By India McCarty
SOUL ON FIRE stars Joel Courtney and John Corbett recently shared their hopes for what the movie inspires in its viewers.
“John is incredible,” Courtney, who played a young version of John O’Leary, the movie’s real-life subject, told Movieguide®. “Getting to know him just helped me so much to embody him and bring him to life, physically…it was a game-changer for me.”
O’Leary was just 9 years old when he sustained third-degree burns over 100% of his body. Doctors told his family he would not survive, but through faith and support from loved ones, O’Leary made a full recovery.
“His faith is extremely important to him and his whole family,” Courtney shared. “It’s been his daily decision to take the hand of God and to walk forward, to follow the path that’s been laid out for him.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDK8_VsBpIQ
Related: SOUL ON FIRE’s Cast and Crew Celebrate Movie’s Message: ‘Miracles Happen’
Corbett, who plays O’Leary’s father, got to meet Dennis O’Leary and said the pair “connected on a guy-to-guy level,” which helped him access the emotions he needed to portray a father watching his son go through something so difficult.
The actors also shared what they hope audiences take away from SOUL ON FIRE, with Courtney pointing to “a sense of hope and the ability to overcome anything that is holding you back in life, to inspire people to live more boldly.”
“Just a boldness and a love of life would be what I want people to take away,” he concluded.
Corbett added, “Look, a little boy wasn’t supposed to live more than 24 hours and he turned his life into something fantastic. And that shows you anything can happen if you just let it happen.”
In an interview with Deseret News, Masey McLain (Beth O’Leary) also shared her hopes for what viewers will take away from the movie.
“If you are stuck in a mundane or rut in your life, and you just are like, ‘What am I doing here on this earth?’ This film just will zap you out of that,” she said. “It’ll set you ablaze in your purpose.”
William H. Macy, who plays baseball announcer Jack Buck, told Fox News, “I find the world miraculous, the way it works. And I find human beings to be sometimes miraculous. I mean … that kid wasn’t supposed to live. He was burned over 95% of his body. He shouldn’t have survived the night.”
“I don’t think of it as a miracle as much as that [Buck] instilled [O’Leary] with faith,” he continued. “There’s a quote, and I thought it was in Ecclesiastes, and I can’t find it. But the definition of faith that I really liked is that that which is coming, all the adversities that are coming your way, you already have what you need to maneuver them, to get through them. You already have it. It’s in you.”
Catch SOUL ON FIRE in theaters now!
Read Next: Soul on Fire: Interview with John Corbett and Joel Courtney
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