In My Search for the 'Apostle', I Found My Faith

By Robert Duvall

As appeared in

I've been an actor all my working life, and learning a part has always meant more than just memorizing my lines. I immerse myself in the character I am to play. I find out everything I can about who he is, the world he comes from, his dreams, his fears, his passion, his humanity. I try to transform myself. A remarkable thing can happen in this process. Many times I discover something new about myself. Sometimes it is a discovery that changes my life.

In my current movie, which I also wrote and directed, I play a troubled preacher who calls himself The Apostle. For years I have wanted to make this film. It's been a labor of love, and it began in 1962 when I prepared to play a character from the rural South in an off-Broadway play. To research the role I traveled to Hughes, Arkansas. Wandering the streets of the sleepy Delta town, hanging out in the coffee shop and the post office, I hoped to learn something about my character from the way a man tipped his hat or drawled the directions to the local hotel. But what I never expected to find was something that would change how I looked at religion.

One Sunday as I strolled down the main drag I noticed people flocking to a simple white clapboard building, the local Pentecostal church. All sorts of folks, young and old, were going inside, where I could hear the clink of tambourines, the rap of a snare drum and organ music rising. Might as well check this out, I thought. I slipped in and sat in back.

I grew up in a churchgoing Navy family. During World War II we lived in Annapolis, Maryland., while Dad commanded a destroyer escort in the North Atlantic, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with German U-boats. Occasionally Mom woke up in the middle of the night with the overwhelming urge to pray for him. One morning at the breakfast table she told us of the trouble she had sensed Dad was in. Later we learned he had narrowly escaped being blown sky-high by a German torpedo during the night.

So I knew about the inner life of the Spirit, but I had never seen such an extraordinary outward expression of faith as I witnessed in that Pentecostal church. I had never seen church like that. People could barely contain the joy of their faith. Their faces were alive with it, imbued. Folks were on their feet, singing praise and clapping, shouting to God! The air crackled with the Spirit. It was nearly impossible to be a mere observer. I wanted to sing and shout with them. I couldn't explain it, but I knew the people in that church had a gift, a story to share. Somehow, someday, I would tell that story.

Soon after, my career boomed. I started working in movies, dozens of them, from To Kill a Mockingbird to The Godfather. I was fortunate to get some excellent roles. I wrote and directed a couple of films. Yet my interest in Pentecostalism never waned, incubating until I could figure out what to do with it.

Then in 1981 I was cast as an evangelical preacher in a movie called The Kingdom. Again I immersed myself in my role. I made trips to small country churches all over the heartland, seeking out the incredible power of expressed faith I had felt in Hughes, soaking up all I could. But after months of preparation, the film was canceled. I wondered what I would do with all I had learned.

In 1983 I won an Oscar for my portrayal of a down-and-out country singer who finds salvation in the film Tender Mercies. After I was named Best Actor, I expected the offers to flood in. But my telephone was surprisingly quiet. There was a lull in my usually busy schedule.