Latest / Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews / Stelio Savante on Hazel’s Heart, Playing Heroes and Villains, and Why Faith Films Are Having a Moment
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Life Audio.
- 0:04Speaker 2: Hey Stellio, thanks for joining me. Hey Michael, good morning.
- 0:07Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
- 0:08Speaker 1: You are welcome. Stelio Sabonte is our guest. He is
- 0:12Speaker 1: in a new family film, Hazel's Heart. It's on Angel platforms.
- 0:15Speaker 1: It's also on video demand.
- 0:17Speaker 2: He was also in Sarah's Oil last.
- 0:19Speaker 1: Year, one of my favorite films of twenty twenty five,
- 0:22Speaker 1: another family film. Of course, you've been in The Chosen too.
- 0:24Speaker 1: We might get to that, Stelio. As I say every
- 0:27Speaker 1: time I talk to you, You're in so many movies
- 0:29Speaker 1: I enjoy. I think Hazel's Heart will be other other
- 0:32Speaker 1: one when I finally watch it. The plot is amazing.
- 0:34Speaker 1: It's based on a true story. From what I understand.
- 0:37Speaker 1: Just give us the summary of it and what attracted
- 0:39Speaker 1: you to this this amazing movie.
- 0:42Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you and thank you for all that. Hazel's
- 0:44Speaker 3: Harden is a true story based on the life of
- 0:47Speaker 3: Hazel Lighter. It's a very very well known story in
- 0:50Speaker 3: North Dakota, which is why the rest of the world
- 0:53Speaker 3: needed to hear this story.
- 0:54Speaker 2: She's a young heroine at the turn.
- 0:56Speaker 3: Of the century who basically puts her life on the
- 0:59Speaker 3: line to save her siblings during one of the worst snowstorms.
- 1:02Speaker 2: In their history.
- 1:04Speaker 3: I was very impressed with the script because it told
- 1:10Speaker 3: essentially kind of David and Goliath's story. We all have
- 1:14Speaker 3: those moments in our lives, and it's in those moments
- 1:18Speaker 3: that we have to make choices we're sometimes not prepared for.
- 1:22Speaker 3: I felt that she needed to be honored. I loved
- 1:25Speaker 3: Daniel's vision for the story. And you know, having grown
- 1:29Speaker 3: up and been raised in South Africa and then living
- 1:31Speaker 3: in New York and here in LA, I've never really
- 1:33Speaker 3: experienced a snowstorm anywhere near the magnitude, so I was
- 1:37Speaker 3: fascinated by it. And the response has been outstanding. Samuel
- 1:42Speaker 3: Gold would have done really well getting it out there
- 1:44Speaker 3: for us, and yes it's on Angel platform.
- 1:47Speaker 2: I love these regional stories.
- 1:49Speaker 1: There was a movie out a few years ago about
- 1:52Speaker 1: a boy who got lost on a mountain and I
- 1:54Speaker 1: think I think it was Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, one
- 1:56Speaker 1: of those New England states. And this one, of course,
- 1:58Speaker 1: like you said, this is a story that's well in
- 2:00Speaker 1: North Dakota. It's the girl was lost in for twenty
- 2:04Speaker 1: five hours, I think, or she was trying to keep
- 2:07Speaker 1: her siblings a lot for twenty five hours and freezing
- 2:10Speaker 1: of temperatures nineteen twenty. North Dakota is the setting for this,
- 2:14Speaker 1: so just an unbelievable story of survival.
- 2:17Speaker 2: Tell us about your character. I don't know a lot
- 2:19Speaker 2: about your character.
- 2:20Speaker 3: Absolutely so I play William Lener, her father, who you
- 2:25Speaker 3: know usually as a father, as a parent, which I
- 2:27Speaker 3: am protecting providing those are were driven by that, and
- 2:34Speaker 3: in the beginning of the film, he makes a certain
- 2:37Speaker 3: choice he later would come to regret, and he goes
- 2:42Speaker 3: out on a mission to try to, you know, help
- 2:45Speaker 3: them survive, redeem the situation, and do everything he can
- 2:50Speaker 3: to pull his children out of this storm. History not
- 2:55Speaker 3: the kindest to William. But the fascinating thing about all
- 2:58Speaker 3: of this, which I didn't mention and was that about
- 3:01Speaker 3: seventy five to eighty percent of the film is shot
- 3:04Speaker 3: in Are you Ready for This and abandoned kmart.
- 3:07Speaker 2: Oh.
- 3:08Speaker 3: Yeah. The effects team were remarkable. We were in a
- 3:14Speaker 3: very competitive bidding situation. Distributors were so impressed by the film.
- 3:17Speaker 3: We did a justice, but that was not what you
- 3:20Speaker 3: expected to see when you show up, is okay? We're
- 3:24Speaker 3: shooting it in an abandoned kmark, which we did know.
- 3:27Speaker 3: I'd had meetings with the director. I had a lot
- 3:30Speaker 3: of questions about seeing how the effects worked. Then there
- 3:34Speaker 3: were concerns with the horses and everything else because the
- 3:36Speaker 3: floor was very slippery. But I am so proud of
- 3:40Speaker 3: what Daniel and Tarik and his entire team were able
- 3:43Speaker 3: to pull off and accomplish.
- 3:45Speaker 1: I think this is the movie I might be thinking
- 3:46Speaker 1: of as Lost on a Mountain in Maine something like that.
- 3:48Speaker 1: It's a movie that came out a few years ago.
- 3:49Speaker 1: Of course, you were not involved in that. This one
- 3:51Speaker 1: is Hazel's part. Another one you were involved in last
- 3:54Speaker 1: year that I really enjoyed is Sarah's Oil. That was
- 3:58Speaker 1: a I believe it was a Kingdom story movie, and
- 4:01Speaker 1: you played the bad guy in that film, and I
- 4:04Speaker 1: didn't realize it until afterwards. Stelio I was watching it
- 4:07Speaker 1: and didn't realize it and thought, he wait, that was
- 4:10Speaker 1: Stelio Savante playing.
- 4:12Speaker 2: The bad guy that I was cheering against. So how
- 4:17Speaker 2: do you approach such a role.
- 4:18Speaker 1: What is it like to portray the character people are
- 4:21Speaker 1: going to cheer against?
- 4:24Speaker 2: You know, I think.
- 4:25Speaker 3: One doesn't necessarily think in those terms, or I should
- 4:28Speaker 3: speak for myself and not be assuming every actor does
- 4:33Speaker 3: Earle was very earnest in what he was doing, which was,
- 4:37Speaker 3: you know, honoring his boss, his employer, so to speak.
- 4:41Speaker 3: I had had wonderful conversations with a director, highly accomplished,
- 4:45Speaker 3: critically acclaimed director cyrus Naarraste, who had worked with before
- 4:49Speaker 3: on Infidel. I just did another project with him in Brazil,
- 4:51Speaker 3: which I can't go into yet. And what we had
- 4:54Speaker 3: discussed with Earle was once the Oklahoma oil rush rumors
- 4:58Speaker 3: had started, a lot of folks from the East Coast
- 5:01Speaker 3: had moved there to get work, as they had done
- 5:04Speaker 3: when the railroad was built, etc. And what made Earl
- 5:08Speaker 3: so fascinating was that because he was an outsider, he
- 5:11Speaker 3: was not easily bought, and the employer he worked for
- 5:15Speaker 3: could get leveraged by using him. So to me, Earle
- 5:19Speaker 3: was a character that believed he was definitely doing the
- 5:23Speaker 3: right thing and actually got a lot of enjoyment out
- 5:26Speaker 3: of goading people and needling them in order to get that.
- 5:30Speaker 3: He has some physicality to him, but there's also a
- 5:33Speaker 3: tongue in cheek humor and what an incredible project to
- 5:36Speaker 3: be part of. Seniqua and her husband Kenrick, we had
- 5:41Speaker 3: remarkable conversations. They come to my church. Now Melrodriguez, who
- 5:45Speaker 3: plays Mace, who is just a sweetheart. His daughter was
- 5:49Speaker 3: baptized by my pastor. We end up going to the
- 5:51Speaker 3: same church. So there were so many great relationships on
- 5:54Speaker 3: set and being in Tulsa over the course of the summer.
