Mark Wahlberg Says God Was Behind New Film ‘Father Stu,’ Speaks Out Against Culture’s Lack of Grace By Tré Goins-Phillips for Faith Wire
Success is a tricky word to define. For Mark Wahlberg, its arc is bent toward eternity.
That trajectory provides much-needed context to the famed actor’s newest film, “Father Stu,” which debuts in theatres nationwide next week, just in time for Easter. The movie tells the story of the late Stuart Long, an amateur boxer who seemed constantly searching before ultimately finding the answers he didn’t know he needed.
Long, who died in 2014 at the age of 50 after suffering for years with a degenerative illness called inclusion body myositis, moved to Hollywood from Helena, Montana, in hopes of launching a movie career. That, though, didn’t pan out exactly as he’d hoped. While in Los Angeles, Long met a devout Catholic woman who taught Sunday school and — in an attempt to woo her — began attending church services.
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But after an unanticipated watershed moment, what started out as a means to an end became a way of life that eventually led Long to join the priesthood and become the man he was until his death: Father Stu.
Wahlberg, himself a devout Catholic, was struck by Long’s story and felt what he described to CBN’s Faithwire as “a calling” to give it the Hollywood treatment. In fact, Wahlberg was so determined to make the film, he invested his own money in the movie — a risk he was willing to take because he was confident God was behind the project.
“There were powers that be at work here and have been since the very beginning, to intercede along the way and make the movie the right way and get the reaction that we’re getting,” he explained, later crediting God as the reason Long’s story translated so well into a movie.
