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How Dennis Quaid’s Mom Inspired His Return to Jesus

How Dennis Quaid’s Mom Inspired His Return to Jesus

By Movieguide® Contributor

Dennis Quaid is thankful to his mother for instilling faith in him at a young age.

In an interview with Life Today TV, the REAGAN actor shared his journey of following Jesus.

“I grew up in the Baptist Church in Houston,” Quaid began. “I think my mother had a great influence on me spiritually and very similar to Reagan,” he said, referencing the former president who he plays in the new biopic.

“My dad was an alcoholic as well but, you know, a great guy at the same time. I got disillusioned I think with what I call ‘churchianity’ in my teens… I started turning to different things, Eastern philosophy.”

Quaid explained how he explored Eastern religions, and PEOPLE reported last year that he read the Bhagavad Gita and the Quran. Decades later, though, he came back to the faith his mother taught him.

Movieguide® previously reported on how Quaid hit rock bottom before coming back to his faith:

Quaid managed to land major movie roles only a few years after moving to L.A. from his home state of Texas. As his fame grew, he began chasing drugs and alcohol to fill a growing hole in his heart. However, he never found peace and was constantly crying out to God for help.

After years of yelling at God, he was met with an image of himself at rock bottom, dead, alone or in jail.

This image shook Quaid and drove him to seek real help. He checked himself into rehab and, after months in a recovery center, began attending recovery meetings as he moved back to real life…

Quaid realized that Jesus’ teachings were the only ones that led him to actual answers rather than left him with more questions.

“I read the Bible again 20 years later. I came back to the red words of Jesus, and that’s what really brought me back because that was the beginning of what it was really all about, [which] was a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And that was the beginning of that. That’s what I have now and that’s you don’t need anything else with that,” he said.

Quaid’s latest project, a biopic about President Ronald Reagan, releases in theaters today.

“This [movie] is a great reminder…to people who lived it about what this country used to be and how great it still can be for those who were too young to know,” he told Movieguide®. “It reminds us we’re all Americans. This is our story, too.”

Part of Movieguide®’s review reads:

REAGAN stars Dennis Quaid as the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. It covers Reagan’s life from his childhood to his death. There’s a strong focus throughout the movie on Reagan’s lifelong fight against communism. The movie relates Reagan’s battle in the Screen Actors Guild against communist infiltration in the Hollywood unions in the late 1940s. It also details his battle against the Soviet Union’s communist tyranny in Germany and Eastern Europe. Included is Reagan’s dramatic demand that Soviet President Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall. In the end, Gorbachev let the people of Germany tear down the wall themselves in November 1989.

Dennis Quaid gives a bravura performance in REAGAN as the beloved President, union leader and movie star. He’s just as good during the more intimate scenes as he is in the iconic public scenes. He’s supported by a great cast, including Jon Voight as a KGB analyst who closely follows Reagan’s beliefs and behavior. The movie’s focus on Reagan’s fight against communism gives a strong narrative structure to REAGAN’s stirring story of faith and patriotism.


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