HJ: I'm glad you didn't.

GW: I was gonna cut it before we shot it. So what happened— Do you mind if I tell you this story?

HJ: No, go ahead.

GW: I was going to cut it, but Elisabeth Omilami, a fantastic actress… Her husband is the lawyer at the end, they run a homeless ministry in Atlanta. He was the drill sergeant in Forrest Gump, been in tons of movies. They're really well known southern actors. She's a Christian. So, I was gonna cut that scene, all it was was one line in the script, Mama A prays for Renny. I saw her and went, “Oh she's here. So we'll set up the camera.” It was a set, by the way; that little room was a set. We had to redress that set four times that day. I said, “Elizabeth, what're you going to do, start humming?” And she said, “Yeah I'll probably start humming like this.” [humming sound] Then she started praying and praying and praying. She's crying. I'm crying. I say, “Okay, okay stop. That's what we're going to shoot.” I just stuck her in the corner said, "Action." She started humming and praying and praying. We did it once wide and once close; that's it. And it was so powerful. We had people praying during that scene. All the prayer closet stuff with Daisy Stokes was also powerful. When Hilarie/Jo goes in and finds the prayer closet and says, "This is where she prays." There were people praying on set the whole time those days.

HJ: I will say that the one thing about the movie that I felt was needed was more of those women. And I know you had to condense this massive novel down to an hour and forty-five minutes. Do you have any regrets about what you could have included but didn't? I mean one thing this movie did was make me want to read the book.

GW: We had goals when we set out to make the movie, one of which was drive people to the novel. That was our stated goal; and because the novel contains the full Christian experience, salvation, everything that you could imagine, Robert says that it's his most Christian, evangelistic novel of all time. It's got a big following, sold a hundred and some odd thousand copies and people just passed it on. So we knew that was a goal, and once we knew that that was a goal we wanted to pare it down and just tell a good story. We shot more with the missionary lady, Daisy Stokes. But you walk a fine line as a filmmaker, especially one of faith, in becoming too preachy. A little goes a long way, so we had to cut a couple of those scenes because at a certain point you get who she is. She's an intercessor and more of that turns an audience off. We did testing and they did. It was too much for audiences. Sometimes we as Christians say, "Oh we could have dealt with more of that." It's funny that you said that, though. If I get a comment about Daisy Stokes it's usually like "Well, could you have toned her down a little." I think that’s wrong. At the end of the day we wanted to tell a story that was a good story, that took people to the beginning of Renny's life. Now you can read the novel and you see exactly what happens. But I think that's good; like that Will Patton character who's got that one scene, most people say, "I wish I'd seen more of him." I like that. I'd rather you say "I wish there was more of this person" than "It was slow". That means people want more and they are gonna go read the novel. They are gonna want to know more and see more.

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