- 5:57Speaker 3: For I think it was nine or ten weeks was
- 6:00Speaker 3: great because that's where it actually happened.
- 6:02Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
- 6:03Speaker 1: And of course for those who don't know the story,
- 6:04Speaker 1: it's a story instead of the early nineteen hundreds in Oklahoma,
- 6:07Speaker 1: African American young girl is I think I don't know.
- 6:11Speaker 2: The verb here.
- 6:12Speaker 1: I think deeded a plot of land because she was
- 6:16Speaker 1: from she had lived in a Cherokee tribe. I'm Cherokee
- 6:18Speaker 1: tribe who are and yet Native American tribe? I forget
- 6:21Speaker 1: the tribe, but anyway, they think it's worthless land. But
- 6:24Speaker 1: it turns out to be filled with oil underneath that land,
- 6:28Speaker 1: and of course then that starts people trying to get
- 6:31Speaker 1: that land away from her. Sarah's Oil is the name
- 6:33Speaker 1: of that one. It seems there's been a surge stillio
- 6:36Speaker 1: of these faith and family movies in recent years, and
- 6:40Speaker 1: I don't remember this many movies pre pandemic.
- 6:43Speaker 2: Do you have any thoughts of that.
- 6:44Speaker 1: What is driving this surge of content that is filled
- 6:48Speaker 1: with values and faith?
- 6:50Speaker 3: I think first and foremost is audience. I think there's
- 6:54Speaker 3: a need for it. I think there's an appreciation for
- 6:56Speaker 3: it because these kinds of films are so better made,
- 6:59Speaker 3: so far better are executed and made, and have so
- 7:02Speaker 3: much more artistic integrity than what It's easy in hindsight
- 7:07Speaker 3: in twenty twenty to call cheesy Christian films because we
- 7:10Speaker 3: did have an era of them where maybe the message
- 7:13Speaker 3: was solid, but the execution and artistic integrity of the
- 7:16Speaker 3: films was horrible. And the flip side of that is
- 7:19Speaker 3: in mainstream films, the artistic integrity is outstanding, but the
- 7:23Speaker 3: message is sometimes vacuous of some wholesome integrity. I also
- 7:28Speaker 3: think the success, and it's easy for me to say
- 7:31Speaker 3: that I'm biased, I think the success of the Chosen,
- 7:33Speaker 3: how well done it is, the remarkable effect it had
- 7:36Speaker 3: during COVID, where people all over the world could download
- 7:40Speaker 3: it free on an app. It gave them something to
- 7:43Speaker 3: look forward to. And I also think the success what
- 7:47Speaker 3: the Kingdom Stories and wonder Projects of the world have
- 7:50Speaker 3: been able to do has kind of the train has
- 7:52Speaker 3: left the station, because now these stories are traveling.
- 7:55Speaker 2: They're not just American.
- 7:57Speaker 3: There's hunger and thirst for them everywhere.
- 7:59Speaker 2: Even while I was.
- 8:00Speaker 3: In Brazil, the amount of wholesome were spiritually driven or
- 8:04Speaker 3: faith in content that's being shown there is off the charts.
- 8:08Speaker 3: So I would say those are the two biggest contributing
- 8:10Speaker 3: factors that I think. Also our filmmakers, who happened to
- 8:14Speaker 3: be people of faith are being a little bit more
- 8:17Speaker 3: disciplined in learning their craft and wanting to make sure
- 8:21Speaker 3: that what's on the page is excellent, good enough to
- 8:25Speaker 3: elicit response from critically acclaimed actors that we typically would
- 8:29Speaker 3: not see in these kind of stories, and that only helps,
- 8:32Speaker 3: you know, bring in a bigger audience.
- 8:34Speaker 2: Absolutely, And you mentioned Brazil.
