I Can Only Imagine 2, Milo Ventimiglia interview

I mean I liked the first film. I got the script, I read the script and there's, you know, Brent McCorkle and the work that Andy Erwin did on this was just beautiful words on a page and I had this character that jumped off the page, Tim Timmons, that they were inviting me to come be a part of. And I'd seen the first film and I started listening to Tim's music and just having conversations with Andy and Brent, the directors, and I was like: "This is a group of people playing in the real world space of people who are all good". And a message of goodness, and a message of faith and struggle through hard times, but you're going to make it through the other end. And it just felt like something that was right and right in the moment of some hard times for me, some beautiful things for me, but I was kind of running toward the film and being a part of it rather than anything else; didn't need any convincing, it was just like: "No, this is a beautiful script and a beautiful role and I just want to be a part of it".

What Tim's faith does for him is give him the strength to move through those hard times, the grief. And within it also, he holds gratitude and that gratitude is just, it's almost like unhuman to be able to feel that level of love and give love to people. I hope people can take from Tim's story, you know, that whatever you're going through, you can move through it; you have the strength to move through it and, you know, by grace you can move through it.

So giving. Like, that was the one thing that, you know, everything he's experiencing in more than a 20-year bout of cancer, terminal cancer that still is eating away at him, he's still right there with you. He's positive, he's graceful, he's just... he's one of the most loving human beings I've ever come across.

We kind of look at everything out in the world, you know, the climate of the world, what happens, you know, across the globe and divisions that are there and apparent very clearly on the front page of our newspapers. I think people need to see goodness and they need it reflected from a story that they can relate to and something that is actually going to speak to whatever tough time they're going through and get them in the mood to find those connections where there aren't, you know? Work through that, put a little more goodness into the world versus a little salt and see what happens.

I mean it was all kind of, you know, set in the big speech where Tim on camera is talking about Horatio Spafford and the story and losing his daughters in a fire and all this. It was fresh off the heels of my wife and I losing our home in the fires in California, so, you know, a lot of that stuff really kind of was coming from my core. But then the whole overall of the film and how Tim lives and what he gives, that grace and goodness and everything, you know, it's hard not to let it even personally stay with me over time, you know, even a year and change after making the film and knowing him and experiencing all of that.

I mean look, I think this film is built for everybody. You know, that's something interesting too, you know, a faith-based film or a film that discusses faith and God and Jesus and any of that stuff. I think you can find the messaging and the goodness and the gratitude no matter what path in life you're walking, which is inspiring, you know? But I think also too, if this is right in line with your faith and your beliefs, I think you may hold it even a little tighter, you know, like the messaging and the people behind the filmmaking. But truly, I think anybody can walk into this film and understand the message of love and, you know, I don't know why you couldn't get behind that.