Speaker 1: We are already several episodes into season seven. Season seven
Speaker 1: of Love Someone with Delilah. Who has been your favorite
Speaker 1: guests so far? I couldn't begin to pick one. They're
Speaker 1: all so different, so talented, so remarkable. Today, as we
Speaker 1: wrap up the month of February and hopefully all the
Speaker 1: nasty winter weather that it is dished out, from ice
Speaker 1: storms to flooding, I've got another fantastic guest setting down
Speaker 1: with me. He's starring in a just released movie called
Speaker 1: The Unbreakable Boy. It's from Kingdom Story Company, the team
Speaker 1: behind Jesus Revolution and the Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and Lionsgate,
Speaker 1: the studio behind Wonder, So you know it's going to
Speaker 1: be good. It is full of positive messages, It's full
Speaker 1: of love. The film is about an amazingly upbeat, resilient
Speaker 1: young boy, Austin Lorette, who has every reason not to
Speaker 1: be any of those things positive or resilient. When his parents,
Speaker 1: Scott and Teresa, learned that Austin is both autistic and
Speaker 1: has brittle bone disease, they initially worry for their son's future,
Speaker 1: but with Scott's growing faith in Austin's incredible spirit, they
Speaker 1: become unbreakable, finding joy, finding gratitude, and courage even in
Speaker 1: the most trying of times. It is an extraordinary true
Speaker 1: story about a father and a son learning together that
Speaker 1: every day can be the best day of your life.
Speaker 1: Zachary Levi portrays Scott Lorette, a complex man with many
Speaker 1: issues of his own to overcome, who might not seem
Speaker 1: cut out to be the father to a special needs son,
Speaker 1: but Scott rises to the occasion, and Zachary's portrayal of
Speaker 1: him is splendid. Zachary is a Tony nominated actor as
Speaker 1: well as an accomplished singer and dancer. He starred in
Speaker 1: Harold in the Purple Crayon, based on the wildly popular
Speaker 1: children's book, and recently wrapped up production on Sarah's Oil
Speaker 1: and the real life survivor thriller Not Without Hope. Zach
Speaker 1: is also set to star in the upcoming movie Hotel Tehran,
Speaker 1: a thriller, and free Fall, a rock climbing action adventure.
Speaker 1: You might recognize him from his roles as Shazam, or
Speaker 1: his portrayal of iconic NFL MVP and Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: quarterback Kurt Warner in An American Underdog, or if you
Speaker 1: are a the marvelous miss Maslfan. You'll applaud his SAG
Speaker 1: Award for season two and three of that Emmy Award
Speaker 1: winning series.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I could go on and on and on.
Speaker 2: This guy that talented and that in demand.
Speaker 1: Okay, one more, how about his fan favorite performance as
Speaker 1: Chuck Bartowski in the NBC series Chuck. But today, zach
Speaker 1: is here with us to talk about his role as
Speaker 1: Scott Lorette in The Unbreakable Boy and to share some
Speaker 1: behind the scenes info on the making of this beautiful
Speaker 1: new film. Before we greet Zachary, let me give you
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Speaker 1: It is so nice to meet you.
Speaker 3: Right back at you. It's a pleasure to meet you too.
Speaker 3: How are you today?
Speaker 1: I am wonderful. Thank you for taking the time to
Speaker 1: be with us. You're here because you have a new
Speaker 1: movie out, I.
Speaker 3: Do the le Boy. It comes out February twenty.
Speaker 1: First, oh, brilliant, beautiful movie.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: We had a family movie night.
Speaker 1: We got to watch a preview of Unbreakable Boy, which
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get on a DVD and watch
Speaker 1: it again and again and again. What an inspiring movie.
Speaker 1: And you were brilliant.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I gotta say it was kind of hard looking at
Speaker 1: you as the dad in the movie, as just a dude,
Speaker 1: like just a guy. Why because you're so cute and
Speaker 1: like all your other roles I've ever seen you in
Speaker 1: You're the handsome monk, you.
