give you a gut full of reasons to be angry you only need one to be grateful i think god saw something that you were saving but it's up to you to decide what you've got to offer it's the place you told me you believed in me i thought it makes sense being back here to do this [Music] your son is about to make a huge mistake well i'm gonna be a priest for halloween i'm praying for you bill don't you dare you're violating my right there's a man going around taking names it's all been wrong and we've all done some wrong but he came to forgive us everybody won't be treated all the same there's no easy way to deliver this news you have a progressive muscle disorder the muscles weaken until he ceases to function is there anything it doesn't mess with yeah erectile function i'm trying to be a priest pal the wise men will bow down before the throne oh no no why when at his feet they'll cast their golden crown men don't lose when he gets knocked down the money won't get up you mentioned a moment ago the r-rated language that father stu used you don't shy away from that in this movie um which i have to tell you at first i thought oh wow and then as you watch it the language really gives it its authenticity that's who these people are and frankly who your viewing audience is in many ways was that the thinking there because a lot of times they'll sanitize this for a family audience or faith um yeah you know we had always talked about you know what the tone of the movie was and uh father eddie told me a wonderful story about how father stew and his dad and a couple of the friends went to go see the fighter and how much they loved the movie but also how much it affected them in a much more personal way because it really reminded them a lot about aspects of their own life um and you know people there's people swear you know we wanted to be brutally honest we want to make sure that we're we're not this movie is not exclusive to catholics and devout people this is inclusive to everybody who needs people you remember what god's mission was right he did come to save the righteous that's right so um and you know many many many hardened men became great great uh you know people who did wonderful service to the lord yeah well it's not cheap grace that's what i thought when i watched it the first time no cheap grace is the complete opposite right that's somebody who's asking for forgiveness without repenting without without confessing it's the complete opposite but this is a hard path mark this guy's journey is very hard but many people are having very difficult journeys right now you know and that's that's who we want to touch that's who we want to inspire to to be able to overcome and to persevere i did a lot of research before we met today um during your teen years you had a rough time in boston i mean you were you were on coke you were getting in fights what were you angry at and how does that it seems that ties in some ways to what stu is looking for in this story well if you kind of go back to what what i was most hurt by or what bothered me the most even though we didn't have much at all we had each other you know the youngest of nine my dad was a truck driver my mom put herself through nursing school and my parents separated when i was 11 i was devastated you know and then i went bouncing back and forth between you know my mom's house and my dad's house my mom quickly got remarried my dad never got married again my dad was my hero um yeah that was difficult you know at that time i wasn't i wasn't a leader i was a follower you know and i was easily influenced by various people and i looked up to the wrong people and but there were positive influence in my in my life that were there that i just didn't recognize them as being the people that i should listen to they didn't have the cool car they didn't have people looking up to i didn't have the sneakers and they have all the things that we didn't have that we finally realized you know that we thought was important um my father flavin jim flavin who has been such an influence in my faith in my life who was the consultant on this movie um your parish priest yeah yes he would come out in the morning he was surprised that the 13 year old kids were hanging out on the on the corner at you know two o'clock in the morning drinking beer but he would instead of like chasing us off he'd sit there and he'd have a beer and have a conversation with us and when all those guys that i looked up to that i wanted to be like um when i got in trouble when i got incarcerated they never came to visit me and father flavor was there father flynn was there when i went to court he was there when i was incarcerated he was there when i came home and he was he's still in my life to this day and that was a real turning point in your life that that doesn't wake nothing well father stu's story is really one of family a shattered family in pain and wounded over the death of a an older boy and the family breaks up and stew then finds his way but the miracle of father stu in many ways is that he brings his family back together and continues his mission it's an incredible story his his crowning achievement um which you know i think would have been too much emotionally for and we could have we could have made uh you know uh 20 episode saga stories yeah but um was that on his on a gurney he was in the church as his mom and his dad were being baptized and they were both obviously very angry at god they had lost their youngest son very early uh he basically went to bed took a nap and never woke up and that really devastated their family it obviously you know it rocked their their foundation and the faith was was not something that they were able to turn to they turned away from and it was stu that brought them back uh to their faith and and yeah how hard was it to make this movie and first time director we got to say rosalind ross does an incredible job wrote this directed it how did you find her we had had a couple of people that we had take a crack at a pass of the script nothing was nothing was really kind of registering for us and um even to the point where father ed got so frustrated with the process he was like this is not going to work we shouldn't do this and i was already so far down the road and i prayed about it and prayed about it i said no no i have to do this this is my calling there's a very specific reason why i've been called to do this and he said okay you know i hope you do the right thing and and please you know i and i asked for stu's intercession i asked for the lord's intercession to marry and i prayed about