The former college football star sees God’s clear leadership in his calling to acting and film. After viewing the Kendrick Brothers’ “Fireproof” in 2008, he asked the Lord to open a door to work with the filmmakers as validation of his call to the industry. That door came in his role in Courageous, followed shortly afterward by War Room.
But Stallings, who leads his wife Levette and their two children to read through the Bible annually, doesn’t require his film roles to be faith-based.
“I never really had an attraction to do specifically faith-based movies,” he said. “What attracts me is clean content, whether it’s mainstream, whether it’s faith-based, no matter what the genre, it just needs to be clean.
“There are some genres that I’ll never touch because I just don’t see any way it could ever be clean,” he said, “like evil stuff, horror stuff, you’ll never catch me in anything like that. … Clean for me is, if Jesus was sitting right next to me, I could still do the role. That’s literally how I choose my roles. It can’t be something that He would disapprove of.
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“I can do anything as long as if I turn and see Jesus, I can keep doing it.”
Stallings travels frequently to speak on God’s Word, tells his life’s story in the autobiographical “Eyes Fixed: My True Life Story,” is promoting his Scripture-based documentary “24 Counter: The Story Behind the Run,” and this year will launch his latest podcast “Eyes Fixed.”
He describes the portrayal of Cecil as his favorite role to date.
“I am always drawn to those types of movies,” he said. “I love true stories. I think it’s one of the most challenging things you can do, to play a real person. It made for something that I knew would challenge me in such a way that could really take me to another level as a performer. And then, it could impact people around the world with the story. So it was a no-brainer for me, and I gladly accepted the role.”
Stallings is grateful to Art Ayris, No Vacancy’s writer and producer who is also First Leesburg’s executive pastor, who eyed him for the role.
