Speaker 1: With me on the phones is Bart, Hi? Bart? How
Speaker 1: are you? I am good, my friend? How are you?
Speaker 1: Are you so excited about the release of I can
Speaker 1: only imagine I am I'm I am excited and nervous
Speaker 1: all at the same time. Now, who plays you? Who
Speaker 1: plays the lead role? Who's the actor that they chose
Speaker 1: to be Bart. His name is Jay Michael Finley and
Speaker 1: he was Jean Valjean and lame Is on Broadway before
Speaker 1: he took the part, So he's got a little acting experience, yes,
Speaker 1: And they wanted somebody that could actually sing all the
Speaker 1: stuff in the movie. And it's like we had to
Speaker 1: teach him how to dumb it way down because he
Speaker 1: sings better than I do. Ah, that's a good thing though.
Speaker 1: That's a good thing though. I mean, could you imagine
Speaker 1: if they had chosen somebody who may have looked like
Speaker 1: you or had mannerisms like you, but couldn't really sing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess he'd be lips thinking all my stuff. And
Speaker 1: they were nervous about that. So he kills He's a
Speaker 1: great job. Wow. And I know Dennis Quaid plays your dad. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a Yeah, that's the CD. That's insane. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, being able to go and on set and
Speaker 1: watch him start filming and you know, get it. Yes
Speaker 1: it's Dennis Quaid. Man. He's like, it's like Dennis Quaid. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's it's I couldn't believe it. I was a little
Speaker 1: starstruck for sure, a little yeah, I'll a little keep
Speaker 1: my cool, you know, act like you've been there before.
Speaker 1: But I didn't do a very good job of it. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: you don't have to keep your cool, just go crazy.
Speaker 1: So how much input? Um, how much creative input did
Speaker 1: did you have? I mean, this is somebody Jean Jean
Speaker 1: Valjean playing you. How much input did you have on
Speaker 1: the direction? Like did you say no, no, no, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have said that, or no no no, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have moved like that, or did they say step back,
Speaker 1: we got this? Yeah, I probably I had. I had
Speaker 1: probably more than I actually took advantage of, so to speak,
Speaker 1: like not just because it was in good ends, but
Speaker 1: I was approached about making the movie almost eight years ago,
Speaker 1: and um and um um. A lady out of California
Speaker 1: had heard me to kind of tell my story on
Speaker 1: stage and said, I want to see if there's a
Speaker 1: movie there, and so I was like, okay, whatever. And
Speaker 1: for about five years of that, it was just like
Speaker 1: a phone call once or twice a year, a going, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm still working on it were and we just never
Speaker 1: believed would happened. And then it was about three years
Speaker 1: ago when the Irwin brothers I met them. They were
Speaker 1: doing a movie called Mom's Night Out, and we met
Speaker 1: and and and I remember, you know, I've seen a
Speaker 1: couple of scripts from the original people and it was
Speaker 1: it wasn't good. And I remember telling I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I wish you guys somehow could at least you know,
Speaker 1: this weird movie they talked about making. I wish you
Speaker 1: guys could see it. And they said, well, they actually
Speaker 1: sent us the original script this morning, like they've already
Speaker 1: asked this. And I was like, I was like, are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? I had no idea. And so from
Speaker 1: that point on, like I had I had veto power,
Speaker 1: Like I guess technically I could call right now and
Speaker 1: say I don't want it in the movies or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was kind of agreement. And but at that point,
Speaker 1: like they were doing such a great job, and they
Speaker 1: interviewed me for you know, for weeks about every story
Speaker 1: possible growing up, and and they were very respectful, and
Speaker 1: how they made the movie kind of taught me how,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, we're trying to cram twenty something years
Speaker 1: into about an hour and fifty minutes, so there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of mashing up stories to make it fit.