it every single day um and i was able to find through again a miracle everything happens to raisin right so i asked mel if i could sit down with him and talk to him i was picking his brain about how he got the passion made and all the obstacles yes all the obstacles that he had to face and you know why he was compelled to finance it himself and all of those things and rosie had written another script from mel that he and i were going to make it he was going to direct uh called the destroyer which is this amazing giant epic world war ii uh she just said you know i'd like to take a crack at it and i said okay why not i mean i really loved her writing i was a big fan of what she had done um three months later she hands me the script to the movie that i literally wanted to make i didn't want to change a thing and then i i was talking about do i direct it do i try to talk melon to directing it and i was like why not rosie and if she could put it on the page she could put it on the screen wow that's a that's a big leap though yeah it is but you know again she does an extraordinary job this movie is incredible she's fantastic the emotional power that's in your performance um how did you prepare for that this is a i mean you see this guy the early part of the life i could see where you could relate to that you could find connective points but as he degenerates us his body succumbs to this muscular disease how did you prepare for that part of it which is very moving and powerful well again i don't want to get emotional it's just such a sensitive subject only because you know my dad didn't have ibm but my dad had cancer my dad had strokes my dad was the strongest guy that i've ever seen and then next thing you know my dad was in a wheelchair and you know my dad couldn't walk and we had to you know take care of him you know he was lived in an assisted living home so i understood that but i also understood my search for my purpose um in the big picture of what god is expecting of me and which is what to do his work to serve him to utilize the towns and gifts that he's given me to help others and inspire others no matter where the situation is where they come from what obstacles they face that there is there is a purpose and and god will put them in the right place at the right time and i'll give them the right words or the right tools to to accomplish the mission you know i lost my mom during the making of the movie right and i kind of just i went obviously went to the services and everything and i was able to you know um digested a little bit but i kind of kept it bottled inside and then i was here in this very church shooting the scene where i'm asking god why on the cross yeah before the crawling at the altar yeah and uh it was one take for probably about 15 minutes and it all just came out wow yeah i've never gone to acting school but i wouldn't do there isn't anything i wouldn't do to prepare for role and i just feel like because of all my real life experience it does give me an advantage as an actor to play the roles that i should be playing yeah now that doesn't mean that i'm going to go and try to do you know othello you know next week i would be a little out of my wheelhouse that doesn't mean if i wouldn't spend the years of preparation to go and try to do that that would maybe my next challenge who knows but um but yeah it's just um this is what i meant to do you mentioned it a moment ago that this is a big this is something new for you is this a career shift for you where you'll spend your career on this more redemptive fair and these more redemptive personal stories of faith um well if i continue to act at the the pace that i'm acting i always want to do something completely different so i want to do comedy i want to do drama i want to do action i want to do those things but in my personal life and what i utilize for my platform i'm put to task and challenge to to utilize my gifts to do great things for other people and that also doesn't mean that i necessarily need to do it where i'm waving the flag look at me because the left hand is not supposed to know what the right hand is doing and i'm giving right but i've gotta because it all comes down to the biggest critic the one person that matters when you are judged for what you've done because i could be out here saying all these wonderful things and if i'm buying closed doors doing god knows what it's still going to end up very bad for me so i have i have had a lot of real life experience i've made a lot of mistakes and i'm continuing to do the work and not look for cheap grace yeah you know and do the mission the mission is to plant those seeds to blossom and to do god's work it's an extraordinary movie i'm so excited you know it's one of those things where i couldn't be more proud of the movie everybody's contribution to the movie i've i've made a lot of movies in a few times there's a handful of times where i've made a movie where everybody's there to service the story and the vision and of course you know stu's work it's crazy because it took six years to get it there and then it took we only had 30 days to make it 30 days yeah it's pretty it's pretty ambitious in its scope and size and what we were trying to accomplish i remember one of the actors um in the film just saw the movie because oh my god i thought we were making this little independent movie and i said we worry he goes i know but it feels like a blockbuster and i said well we we had high hopes for it and you know i think um with stu's journey the character arc all the stuff i mean how much he changed physically and all those things and how much he grew spiritually and the humor in the movie but it's hard to do these stories mark an externalized conversion because it by nature is something that happens inside that is such a hard nut to crack i cannot wait for people to see it i cannot wait to go from city to city state to state encouraging people tonight to see it showing them you know having conversations and encouraging people and if we get one other person if we plant one more seed in one other person you know the next guy to step up and and you know even if it takes them 50 years to to get there to impact somebody else and you know we're we're doing our job all right we'll leave it there thank you thank you thank you [Music] father stu starring mark wahlberg and mel gibson written and directed by rosalind ross opens in theaters on good friday april 15. [Music] you

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Length: 20min 23sec (1223 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 10 2022