Speaker 3: Know, you're the was I wasn't handsome in them, you
Speaker 3: were you were okay.
Speaker 2: But a guy who's just.
Speaker 1: Being a guy, you know, hitting on a girl at
Speaker 1: the jeans store and then a dad, Well.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of those to represent, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a lot of those guys that you're not.
Speaker 2: Not who look like you.
Speaker 3: I got to try and represent him.
Speaker 2: You did.
Speaker 1: You did a great job, but there were there was
Speaker 1: a few parts that weren't really believable, Like what like
Speaker 1: just you're so good looking and you walk into a
Speaker 1: jean store with corny lines like I.
Speaker 3: Mean, welcome to my world. I don't know what to do.
Speaker 3: Just a guy, according is who happened to hit some
Speaker 3: kind of a genetic lottery enough to have wonderful people
Speaker 3: like yourself call me handsome. But you know, also all
Speaker 3: of us. You have no idea how much spackle in
Speaker 3: Scotch tape goes into disk right here, look at mirrors, spolks,
Speaker 3: just smoking mers.
Speaker 1: You you played the character of a guy with a
Speaker 1: good heart who just could not engage to save his life.
Speaker 3: Really well, yeah, I mean, you know, certainly, even drawing
Speaker 3: from past experience in my own life, you know, I
Speaker 3: think that for the most part, I've I've been very
Speaker 3: engaged in life, but there's been a lot of times
Speaker 3: and I think this applies to all of us where
Speaker 3: we're struggling in our life. We're struggling accepting our life,
Speaker 3: where we're at in our life, who around us is
Speaker 3: in our life, surrendering to all of that. That's what Scott,
Speaker 3: Because this is a real family, as I'm sure you know,
Speaker 3: this is a true story about a real family, and
Speaker 3: Scott wrote Scott Lorette wrote a book, The Unbreakable Boy,
Speaker 3: that the movie is based, and Scott was very vulnerable
Speaker 3: in sharing that journey because he's not He's not you know,
Speaker 3: a great dad or a great husband throughout a lot
Speaker 3: of their relationships. Because he was fighting and wrestling so
Speaker 3: hard with God that like, how can this be my life?
Speaker 3: How can I have all of these things happened to me,
Speaker 3: all these curveballs, particularly having a child that's struggling through
Speaker 3: osteogenesis and perfecta and autism, and how we fight in
Speaker 3: all of that and wrestle in all of that, and
Speaker 3: he has to go to hell and back in order
Speaker 3: to recognize what he'd been missing all of that time,
Speaker 3: and loving himself for the first time. And let me
Speaker 3: tell you I have. At thirty seven, I had an
Speaker 3: absolute mental breakdown, didn't want to live anymore, didn't know why,
Speaker 3: And thank God I had the ability to go to
Speaker 3: this life saving therapy that taught me how to love
Speaker 3: myself for the first time in my life. And so
Speaker 3: I was digging very deeply into all of that stuff
Speaker 3: as I was bringing Scott to life. And hopefully, you know,
Speaker 3: as we all portrayed these real life characters, you're and
Speaker 3: they're still alive, right, You're you know, it's one thing
Speaker 3: to portray somebody, a real person who but is no
Speaker 3: longer alive. Nobody's holding a comparison, can't hold a comparison,
Speaker 3: but to play a real person still alive, and people
Speaker 3: can look at the you know, are you Are you
Speaker 3: emulating that correctly and fairly and authentically? And uh, and
Speaker 3: I think we did. I'm really really proud of this movie.
Speaker 1: You should be proud of the movie because it is
Speaker 1: subtly life changing. I think, I don't I don't know how,
Speaker 1: you know. I can only watch it from my perspective, obviously,
Speaker 1: but raising so many neuro divergent children and so many
Speaker 1: children who are medically fragile. Uh, nobody knows until you've
Speaker 1: walked that path.
Speaker 2: And even if you've walked that path, it's it's a little.
Speaker 1: Different for everybody in the case, every situation is a
Speaker 1: little different. And watching that movie and watching especially, I mean,
Speaker 1: I obviously relate to mom completely, But your character with
Speaker 1: such a good heart. Scott had obviously such a good heart,
Speaker 1: and he so wanted to do the right thing. But
Speaker 1: it seems like that was his motivation, was doing the
Speaker 1: right thing instead of doing what God was calling him
Speaker 1: to do and living the fullness of his purpose and
Speaker 1: his life. It's like it was almost like he was
Speaker 1: an outsider, you know what I mean, trying to.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and I would say though that and perhaps
Speaker 3: this is semantics, and forgive me if it is, but
Speaker 3: I do think just to clarify, like, and I wonder
Speaker 3: if it's not even so much like he was. He
Speaker 3: is trying to do the right thing, but it's like,
Speaker 3: but it's not the actual correct thing. He's doing what
Speaker 3: he thinks is the way you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2: Life right, right, right right.
Speaker 3: And so he's got all these expectations, as we all do.
Speaker 3: We all have these expectations. We come into this life
Speaker 3: and we get these expectations from our parents. So the
Speaker 3: rest of our family, community, society, whatever your various faiths,
Speaker 3: all have these expectations on who you are supposed to
Speaker 3: be there. And also if you check these boxes off,
Speaker 3: then that's the life that I'll get to go and
Speaker 3: live in the expectation that comes along with that.
Speaker 2: And it never ever, ever ever works out that way.
Speaker 3: No, never, we make plans and God laughs, I mean right,
Speaker 3: that's I think very true in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: Not laughing at us, but laughing with us, oh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes laughing in my case, very much laughing at me
Speaker 1: because I'm such a hardhead, you know, And God's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's the.
Speaker 3: That's the flesh and the spirit. This is the thing
Speaker 3: that we're trying to balance and juggle all the time.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I literally have these conversations with God. Least, they're becoming
Speaker 1: less frequent now, it's more like once a month, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of times a year. But we have this
Speaker 1: conversation where He's like, Okay, let's just say I'm going
Speaker 1: to let you have your way for a minute. Do
Speaker 1: you really want to see how that's going to work out?
Speaker 1: Do you really, like, have we not gone down that
Speaker 1: path enough times? Delilah like, do I really have to
Speaker 1: let go and let you have your way here? Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's just see how this is going to work out.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, no, I was only kidding about that.
Speaker 2: I remember this pain. I really I kind of need
Speaker 2: you right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah. There's almost no truer story in our relationship to God,
Speaker 3: to the universe, in this journey that we're on as
Speaker 3: human beings, which is that of where are you putting
Speaker 3: your trust and if you're putting your trust in yourself
Speaker 3: as if somehow you are going to control this destiny
Speaker 3: of yours, you're going to constantly be stubbing your toe
Speaker 3: and running into the running your shins into the corner
Speaker 3: of the bed, and tripping over and stumbling and sometimes
Speaker 3: really hardcore failing. And which is not to say you
Speaker 3: still don't stub your toe and hit your shin and
Speaker 3: all that stuff when you're trusting God, because we're not
Speaker 3: perfect even at doing that kind of stuff either, But guaranteed,
Speaker 3: when we do have that kind of trust on a
Speaker 3: daily level, the amount of overwhelming peace that comes from
Speaker 3: that to recognize that, you know what, you just got
Speaker 3: to wake up, you got to show up, you got
Speaker 3: to do your best. You got to have grace, mercy, patience, kindness,
Speaker 3: softness with yourself while still holding yourself accountable for all
Speaker 3: of your actions, because we are accountable and responsible, but
Speaker 3: having grace with ourselves through all of that. And then
Speaker 3: the better we get better, the better we get at
Speaker 3: that with ourselves, the far better we get at that
Speaker 3: with everybody else around us. But it still all comes
Speaker 3: back to, are you trusting that there is something bigger
Speaker 3: than us that's pulling us in a singular direction, which
Speaker 3: I believe is to love. And if we can, if
Speaker 3: we can really trust that and really get just oled
Speaker 3: by God, like let's go, let's go to destination love,
Speaker 3: not love island. That's a whole other thing. We don't
Speaker 3: want to go to love. We want to go to
Speaker 3: the source of all that is and all that is love.
