The Massie Twins recently had a chance to sit down with Director/Producer David Nixon (Fireproof, Facing the Giants) to do an exclusive interview discussing his new film “Letters to God” opening theatrically April 9th, 2010.
The Massie Twins: Good morning! Let me jump right in and ask how you became involved with the project and what drew you to it?
David Nixon: After I’d worked on Facing the Giants and Fireproof, I was looking for another faith-based screenplay and a good friend of mine here in Orlando sent me this script that this father had written up in Nashville Tennessee about his boy. He’d never written a screenplay before and I immediately got on a plane to meet Patrick Doughtie and his family and I said, “I think you really have something here, I think we have to film this story.” We polished the script, went and raised the money and here we are a day away from releasing it around the country.
MT: How closely was this modeled around Doughtie’s real life son?
DN: He changed it somewhat. It was very difficult for him and cathartic writing the screenplay. He’d gone through a couple years of depression and figured he’d better write this thing down, so he changed it from being a single dad to a single mom and then he added the letter-writing component and the mailman, not knowing that a year after he’d finished writing it and got it into my hands, he went into his son’s room and actually found some letters he’d written to God. Doughtie had written it in as just a plotline and found out later that his boy had really done that.
MT: What a coincidence! One of the first things I noticed while watching the film was the locations and the houses. Where was this movie shot?
DN: It was all shot around Orlando. There’s a little town just outside of Orlando called Wintergarden and it’s been used for a lot of movies. It’s such a pretty little picturesque town and when I drove down that street with the Spanish moss hanging from the trees I immediately connected with it and thought it would be perfect for the movie.
MT: Can you tell us a little about casting, especially Tanner Maguire and Robyn Lively?
DN: We put out a casting call around the country not knowing what we would get, because this is not a high budget movie. We thought maybe we would get lower caliber actors, but it was amazing to me, especially in L.A., the high caliber actors that came. Most of them said, “We really want to do these kinds of films. We don’t get these kinds of scripts very often.” They loved that we were making this kind of movie. When Tanner came into casting there was an immediate connection, because he looks so much like the real Tyler. We had the father there and as soon as Tanner walked in, he said how weird it was that he looked so much like his real son. We found that even his mannerisms were very much like the real boy. Plus he’s got that angelic look, and we were looking for a boy that would just melt your heart.
MT: Did you know Robyn Lively was right for the part right away?
DN: Well she had the spirit coming into it. When she said how much she believed in the script and when she was reading the lines we could definitely tell that she could pull it off and that she had a heart for the movie and wanted to play the role. Having Patrick on set, she was able to draw from him for individual situations, which was a huge blessing.
MT: How many songs were written for the movie?
DN: Michael Bolten wrote and sang his own song specifically for the film, during the talent show scene. There was another one written for the movie that we didn’t even know about – the one that the Warren Brothers wrote called “Dear Mr. God” that runs at the end of the movie. Those guys are the hitmakers in Nashville and have written a bunch of songs for Faith Hill and Tim McGraw and we’d never heard of them before. We had a good friend who got the screenplay into their hands in the middle of shooting and they wrote that song and called us up and said, “You don’t know who we are, but we’d like to come down and play a song for you.” We were totally blown away by the song they wrote just from reading the screenplay and it was so perfect that we put it at the end of the movie.
MT: How do you feel non-religious audiences will respond to the film?
DN: I think there’s a crossover potential because of the cancer story. Unfortunately cancer touches everybody. That was one of the reasons we wanted to make the movie and I think anyone going to see the movie will respond to it; it’s such an inspiring story. Tyler would be stronger than everyone else around him even though he’s the one going through cancer.
MT: Is it easier or harder to work with child actors?
DN: Normally it’s harder, but if you do a really good job with casting, it makes the director’s job much easier when you get on set. I really didn’t have to pull this out of them; all I really had to do was set the tone. Both Tanner and Bailee are such great actors and really came prepared. They knew their lines and their characters so on set it was just a matter of tweaking their performances. Both of them were so amazing, especially in the way they could change their performances just a tiny bit to make them perfect. They had such great screen presences and were great to work with. Tanner had to get his head shaved every day and get that prosthetic scar put on the back of his head, so he was sitting in the makeup chair for an hour or two every morning. It was quite an ordeal but he really did a good job of understating the role. A lot of kids overact, but I thought he did such a nice job of understating it. The energy level of a kid going through chemo is not real high. He really pulled that off well.
MT: Have you watched the film with an audience?
DN: Actually many, many times. Part of our marketing is that we kind of give it away. We did 153 screenings around the country to ministers and church leaders and ministries and things to say, “Here’s the movie, now go build a grassroots following,” so I’ve seen it many, many times and showed it to over 4000 people, and got their feedback. That was invaluable to see their reactions and hear their feedback.
MT: Do you use the internet to see what people think about the film?
DN: Definitely – on this one more than any one we’ve ever done. It’s been all about social marketing. Twitter has been huge. I think we’re up to 50,000 friends on Facebook. The feedback has been amazing because it’s immediate and two-way. It really has caught on very fast. It’s snowballed and taken on a life of its own. People tend to take ownership of a movie like this, especially a faith-based movie. The feedback has been phenomenal, even to the point where people are writing letters to God after they’ve seen the movie.
MT: What’s next for you? Will you be sticking to faith-based films?
DN: Actually we already have two in production right now. We’ll probably be shooting in the summer. We initially went out and raised enough money to make the first three. They’ll be out next year, and we already have plans for number four. We’re not slowing down and we’ll try to make as many as we can, while the opportunity is open where the Hollywood studios want to distribute these in theaters.
MT: Okay, one last question: What are your thoughts on film critics?
DN: (laughs) I love film critics, because all press is good press. Whether they give us a good review or not, I think people will still go see the movie and you’ve got to have that feedback and that critique. It makes us better as filmmakers and it gets the word out for the general audiences.
- The Massie Twins
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I'm just disappointed that Greg Kinnear wasn't in this one... He sure would of saved the day, then got 13 years in a federal prison for opening mail that wasn't addressed to him, but that is expected.