There’s been some talk about the Christian environmentalists at work. How can we not be concerned about the environment? Because the environment is not a tree, it’s not the air, it’s how we treat each other. You and I are now in the same environment, we’re creating an environment here. I hope, one of respect. This movie is about the environment, meaning you, me, and this gift of a world that we live in.

RT: Bruce Almighty was made four years ago, before what some people call “The Passion Effect” where everyone says Hollywood’s changed in terms of how they deal with spiritual themes and religious audiences. Having worked on religiously themed movies before and after that, what differences have you perceived?

Tom: Well this one difference I have perceived: I’m not doing anything different. I’m just doing movies that speak to me, whether there’s a passion effect or not. As far as studios go, they are aware a faith-based audience exists. It is the great unknown x-factor of how a movie will do. No one knew what it would do for The Passion [of the Christ], or [The Chronicles of] Narnia. But they are aware now, that there are people out there, a new audience, that can come to the movies in droves if they feel a kindred spirit with the themes in the movie. When I showed the studio the movie, they put more money into advertising in order to reach that faith-based audience. We don’t know what that will mean. It could be the big x-factor that puts us into the stratospheric box office. It could mean very little.

RT: There are people that you work with that know you are a Christian. When they see you working on a project like this, does it ever bring up any conversations or start them asking questions?

Tom: I will tell you the best preaching I’ve ever done is without words. As the saint of all saints, Francis, would say “Preach the gospel wherever you can and where all else fails, use words.” I’ll tell you a story about effective preaching: people come up to me all the time and they say, “Where do you get your energy?” I’m 48. I look younger. I have kids in my company and I kill them all – they can’t keep up with me on a bicycle, on a surfboard, or in a debate about life. So they want to know, “What’s going on with you?”

I started riding a bicycle right after Bruce, because the gift of play is a gift and I think we’ve lost that in our culture. It’s about working, working, working – we live to work, we don’t work to live. So I started riding a bicycle. I didn’t preach about riding a bicycle, I just rode a bicycle. I’m in really good shape, I could ride for a hundred miles, I have more energy. And now everyone in my life has a bicycle. I never told them to ride a bicycle, I just rode a bicycle.

I think people are asking all the time about each of us. If they see something worth inquiring about, and emulating, and incorporating they will, but it has to come from our change. I don’t think they care much about what I think of Jesus, I really don’t. I think they care how I embody the Sermon on the Mount or how I greet you. So the preaching is in the doing.

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