Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
April 17, 2002
Role as Christ-like figure makes actor examine life
Tony Goldwyn, star in `Joshua' title role, explains approach to part
By Mark Pattison
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The actor-director who portrays the title role in the upcoming film "Joshua," which opens in Denver April 19, said the role is another example of how playing fictional parts makes him "conscious of how you're living your own life."
"The reasons we do what we do, acting and entertaining, is to see how people live their lives. It makes you look at the approach to how you want to live" or what to avoid, said Tony Goldwyn in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service from New York City.
The G-rated "Joshua" will debut on the silver screen in April in select cities, expanding slowly to reach a nationwide audience.
Goldwyn said it does not bother him that the platform for the film is smaller than that of most mainstream films.
"I think it's a mistake releasing a movie to a wide opening before it gets a chance to prove itself," he said. "I never have perceived this (`Joshua') about being a big commercial movie."
"Joshua" is adapted from the mid-1980s novel by Father Joseph Girzone, a retired priest of the Diocese of Albany, N.Y. Joshua is a Christ-like figure who enters a town and turns it upside down with his good works and unselfish love.
The film also stars F. Murray Abraham and Kurt Fuller as two priests at odds with each other about Joshua; Colleen Camp as a beleaguered housewife and shopkeeper; Stacy Edwards as a television reporter who mistakes Joshua's kindness for something else; and Giancarlo Giannini as "the pope" — not Pope John Paul II — to whom Joshua reveals his true nature.
The movie's soundtrack features country music stars Brooks & Dunn and Jo Dee Messina, plus several top-name contemporary Christian recording acts, including Michael W. Smith, Jaci Velasquez, Third Day and Rachel Lampa.
Goldwyn, who is Jewish, said he had no qualms about playing Joshua with the message he brings.
"I didn't approach it as any kind of religious statement," he told CNS. "Where the character was coming from was a place of love rather than any particular denomination."
He noted how the screenplay differs from the book — and even the original draft of the movie script — in that the theological discourses that characterized the novel are largely absent from the movie.
"We changed it a lot," he recalled. "What Joe (Girzone) was writing about was more religious debate in the novel, where Joshua was getting into arguments of doctrine and theological argumentation."
While Goldwyn said he had read Father Girzone's book in preparation for his role, "I didn't want to get too caught up in the novels." Father Girzone has used the Joshua character in subsequent books.
"This is not to deny anything Father Joe had done," he added. "But I want to be a little careful of over-researching parts."
Goldwyn said Father Girzone visited the set for a couple of days.
"He's a great guy," Goldwyn said of the priest.
Filming for "Joshua" took place last May and June. Since then, Goldwyn has had a recurring role on the NBC comedy "Frasier."
Goldwyn, who won much acclaim for his directorial debut with "A Walk on the Moon" in 1999, has been developing projects he can direct. One concerns the story of Betty Ann Waters, whose brother was wrongly convicted of murder. Waters, a high school dropout, went back to school and worked her way through law school to exonerate her brother.
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