Speaker 3: And and yeah, we can't. You don't. We don't have
Speaker 3: the capacity to get there ourselves. It's only in trusting
Speaker 3: in that process and how we get refined and grow
Speaker 3: and mature and evolve as human beings. It's all a
Speaker 3: part of it.
Speaker 1: And then there is so much of that I was
Speaker 1: going to say in the movie. We saw that in
Speaker 1: the movie. We saw Scott trying to do it his way,
Speaker 1: trying to do as you said, maybe not the right thing,
Speaker 1: but the thing that he thought would would be acceptable,
Speaker 1: and then hitting the rock wall and realizing I'm an alcoholic,
Speaker 1: i am an absent parent, I have not even showed
Speaker 1: up for myself, let alone my wife and my kids.
Speaker 1: And he had that epiphany and the breakthrough and came
Speaker 1: to understand that God didn't send him the special kid
Speaker 1: for him to figure him out, and fix him, but
Speaker 1: to enrich his life in your life. How how did
Speaker 1: you come to your faith? How did you come to
Speaker 1: this point that you're at now that you can look
Speaker 1: at me and say, we all have to surrender. We
Speaker 1: all have to surrender and let God pull us towards
Speaker 1: that ultimate thing, which is love, which is God, which
Speaker 1: is in the beginning, was the.
Speaker 3: Word ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I mean the long
Speaker 3: and the short of it is. I mean, when I
Speaker 3: was like four years old and my awareness came online
Speaker 3: for the first time, I think all of us, it's
Speaker 3: kind of around three or four. Prior to that, we're
Speaker 3: bouncing in the walls and people laugh and we don't
Speaker 3: know what's going on. We're alive, but we're not aware.
Speaker 3: We're not like really awaken. Around three or four, all
Speaker 3: of our minds starting to kind of like click on
Speaker 3: and the movie really starts and memories start to begin,
Speaker 3: and you're starting to kind of like put pieces together,
Speaker 3: almost like awakening certain things in your knowing that you
Speaker 3: that you've known before your soul even came down and
Speaker 3: inhabited your body. And one of those things was I
Speaker 3: knew that there was a God that loved me. I
Speaker 3: knew it. I remember having a very distinct moment. I
Speaker 3: was like at Sunday school or something. I'm like three
Speaker 3: or four years old, and this adult is trying to
Speaker 3: explain God, and I'm like, I got it, I got it.
Speaker 3: I know exactly what you're doing. You go tell that
Speaker 3: kid like I know exactly what we're talking about. And
Speaker 3: that's carried with me. My faith has been with me
Speaker 3: my entire life, and it's been an incredible journey as
Speaker 3: any journey of faith is right, you know, it's it
Speaker 3: evolves and changes and strengthens and you learn and you're
Speaker 3: humbled humbled. Oh my gosh, the amount of like, you know,
Speaker 3: me being so convinced and fired up in my faith
Speaker 3: in any given moment of my life and thinking, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: I got it, like we got it. And then it's
Speaker 3: like then you you stumble and you fall and you
Speaker 3: get humbled because God, almost more than anything else, is like,
Speaker 3: what are you doing, I'm God, be humble like you
Speaker 3: don't know anything, Like I think it was Aristotle or
Speaker 3: something is like the beginning of knowledge is to know
Speaker 3: that you know nothing, and that is such a massive
Speaker 3: part I think in a spiritual journey, you really have
Speaker 3: to stop letting go of this, like I got to
Speaker 3: figure it out, Like you don't have anything. We have ideas.