- 8:37Speaker 1: Brazil was is one of the biggest viewers of the
- 8:40Speaker 1: chosen From my understanding, it was number two worldwide for
- 8:43Speaker 1: the for the longest time. And I know that Kindrick Brothers,
- 8:46Speaker 1: who are good friends of mine there they were I think,
- 8:49Speaker 1: down in Brazil making a movie in the past year.
- 8:52Speaker 1: So it's it's how we need hope all around the world.
- 8:56Speaker 1: I think that that's what that's what we're saying here.
- 8:57Speaker 1: Of course, it's the hope of Christ, but these movies
- 8:59Speaker 1: that portray that hope also help as well. You are
- 9:03Speaker 1: a person of faith, Celio, what part does your faith
- 9:06Speaker 1: play in these roles that you take? It seems like
- 9:08Speaker 1: you land in a lot of movies that have hope
- 9:11Speaker 1: in them.
- 9:22Speaker 3: I have the last few years. You know, I've been
- 9:25Speaker 3: literally doing this since the Last Supper. I've been at
- 9:27Speaker 3: it a long time. This is my fourth decade. I
- 9:29Speaker 3: started in the early nineties, mostly with thriller's action thrillers,
- 9:34Speaker 3: very kind of successful series on the critical side, but
- 9:38Speaker 3: have nothing to do with any sort of faith. The
- 9:41Speaker 3: last few years, I feel God has just been pulling
- 9:43Speaker 3: me into them. The projects find me, and to the
- 9:47Speaker 3: first part of your question, it's given me a much
- 9:50Speaker 3: more kind of discerning I in terms of what I engaging.
- 9:56Speaker 3: In the past, I'd said yes to a lot of
- 9:58Speaker 3: projects I had no business. I do regret some of those,
- 10:02Speaker 3: especially while my my child was growing up, but we
- 10:06Speaker 3: have to provide and and in retrospect, I do wish
- 10:10Speaker 3: on some of them i'd made better choices. Now my
- 10:12Speaker 3: child is an eighteen year old and she gets to
- 10:14Speaker 3: make fun of my nose. On screen, so it's it's
- 10:16Speaker 3: it's okay.
- 10:17Speaker 1: Wells really don't need to imply that that we should
- 10:19Speaker 1: only be in movies that provide hope through Christ. I mean,
- 10:23Speaker 1: you know, I I enjoy movies that have nothing to
- 10:26Speaker 1: do with Jesus. I was watching to Spika with me
- 10:28Speaker 1: last night with my with my kiddo. Although that has
- 10:31Speaker 1: some good values in it as well, I would argue
- 10:32Speaker 1: it's it's a pro adoption film.
- 10:35Speaker 2: Let's let's talk. Let's let's talk. Let's talk about let's
- 10:38Speaker 2: talk about your early role and the Chosen. That's yes,
- 10:42Speaker 2: that's just it.
- 10:43Speaker 1: It's amazing to talk to someone who was there from
- 10:46Speaker 1: the get go, which you were, and now this thing
- 10:49Speaker 1: is worldwide, it's a it's viewed by it's been viewed
- 10:53Speaker 1: by just one hundreds of millions of people worldwide, people
- 10:56Speaker 1: from Wolpe Guildberg to tuck her Carlson, like the Chosen,
- 11:00Speaker 1: and those who wouldn't agree on anything.
- 11:04Speaker 2: It's incredible. It's incredible to see.
- 11:06Speaker 1: Though, take us back to the early days and what
- 11:09Speaker 1: was your role then and what do you remember about
- 11:12Speaker 1: those days?
- 11:13Speaker 2: Do you have any sense that it can be anything big?