Speaker 1: We obviously can't make a you know, twenty eight hour
Speaker 1: movie or whatever, not making Thornbirds. And so so I
Speaker 1: don't know, I think that your your life Bart could
Speaker 1: be a cool Thornbirds. May well, except you know, you
Speaker 1: fell in love with the love of your life young
Speaker 1: and got married and have a beautiful family and never
Speaker 1: you know, you never became a priest. But other than that,
Speaker 1: it couldn't like be thornbird quality. Yes, I am in ministry,
Speaker 1: so it's close there you go. But they did a
Speaker 1: great job. I just had I had to learn how
Speaker 1: it's made. People always ask how accurate is it? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's about as accurate as you can be
Speaker 1: fitting my whole life into two hours. For me, it
Speaker 1: was all about the redemption story with my dad and
Speaker 1: the tray information in his life and and and they,
Speaker 1: you know, they did something right because the first time
Speaker 1: I read the script and I saw them film it,
Speaker 1: it stirred emotions in me that I haven't felt for
Speaker 1: a very long time. And so I think they they
Speaker 1: got it right, that's for sure. Wow. Wow, and your
Speaker 1: family did they Did they just thrilled to the idea
Speaker 1: or were they like, oh, I don't want everybody to
Speaker 1: know this stuff. You know, that's the nervous part, because
Speaker 1: I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I stressed over this even eight years ago, because you know,
Speaker 1: really in my life, my parents divorced and I was young,
Speaker 1: and I have an older brother, and so really my
Speaker 1: mom my brother are probably the only two that are
Speaker 1: really kind of around still that that can kind of
Speaker 1: truly know what I went through. And and so I
Speaker 1: really stressed about them because my mom, you know, they
Speaker 1: divorced and I was three, and my mom remarried, moved
Speaker 1: from Dallas to Santonio, and I was in third grade,
Speaker 1: and somehow they decided it was best for me my
Speaker 1: brother to stay with my dad, and so being a
Speaker 1: mama's boy, I remember weeping that my mom kind of
Speaker 1: left me behind. Is what it felt like now knowing
Speaker 1: as an adult how much of a victim she was,
Speaker 1: and and the fear that she was living, you know,
Speaker 1: just because my dad had such a horrible temper and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors I didn't understand as a child.
Speaker 1: And so so I was like when the movie, when
Speaker 1: I started writing the script, I was like, if this
Speaker 1: is going to kill my mom because it just shows
Speaker 1: her leaving and not coming back and and such. She's
Speaker 1: such a big part of my life. Now I found
Speaker 1: myself like trying to rewrite the true story, trying to
Speaker 1: fit her in my life more than she actually was,
Speaker 1: to protect her. And my wife Shannon was like, that's
Speaker 1: that's not true either, like, unfortunately, this is what it is.
Speaker 1: And and and so I remember like sitting down with my
Speaker 1: mom and kind of work, you know, working through all that,
Speaker 1: you know, before the movie has ever made. And when
Speaker 1: it finally first edited the movie, I went to Texas
Speaker 1: and said alone with her, and we washed together and
Speaker 1: and you know, and I thought my mom would have
Speaker 1: the hardest time. My brother would be okay with it
Speaker 1: because he, you know, he knows what I went through.
Speaker 1: And my mom kind of cried a little bit and said,
Speaker 1: unfortun that's the way it was. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: proud of you for trying to tell the story like
Speaker 1: it was. She was very supportive. It's gonna be hard,
Speaker 1: but she's supportive. And my brother, who I thought would
Speaker 1: be okay with it, he's struggling, probably more just because
Speaker 1: you know, they're might you know, there's something you know
Speaker 1: for him, my dad could do no wrong, like uh,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, and once he passed away,
Speaker 1: you kind of going to fainthood to him, like you
Speaker 1: all is forgiven and it's just a story that he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would have told that. I
Speaker 1: totally understand that, and uh, and so it's it's harder
Speaker 1: for him and so so yeah, we'll see we were
Speaker 1: you know, we still love each other and we're still
Speaker 1: getting through it. But it's been therapeutic to say the least.
Speaker 1: You know. I think a lot of people think, well,
Speaker 1: God can't love somebody like me. I thought that, And
Speaker 1: there's nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing that can separate you from
Speaker 1: that loving God. If I have to do is ask, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have to do. That's what I hope. That's
Speaker 1: my prayer for for people going to see the movie
Speaker 1: as understanding that God's love man it's it's available to anybody. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The crazy part is, like you know, we people ask like,
Speaker 1: what do you hope people take away from the movie.
Speaker 1: I'm like that, you know, like you said, as long
Speaker 1: as your heart is beating, your story is not over.
Speaker 1: And sometimes we have a tendency to write off certain people.
Speaker 1: If you would asked me the one person that God
Speaker 1: cannot reach, I would say, a hundred times out of
Speaker 1: a hundred, it was my dad. You know, he was
Speaker 1: he was It was just awful. And then here we
Speaker 1: are now talking about him years later. But Bart, thank
Speaker 1: you one more question. So there's all these red carpet
Speaker 1: events and the debuts and everything, and as long as
Speaker 1: I've known you, I've known you to be Bart who
Speaker 1: loves to be comfortable, Bart who on your fanciest appearances
Speaker 1: on stage, would prefer to be in genes over slacks.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering, and uh, you know, is it going
Speaker 1: to be a tuxedo. It'll be jeans and a T
Speaker 1: shirt and a dress code. I can promise you that
Speaker 1: there you go, good black T shirt. Probably you did
Speaker 1: not disappoint. We will never change good, good good. I
Speaker 1: am so happy to hear that because I was like,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, is he Is he going to break down?
Speaker 1: Is he going to go with the funky texedo no
Speaker 1: other than weddings and funerals that will not wear a suit. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad it's neither. Yeah, I'm glad it's neither. God
Speaker 1: bless you, God bless you. Give my love to the guys.
Speaker 1: I will do take care, Bye bye,