Speaker 3: We have certain guideposts that have put us, thank God
Speaker 3: enough in contact with our creator to be able to
Speaker 3: begin to understand the infiniteness that is the creator of
Speaker 3: the universe, the creation of the universe, Like it's so massive,
Speaker 3: it's so massive, so over my life. I'm now forty four,
Speaker 3: so forty years of being aware and walking in this
Speaker 3: journey has led me back to the only destination that
Speaker 3: I really think God genuinely is trying to lead every
Speaker 3: single person, which is back to love, which is back
Speaker 3: to love. We are conduits of God's love. We are
Speaker 3: examples of God's love. We are loved by God. We
Speaker 3: are children of God, and I believe every single one
Speaker 3: of us are. And I think that the more we fight,
Speaker 3: that the more that we fight each other in this
Speaker 3: endless game of who's right and who's wrong, instead of
Speaker 3: just sitting and holding literally, could you imagine, I have
Speaker 3: the whole world actually just it's the most komba you
Speaker 3: ridiculous thing ever. But if we all just sat and
Speaker 3: held space for each other for a second and just
Speaker 3: been like, listen, I don't like you, but I know that.
Speaker 3: I know that you were abused. You were this, you
Speaker 3: were that like that. The people that we don't like
Speaker 3: the most are often the people that have been most
Speaker 3: abused in this life. We've got to be able to
Speaker 3: hold space for that whole people accountable but them, see
Speaker 3: the gem inside of them.
Speaker 1: Could you imagine if we could do that, if we
Speaker 1: could stop with the angry, hateful, destructive.
Speaker 2: Me versus you.
Speaker 1: I am right, you are wrong, I am left, you
Speaker 1: are right. I am black, you are white, I am straight,
Speaker 1: I am gay.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 1: The division that's been fomented, created and amplified with like
Speaker 1: these massive speakers screaming at us that we should hate
Speaker 1: this person, or hate this establishment, or hate this whatever,
Speaker 1: and we buy into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Could you imagine if we could just stop for an hour,
Speaker 1: stop for a day, and do like you just said,
Speaker 1: just love one another.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, listen, I it's my dream. It's my
Speaker 3: and I believe that it's God's dream. I believe that
Speaker 3: it is the dream of all of this. It's that
Speaker 3: it's supposed to like it's the end screen on a
Speaker 3: video game of like if you were to go actually
Speaker 3: win the game, the only way to get there is
Speaker 3: by raising the vibrational energy of this place to that
Speaker 3: point where it just that light takes over. The problem
Speaker 3: is that we are flesh and spirit. We're being pulled
Speaker 3: one way or the other constantly, and the ego, the
Speaker 3: flesh is not satisfied by love.
Speaker 2: No, it's satisfied by dopamin.
Speaker 3: It is healed by love, but it's satisfied, it's stroked
Speaker 3: by dopamine. The dopamine, but the feeling of winning, the
Speaker 3: feeling of superiority, right like, the ego is there to survive,
Speaker 3: where we're given this gift so that we can literally
Speaker 3: survive this crazy world that we're in. But when it
Speaker 3: starts to affect your ability to see and think and
Speaker 3: feel and empathize because you're looking at people because you're
Speaker 3: being they're less then and you're like, yeah, because by
Speaker 3: somebody being less than you, now you were more, which
Speaker 3: then hits that that I'm surviving better. And so the
Speaker 3: egos gets gets stroked by that. It's like, yeah, you
Speaker 3: are superior than them in this way or that way
Speaker 3: or and that creates the division and people want to
Speaker 3: keep that going because it's giving them this the self
Speaker 3: worth of some kind, but it's a hollow one. It's
Speaker 3: a hollow one.
Speaker 1: We're here to talk about Unbreakable Boy. Beautiful, subtle but
Speaker 1: powerful movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. I think both of that is applicable.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it'll move, it, it'll rock.