- 11:17Speaker 3: There's a lot of nostalgia that comes up because I
- 11:21Speaker 3: was part of a short film called The Two Thieves
- 11:23Speaker 3: or Once We Were Slaves about the perspective of the
- 11:26Speaker 3: Crucifixion from the Two Thieves point of view, which again
- 11:30Speaker 3: Dallas is very nuanced in what he does. I think
- 11:32Speaker 3: that's a remarkable gift he's been given. That kind of
- 11:37Speaker 3: paved the way was the birth pangs, and he has
- 11:39Speaker 3: said that of the Chosen coming to fruition, I portrayed
- 11:44Speaker 3: the good thief on the Cross. Jonathan Roumy, who plays Jesus,
- 11:47Speaker 3: portrayed the Lord in that and Jonathan, excuse me, Dallas
- 11:51Speaker 3: had reached out to me. I believe it was twenty
- 11:55Speaker 3: seventeen or twenty eighteen with a role on the Chosen,
- 11:59Speaker 3: a different role than the Moses role. He said, I
- 12:02Speaker 3: have something I want you to look at. Excuse me,
- 12:05Speaker 3: I'm lying. I did not tell him I received an
- 12:07Speaker 3: appointment for it. Then he found out I had to
- 12:11Speaker 3: pass on the film he call on the series because
- 12:15Speaker 3: I've been contracted to do Infidel in Jordan. I have
- 12:18Speaker 3: no idea something else will come back up, and he said,
- 12:20Speaker 3: don't worry about it, Stellio, We'll find something else for you.
- 12:23Speaker 3: I'm in Jordan. I go to all of the architectural
- 12:25Speaker 3: biblical sites, which I'm fascinated by. I go and see
- 12:28Speaker 3: gets Semine in the Holy Land. I take my wife
- 12:31Speaker 3: and daughter to Mount Nebo, where Moses is buried.
- 12:34Speaker 2: It was very emotional for me.
- 12:36Speaker 3: I see the Holy Land, and I know that that's
- 12:38Speaker 3: the last thing that Moses saw before he passed. According
- 12:42Speaker 3: to his word, the Lord's work, Moses didn't get to
- 12:45Speaker 3: go in. I think that's not only because he was
- 12:48Speaker 3: disobedient and struck the rock, but because Moses represented the law.
- 12:51Speaker 3: The lonely gets you so far. Jesus is what takes
- 12:56Speaker 3: us to the Promised Land. He literally walks us in
- 12:59Speaker 3: or walks us through there so it would be the
- 13:02Speaker 3: New Testament. And I get very emotional. I have photos
- 13:06Speaker 3: under the snake in the poll, not the original because
- 13:08Speaker 3: that was destroyed. My wife and daughter and I see
- 13:13Speaker 3: the museum. I come back about three months go by.
- 13:17Speaker 3: Michael Dallas calls me up, says, I have a very
- 13:19Speaker 3: iconic role for you. I'd really prefer if you didn't
- 13:21Speaker 3: say no. I read it. It's Moses, and it feels
- 13:26Speaker 3: like God had qualified a certain part of that for me.
- 13:30Speaker 3: My grandfather also survived the Holocaust Jewish believer by moving
- 13:35Speaker 3: to South Africa. My mother's a Christian via she's a
- 13:39Speaker 3: Messianic Jews, so a lot of personal attachment to that role.
- 13:45Speaker 3: And I don't know how much of an inkling we'd
- 13:49Speaker 3: have of the success of it, but we do know
- 13:52Speaker 3: that it was the most successfully publicly funded project of
- 13:55Speaker 3: all time. I think they raised record sums at the time,
- 13:58Speaker 3: it was somewhere between maybe sixteen and twenty mili, so
- 14:01Speaker 3: we knew the audience was there, but now to see
- 14:04Speaker 3: you know it going into season seven is just remarkable.
- 14:10Speaker 1: One final question for you about The Chosen. What are
- 14:13Speaker 1: your thoughts on it's popularity. We've had projects about christ
- 14:17Speaker 1: before and they did okay at the box office, and
- 14:22Speaker 1: you know, some people watch them, but it wasn't to
- 14:24Speaker 1: this level.
- 14:25Speaker 2: What is taken into another level? What's been the difference
- 14:29Speaker 2: with The Chosen?
