To celebrate the UK cinema release of Let There Be Light, we had the pleasure of chatting to Sam & Kevin Sorbo about their movie.
How did you become a Christian?
Kevin: I grew up in a Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, It was part of my life, it’s always been there, I don’t recall ever going through any doubt. There was certainly a moment in my life when I was 13 years old and my church went to hear Rev Graham speak, I went to talk with one of his helpers after his sermon was over and felt a hand on my head and looked up and it was Rev Graham, looking up at him as a child was a goosebump moment. My faith has always been there.
Sam: I wasn’t raised in the Church and I went on a search in my late teens / early 20s and discovered there was order in the universe and that brought me to a belief in God and started going to Church.
How did you get into acting?
Sam: Basically I segued from modelling into acting.
Kevin: I’m going to give a little British connection here, I was 11 years old and I went to the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, started by a fellow Brit. The show was Shakespeare, it was The Merchant of Venice, I remember being very confused with the whole language but totally mesmerised by the actors on stage, I fell in love with it right then and there and announced to my parents that I’m going to be an actor one day.
What challenges do you face being a Christian in Hollywood?
Kevin: There’s definitely a backlash that happens with it. Hollywood owes me nothing, I had a wonderful career with Hercules series for seven years and Andromeda, five years. I decided on my own to do more movies in the independent world that were more family focused, more positive.
There’s so many negative messages that come out of television and movies today, we wanted to do something that was not cheesy, I didn’t want to preach to the choir, I certainly wanted the choir to be part of the team but I want to reach out across that aisle as well, in a way and hopefully make some agnostics and atheists think a little bit.
I don’t want to get too preachy with it but I like to do movies that have more of a positive message and characters that people can relate to, characters that people can say ‘I’m like that’ or I know people like that, and I wanted to be an actor in the first place to move people and these are the types of movies I’m drawn to.
Tell us about Let There Be Light
Sam: It was an idea that I conceived, basically on the hills of raising three Christian children in a largely secular society, their faith is challenged everyday in many different ways.
I came to the understanding that atheism is also a faith in and of itself, it just occurred to me, I wonder what it would be like to be a big atheist and have my faith challenged, in the same way that my children’s faith is challenged. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that’s a film I’d like to see, the world’s greatest atheist, can something happen to him that changes his world view.
I reached out to a friend to co-write it with me and he agreed to and within two weeks a funder (who hadn’t done a film before) reached out to Kevin and said he wanted to produce a film, do you have anything? That was a complete miracle because when we started down this road we had no idea how we would get it funded or produced.
It really is about the world’s greatest atheist who has a crisis in his life and has to re-evaluate his whole world view, that goes into all his family relationships, friendships and his faith.
Talking about family, in this film you both star alongside each other and with your children too.
Sam: That was really the most phenomenal part of it, was this idea of a movie made by a family for families. The opportunity that I had to work with Kevin, and we had our children audition. The funny thing is we had the writer say ‘hey Sam you really need to play Katy’.
Kevin: It initially wasn’t set up that way!
Sam: Yeah, I stepped back from acting right before I got married, when my fiancé at that point was very ill. I never really got back into acting, recently I had done a little role here and there just as an aside.
I didn’t have an agent and wasn’t pursuing it at all and Dan said ‘you really need to play this part and your kids really need to be in the movie’, I said to him that I knew I could play the part but I don’t know about my kids, they’re gonna have to audition, he said ‘sure fine but they really should play the part’.
So they auditioned for Kevin, we were both very impressed with their abilities. They [family scenes] are some of the best comedic moments in the movie.
In the film there is the ‘world’s famous atheist’. How did you prepare to act as an atheist?
Kevin: You know what I have friends who are atheist and friends who are agnostics, we’re still friends, we have great debates, we don’t hate each other but you see what’s going on in the world right now, with all the anger and the hate and all the divisiveness, it’s unbelievable what’s going on, especially with the attack on Christianity as a whole.
The attack on Christianity leaves my head scratching because what about all the other religions, we’re protecting so fervently, I don’t quite get it.
I looked at all these other atheists I’d seen on television on CNN and Fox and how angry they are about something they don’t believe in, part of me feels sorry for them, the other part I have to laugh, I think it’s so comical, if they think it’s all a fairytale, they should get that upset about the Easter bunny and Santa Claus as well.
I got a feeling, there’s something inside them to have this much anger and hate, they just don’t like the fact that there might be something out there that knows and watches everything they do.
It’s interesting, I wish I could get a straight answer from the atheists, why they’re so upset about something they don’t believe in.
What are both your favourite scenes in the film?
Kevin: There’s a lot of scenes but the scenes I like the most are probably when I’m talking to Pastor Vinny on the steps of the Church.
Also when my ex wife comes over and I’m drunk and I finally breakdown and tell her I saw our son and how much I just wanted to hold him in my arms again, that really got me.
I guess the third scene, that I’m not in at all is when Katy tells her boys that even though she’s gone she’s still in the next room and that’s a very touching, very moving scene.
Sam: I like the scene where he asked me out [laughs]… I think that scene is filled with so much hope, I like the way it cut together and that’s not to take away from the other scenes. Kevin pick my favourite scene, so I didn’t want to double up on that.
How have you seen God work through this film?
Sam: Getting the financing that was one. Having the film so successful in theatres in the States that was another for sure, we had a very limited budget for print and advertising and with that limited budget it performed remarkably well.
But more importantly are the number of lives that have been affected by this movie, the emails that Kevin and I continue to receive and people reaching out on social media as well. Just amazing emails from people sharing their lives and saying how this movie impacted them, how it changed them, people going back to Church, admitting they had fallen away but I’m going back now, thank you so much because it’s made a difference in my life, that’s been very exciting.
What do you hope audiences take away from watching Let There Be Light?
Sam: We get asked that question and really there is one simple word that we hope that people take away and that work is hope.
The movie is intended to bring hope. The idea behind the movie is that there is a darkness that is pressing down but there’s an antidote to the darkness and that is light, it’s not just a coincidence it works out this way. We want people to know, there is a light in the darkness and it’s a choice.
What is next for you and how can we pray for you?
Sam: We’ve got a couple of projects actually
Kevin: We have a wonderful movie that I directed most recently called Miracle in East Texas, it’s a true story set in 1930 based on a story about two conmen who conned widows out of their money for snake oil wells but end up striking oil and it was the largest oil find in the history of the world at that time. Please pray that we find a way to get money to get this film into theatres.
I got a wonderful project we want to come your way with, it’s based on a book Charles Dickens wrote to his family.
Sam: But the other thing is, we’re taking a trip to Israel, we’re taking out kids to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. People can go and find that at sorboisraeltrip.com if they’re interested, we’d love for them to join us.
Kevin: Yes, sorboisraeltrip.com it’s going to be a wonderful trip this summer and people should join us.
Let There Be Light is released in UK cinemas from April 19th.