Speaker 1: Yet, there's so many good aspects in the movie Unbreakable Boy,
Speaker 1: beyond the magical story of an unbreakable boy.
Speaker 2: His spirit was not going to be broken.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, and particularly from my character, the father,
Speaker 3: Scott Lorette. But I think it's kind of, you know,
Speaker 3: strewn throughout just thematically in the film. But like you're saying,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's it's so much about radically accepting and
Speaker 3: surrendering to the life that God has given you, and
Speaker 3: we fight it. We fight it, we fight it, we
Speaker 3: fight it, we fight it because there's all these things
Speaker 3: that we we have, these ideas of what our life
Speaker 3: is supposed to be, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: these expectations aren't being met and we're like, well, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I wasn't supposed to. You know, with Scott and Teresa,
Speaker 3: right out of the gate, they get pregnant on their
Speaker 3: third date that they weren't expecting that, They didn't want that.
Speaker 3: That's a curve ball coming at him at one hundred
Speaker 3: miles an hour, and like, all right, well, here we go.
Speaker 3: We're gonna we're gonna dive in, we're gonna figure out
Speaker 3: our relationship, we're gonna have this kid, We're to do
Speaker 3: our best. We're going to figure it out. And then
Speaker 3: the next thing they find out he's got osteogenesis imperfect
Speaker 3: a britlebones disease. That's a massive curveball. Okay, now we're
Speaker 3: whiffing at that one. And now all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: there he's neurodivergent. They test him and he's and he's
Speaker 3: autistic on the spectrum. Big curveball, no idea. All of
Speaker 3: these just shattered expectations of certainly what Scott thought his
Speaker 3: life was going to be, what it was supposed to be,
Speaker 3: the right life, whatever that's supposed to be. But that's
Speaker 3: part of how God humbles us. That's part of how
Speaker 3: God brings us back to really trusting and being like,
Speaker 3: you don't get to decide how this goes. I've got
Speaker 3: things I'm working on in you, in your soul that
Speaker 3: you don't even know you need to work on, and
Speaker 3: I am going to create the circumstances by which those
Speaker 3: things get worked through. And so Scott finally through his
Speaker 3: darkness and kind of rising up out of the ashes
Speaker 3: and radically accepting where he was and who he was,
Speaker 3: and it allowed him to really see the beauty in
Speaker 3: this relationship with his son and love him and not
Speaker 3: try to fix him but embrace him. And it's so beautiful.
Speaker 1: You got to be a part of this family, actual,
Speaker 1: the actual family. The movie is set how many years ago,
Speaker 1: like ten fifteen years it's the nineties.
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, let's see Austin was I mean the oldest
Speaker 3: Austin was in was? I think he got to be
Speaker 3: about eleven or so in the story, and he's not
Speaker 3: there about twenty years ago, give or take. I think
Speaker 3: if I'm doing the math right, because Austin, real Austin
Speaker 3: is thirty one now.
Speaker 1: And is he as delightful and as loving and funny
Speaker 1: as the child Austin?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Man, I fell in love with that kid.
Speaker 3: Jacob Leval is such a talent, he really is. We
Speaker 3: love him. We were so grateful to find him because
Speaker 3: that's a very difficult role to inhabit, you know, particularly
Speaker 3: for a young kid, young actor who he's just kind
Speaker 3: of starting his career. But he did such a great job.
Speaker 3: Megan Fahee and Drew Powell and Amy Acker and Peter Facchinelli,
Speaker 3: Patricia Heaton who plays my mom, everybody did such wonderful work.