- 14:30Speaker 3: You know, that's a great That is a great question
- 14:35Speaker 3: I know I can answer for myself. Yeah, and I
- 14:39Speaker 3: think it goes back to Dallas's gift. When Dallas wrote
- 14:43Speaker 3: The Chosen, he made a statement about it and he said,
- 14:48Speaker 3: other projects about the Lord have always been told from
- 14:51Speaker 3: Jesus perspective. The key with the Chosen is it's from
- 14:55Speaker 3: the perspective of the people who knew, spend time with,
- 14:59Speaker 3: were influenced in moved by the Lord, and it's filmed
- 15:03Speaker 3: that way. Literally, it is framed that way, and I
- 15:07Speaker 3: think it feels more personal, and we get to see
- 15:09Speaker 3: Jesus the man and what he suffered and what his
- 15:14Speaker 3: struggles were and what his victories are because of it.
- 15:18Speaker 3: But we also, from those people's perspective, get to understand
- 15:23Speaker 3: where his impact can be applicable to us personally because
- 15:27Speaker 3: it's told that way. So I am not Dallas's publicist,
- 15:31Speaker 3: but I would give him credit for that. I agree
- 15:34Speaker 3: with everything you said.
- 15:35Speaker 1: I think when I watched The Jose that I see
- 15:36Speaker 1: myself through those characters, and so when when christ is
- 15:40Speaker 1: talking to one of them, I feel like I feel
- 15:42Speaker 1: like it's a word for me, you know, And so
- 15:46Speaker 1: we can see ourselves in those characters. You know, we
- 15:49Speaker 1: are Peter, we are Mary Magdalen. Yeah, so I think
- 15:52Speaker 1: you're exactly, absolutely exactly right. Let's go to go back
- 15:55Speaker 1: to Hazel's Heart, which is now on Angel Angel platform
- 15:58Speaker 1: as well as video owned. Man Give Me One or
- 16:01Speaker 1: two maybe lessons from that film that you want families
- 16:05Speaker 1: to take away from it.
- 16:06Speaker 3: You know, Hazel's heart is filled with them. There are
- 16:09Speaker 3: a lot of young characters in the film. The lead
- 16:12Speaker 3: is Hazel played by Madeline Dundan, who was just outstanding
- 16:17Speaker 3: showed wisdom beyond her years in the role. I think
- 16:19Speaker 3: the lessons are that in those moments that come we
- 16:25Speaker 3: all face them, we lose family members, we go through hardship,
- 16:30Speaker 3: we have to have something to lean on because the
- 16:33Speaker 3: decisions we make when stakes are high can have life
- 16:37Speaker 3: altering consequences. That doesn't mean bad, It just means that
- 16:43Speaker 3: in those moments we have to be very careful how
- 16:46Speaker 3: we choose. I also think that Hazel's heart has a
- 16:50Speaker 3: very redeeming quality of hope because it's not about how
- 16:55Speaker 3: long your life burns, it's about how brightly the flame flickers.
- 17:00Speaker 3: So while you have an opportunity to serve others and
- 17:02Speaker 3: do something in your life, step into that.
- 17:05Speaker 2: It's so much more rewarding to give than to receive.
- 17:08Speaker 3: And that's not just a Christmas time, it's every day
- 17:12Speaker 3: with every person we meet. Your smile could make a
- 17:16Speaker 3: difference on a day in someone's life when they were
- 17:18Speaker 3: going to take their life. I'm in an industry where
- 17:22Speaker 3: depression is rampant, and those opportunities that we have are paramount,
- 17:30Speaker 3: So I think those are the two things that come
- 17:32Speaker 3: from that discernment about making choices and giving people hope.
- 17:39Speaker 1: If you like today's episode, please subscribe and leave a
- 17:42Speaker 1: five star review.
- 17:43Speaker 3: That's how we help more people just like you find
- 17:46Speaker 3: the show.
- 17:46Speaker 2: A big thanks to the team at life.
- 17:48Speaker 3: Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast.
- 17:51Speaker 2: If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you.
- 17:53Speaker 1: Will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network.
- 17:57Speaker 2: See you next time
- 18:00Speaker 1: And