Dennis Quaid, Lori Loughlin, Greg Laurie Talk Impact of Inspirational Movies at Movieguide® Awards
By Movieguide® Contributor
Hollywood stars Dennis Quaid, Lori Loughlin and pastor Greg Laurie shared their appreciation for faith-based, inspirational movies at the 31st Annual Movieguide® Faith & Values Awards Gala.
“It was really fun,” Quaid said after his performance at the awards. “It was a really great audience for those two particular songs.”
Movieguide® reported on the performance:
“The unforgettable evening included a captivating musical performance by Dennis Quaid, kicked off by calling his good friend and actor Kris Kristofferson on the phone:
“I am singing two songs for you tonight that they both have to do with Kris Kristofferson, who was the biggest box office star in 1974, 1975, and 1976, and I thought before I do this song I thought we could all call him,” as Quaid proceeded, he had the audience join him in saying ‘We love you Kris!’”
Quaid also received the Movieguide® Grace Prize® and Teddy Bear Award® for his role in ON A WING AND A PRAYER. He appreciates that Movieguide® highlights “inspirational” content.
“I just love this genre of films, the inspirational face,” he said. “It’s a platform, and it’s a place to testify and to tell these incredible inspirational stories that people need to hear. I think especially this world today and glad an avenue’s been opened up for them.”
THE PARENT TRAP actor grew up as a Baptist in Texas and admits his faith deepened after he faced challenges in his life.
“You know, I’ve gone away and come back and all that, but you know…that’s what life is,” Quaid told Movieguide®. “It’s a refining, I guess.”
“You know, if you survive those things, it does, and you know it’s really, in the end, what really came to me was about having a personal relationship with Jesus, and that’s what I came to find what it was really all about,” he shared.
WHEN CALLS THE HEART actress Lori Loughlin executive produced and starred in A CHRISTMAS BLESSING. She also won a Grace Prize® and a Teddy Bear Award® for her role.
“I’m just so honored and so surprised,” she said about winning her awards, “but the movie really meant a lot to me because it was really based on the volunteer work I do at Project Angel Food, and I spoke to Alfonso Moreno, and I was just telling him my experience being at Project Angel Food and how it feels so good to be part of a charity and giving back,” she said about the movie’s writer and co-executive producer. “But what you realize is you’re getting so much more in return.”
Loughlin said previously that her work with Project Angel Food has “been one of the most rewarding experiences” of her life.
“That was the epiphany I had in the middle of all the work I was doing there, and… it just brought me so much joy, and I told Al…from that germ of an idea, he just created the most beautiful movie,” she said. “So it really means a lot to me, this movie, and to get an award for it is the icing on the cake.”
Loughlin shared that it’s important for everyone to be involved in good things.
“We’re all here, you know, on this journey called life. We’re all flawed. We all make mistakes,” she said.
“We all need grace,” she continued. “We all need love. We all need forgiveness. We need kindness. We need uplifting.”
For Loughlin, life is too brief to not make positive impacts.
“I think that’s what it’s all about, and in a world where we just see a lot of negativity, you know, pushed out by social media or media, it’s important to remember that we’re here for a short period of time,” she said.
“Lead with love. Be kind. Be good. You never know when you’re going to stumble and fall and need a hand to help you up,” she said.
JESUS REVOLUTION, the story of how Pastor Greg Laurie helped start a spiritual awakening in the 1970s, won the title of Best Movie for Mature Audiences and a Teddy Bear Award®.
“It’s kind of surreal, honestly, to see your story told on the big screen like that,” Laurie said at the Awards Gala. “But I knew when I got to know Jon [Erwin], I could trust him with my story, and it’s funny because…in a movie, things are compressed, and some things are changed, and after watching it come together, I said I like your version of my life better than my version. So I think he and the team here, these guys, did an amazing job.”
“But the most important thing is seeing the impact [on] audiences and lives, like actually people coming to faith in Christ, and that’s what I got really excited about,” he said.
Laurie believes that the same cultural things that happened in the 1970s are present today, too.
“There is no other time in history that more closely parallels the present,” he told Fox News last year.
“I think it’s so time for [another revolution], and you know our hope was by telling a revival story that it could inspire another revival story, and I really feel like the ’70s, the early ’70s, and today are so parallel,” he explained at the Movieguide® Awards. “I’ve been around for a while; I’m 71. I wouldn’t say that of the ’80s and ’90s, the 2000s. The early ’70s and today’s culture are so similar, and what happened what changed everything was the spiritual awakening, and we’re really needing one today.”