Speaker 3: The crew. I mean, we made it in the height
Speaker 3: of the pandemic in twenty twenty. At the end of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, it was it was wild, The whole thing
Speaker 3: was wild. And then we were supposed to come out
Speaker 3: in the beginning of twenty two, February of twenty two,
Speaker 3: but because you know, a lot of people were still
Speaker 3: hesitant to go back to theaters, Lionsgate I think wisely,
Speaker 3: you know, said hey, listen, let's hold it for a second,
Speaker 3: and we'll wait until we feel like people are going
Speaker 3: back to theaters to go support smaller, you know, family
Speaker 3: film like this, because for a long time, you know,
Speaker 3: most of it was had the big, big tent pole
Speaker 3: franchise IP in order to get people leaving home to
Speaker 3: go to a theater. I think this film, you know,
Speaker 3: because God's timing is perfect. I think it wasn't supposed
Speaker 3: to release three years ago. It was supposed to release
Speaker 3: right now. It's supposed to go and touch people's hearts
Speaker 3: exactly right now, exactly right now.
Speaker 1: I think, right now we need that story and that hope.
Speaker 2: More than ever.
Speaker 1: You're right, it's exactly the right timing because even though
Speaker 1: it's a story about a singular family, it's all of
Speaker 1: our story.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and not even just if you are a parent
Speaker 3: or if you're a parent of a child with autism.
Speaker 3: You know, those are specific categories of human beings. But
Speaker 3: I think this film is really applicable to anyone and
Speaker 3: everyone because it's about the human sty that's the human story.
Speaker 3: It's the it's the human dynamic of loving oneself, loving
Speaker 3: each other, elements of marriage and having children and children
Speaker 3: that are struggling with certain issues, and also just societal
Speaker 3: issues and all of these things, mental illness and mental health.
Speaker 3: You know, these are applicable to all of us on
Speaker 3: some level. So but I do I will say though,
Speaker 3: that I love that we have been able to bring
Speaker 3: a story to audiences that is representative of the specific
Speaker 3: journey of raising a child with autism. I think that's
Speaker 3: the story that we don't really get. We don't see
Speaker 3: all that often, if at all. And I think that
Speaker 3: we have created a you know, tackled this subject matter
Speaker 3: with really tremendous heart and grace and authenticity and beauty
Speaker 3: and love and rit and love and all of it.
Speaker 3: And I know that there's a lot, particularly based on
Speaker 3: my social media responses after, you know, posting the trailer
Speaker 3: or things like that, the amount of people that message
Speaker 3: me telling me that they themselves are autistic, or they
Speaker 3: have a child who's autistic, or they have a friend
Speaker 3: or someone in their family that's autistic, and that this
Speaker 3: they're crying watching the trailer. They're just they're so moved
Speaker 3: by you know, thank you for telling our story, telling
Speaker 3: that story. So I think that there's very honored that
Speaker 3: we get to, you know, bring that specific to that
Speaker 3: specific audience, that specific demo as well.
Speaker 1: We still have some time left with Zach today, but
Speaker 1: I need to pause our conversation to share a little
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Speaker 1: I have my youngest who is eight years old he'll
Speaker 1: be nine in a few weeks, who has a multitude
Speaker 1: of diagnosis. He was eighteen months old when I adopted him,
Speaker 1: and he is more energy than all of my other
Speaker 1: children added up. And there's been a lot of challenges,
Speaker 1: and I'm the kind of person that like, bring it on,
Speaker 1: bring it on, bring the challenges on.
Speaker 2: I'm up for it. My husband not so much.
Speaker 1: He was a Green Beret. He was a police officer.
Speaker 1: That pretty much says it all. There needs to be
Speaker 1: an order to everything, and with the child who is
Speaker 1: on the spectrum, there is no order to anything. And
Speaker 1: just when you think you figure it out, you realize
Speaker 1: you're not ahead of the game. You're so far behind,
Speaker 1: you're not even on the right playing field. And the
Speaker 1: line that you say near the end of the movie
Speaker 1: when you have that epiphany moment, I said it earlier,
Speaker 1: but you said, you know, talking to your pastor you
Speaker 1: just realize that you've spent all this time and energy
Speaker 1: trying to figure out your son so you could fix him.
