CHICAGO (RNS) — The setup sounds like a “bad joke,” actor Mark Wahlberg admitted.
Wahlberg, who is Catholic, was out to dinner with “two priests and a bottle of wine,” in his telling, when one of the priests pitched him the idea for a movie.
Normally, a priest might approach him for a financial contribution or to help out with a food drive. That’s no problem, he said. But a movie? That he wasn’t so sure about.
It took the priest telling him the story twice — and some encouragement from his wife — before Wahlberg caught a vision for turning the life of the Rev. Stuart Long, a boxer-turned-actor-turned-priest, into a movie.
“I couldn’t find any reason to not want to make it once I was actually smart enough to realize that this was an amazing opportunity not only to tell a story, but to do something that would be more focused on my faith and giving back,” he told reporters last month at a downtown Chicago hotel.
“Father Stu,” starring Wahlberg in the title role, opens Wednesday (April 13) in theaters.
The movie is based on the true story of Long, who experienced a dramatic conversion and later faced serious illness before his death at age 50 in 2014.
“Father Stu” poster. Courtesy image
Long had experienced some success as a boxer in Montana before an injury convinced him to move to California to break into the film industry. Instead, he had a brush with the law and then, after a motorcycle accident, with death.
That’s when he felt the call to priesthood.
Overcoming his past wasn’t Long’s only challenge in becoming a priest. During his ordination process, he was diagnosed with an extremely rare and incurable autoimmune disease called inclusion body myositis, which mimics the symptoms of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
He was ordained in 2007 alongside his friend, the Rev. Bart Tolleson, at the Cathedral of St. Helena. In Montana, he served several parishes before moving into and ministering at the Big Sky Care Center in Helena, where he lived when he died.
That’s more or less how it happened, according to those who knew him.
Long’s motorcycle accident was a little different than how it plays out in “Father Stu.” So was his relationship with his girlfriend, who ended up leading him to the Catholic faith, Long’s father, Bill Long, told Religion News Service.
“It’s not like a documentary, but they cover the bases, and they get where they need to be at the end of the movie,” said Bill Long, now 83.
Bill Long is played in the movie by Mel Gibson — something he said he “never in a million years” could’ve imagined. He would’ve picked Nick Nolte or Jeff Bridges for the role, he said, but he was impressed with Gibson’s portrayal. He nailed the Montana accent.
“I actually think Stu’s involved” in making the film, Bill Long said. “I don’t think he’s done playing with us.”
Kathleen Long (Jacki Weaver), from left, Stuart (Mark Wahlberg) and Bill Long (Mel Gibson) in Columbia Pictures’ “Father Stu.” Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures
