Nell Minow: October 2008 Archives

You are involved in such a wide range of projects as an actor, director, and activist. Why did you decide to play a supporting role in this movie for kids?

It's nice to be in a movie that is not talking down to kids. I've had years and years of frustration as a parent with all the lowest common denominator movies. This one has a great heart to it. It is a larger example of the idea of hope for a new generation. Intrinsically, the new generation knows things need to be changed and they can find a way to do it.

One of the things that is unusual about this story is that the children get no help from the grown-ups. In most movies with children as the main character at least one adult is there to give them some explanations and advice.

It has to be the new generation; if they listen to adults, they won't do it.

You are an experienced director but here you were directed by Gil Kenan, a young man with only one small animated film to his credit before taking on this enormous project. What made you trust him?

I was excited to work with him. I am always interested first in the script -- is it a story? What I liked about him was that he had a very clear vision of what he wanted and the selling point was his optimism and spirit.

Any number of directors could have made this bleak and dark and foreboding. He constantly found he light. His objective was a world of hope in the eyes of the children. It is easier to make a story where everybody dies in the end. People think that is artistic or cool. But he transcended all of that and found the universal in the idea that was at the end of "The Shawshank Redemption" -- there is a place on the beach for all of us, and if we hold onto the light in each of us, we'll be there.

The most important moment in Bill Maher's new documentary about the dangers and hypocrisy of religion is at the conclusion of his visit to a tiny trucker's chapel. As he does throughout the movie Maher challenges the very notion of faith. One of the worshipers is so offended he walks out. But another explains he had once worshiped Satan and lived a life of carnal pleasures until he found Jesus. Maher of course shakes his head in disbelief that anyone would find that an improvement. But they pray together, or at least Maher stands in a prayer circle and listens as the others pray, thanking God for Maher's visit, for allowing them to hear the voices of others. And then, as they say goodbye, Maher says, "Thank you for being Christ-like and not just Christian."