Speaker 1: I look over at my Green Beret husband, who was bawling,
Speaker 1: like ugly crying. I've seen this man cry maybe five
Speaker 1: times in our almost twenty year relationship, and he didn't
Speaker 1: say anything. Seeing that movie. Hearing your declaration, which I
Speaker 1: know is a script. But I also know Zachary, that
Speaker 1: that was coming from your heart. It was he picked
Speaker 1: up the phone, he called his counselor, and he said,
Speaker 1: I need to come and see you. And everything has
Speaker 1: changed since that night. Everything has changed in his relationship
Speaker 1: with my son, everything that I don't want to make
Speaker 1: this about me or about our family, but I have
Speaker 1: to because what you do matters, and that story matters.
Speaker 2: And if it can.
Speaker 4: Matter this much to my son and change his life
Speaker 4: the way I know it's going to, I know that
Speaker 4: it will change other people's lives too, when they understand
Speaker 4: great and love and that kids that are unique or different,
Speaker 4: or people that are unique or different aren't a problem.
Speaker 2: To be solved, but a soul to be cherished. So
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm honored by all of those words.
Speaker 5: And and I agree that I think this film has
Speaker 5: the power to I mean, as you just you know,
Speaker 5: said yourself, it's been already powerful in changing energy and
Speaker 5: dynamic in your own life and your own family with
Speaker 5: your husband and your son, and I I hope and
Speaker 5: pray that that is exactly what is downstream for far
Speaker 5: more audiences.
Speaker 3: You know, we are so we are, so we're so
Speaker 3: woundly tight. It's so tightly wound, so wound, so tightly
Speaker 3: wound in so many aspects of our lives. Everything is
Speaker 3: this right on razor's edge and right on a cliff,
Speaker 3: and and in that it's very easy to lose a
Speaker 3: lot of these dynamics, you know. But I just I
Speaker 3: think that this is a really special movie. And I just,
Speaker 3: as with anything that I do, I hope that it
Speaker 3: resonates with people in a positive way, whether that's making
Speaker 3: them laugh or cry or both, or just shining a
Speaker 3: light on something important. But this movie does that.
Speaker 2: It does so thank you. Tell everybody that you worked
Speaker 2: with that. Delilah says, thank you.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, Oh, it's being passed down the stream immediately.
Speaker 1: I hope everybody listening go see Unbreakable Boy. It will
Speaker 1: break your heart and then put it back together again.
Speaker 3: Amen. I love that.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. God, bless you, Oh, bless you too.
Speaker 1: The Unbreakable Boy. It's about Austin who has autism and
Speaker 1: brittle bone disease. But it isn't about being autistic. We're
Speaker 1: having brittle bone disease completely. It's about life. It's about love,
Speaker 1: it's about family, it's about learning to accept the world
Speaker 1: one finds oneself in and the challenges that come with
Speaker 1: our life, all guided by the joyous, unconquerable spirit and
Speaker 1: zeal for life of a thirteen year old boy whose
Speaker 1: unique outlook truly changes all of those around him. As
Speaker 1: happened in real life, Zachary Levi, Meghan Fayhee, Jacob Laval,
Speaker 1: and Patricia Heaton are part of a larger sensational cast
Speaker 1: that brings real life characters and an imaginary friend to
Speaker 1: the big screen. It's been in theater since February twenty first,
Speaker 1: and you can watch the trailer in Get tickets at
Speaker 1: unbreakableboy dot com and be sure to keep an eye
Speaker 1: out for Zachary in all of his upcoming roles. While
Speaker 1: the temperatures are still registering low on the thermometer and
Speaker 1: the skies are still dark at a pretty early hour,
Speaker 1: I suggest ducking into a movie theater for a few
Speaker 1: hours with your favorite candy, a big tub of popcorn,
Speaker 1: your family, your hubby, your best friend. It is a
Speaker 1: great way to spend some time until the days are
Speaker 1: warmer and longer. The Unbreakable Boy is a top recommendation.
Speaker 1: I love this movie and it impacted our family in
Speaker 1: a miraculous way,