George Escobar Talks about the Inspiration Behind the Film “Hero”

In the movie Hero, just released on DVD, producer George Escobar explores the vital, healing role fathers play in the lives of their children. Sonoma Christian Home Magazine recently caught up with Mr. Escobar for a conversation about fathers and sons, baseball and faith.

“The simple act of  a dad playing catch with his son can score big in the heart of a child,” explains Escobar.

“The sound of the catch itself, the ball hitting the mitt—it’s got a very special sound that you always remember. And every time you hear that sound played by other people, you recall the days that you played catch with your children or the children played with their dad. That creates positive mental real estate for memories. If dads just start playing catch with their sons, a lot of good things can happen.”

The story of Hero follows Joe Finn as he struggles to repair his tense relationship with his son, David. While co-leading his son’s little league baseball team, Joe begins to challenge other dads to spend time helping their sons practice. Despite many rough obstacles, Joe unrelentingly pursues a restored relationship with his son and ends up strengthening the town’s ties through his baseball team.

The film’s message is emotionally charged and rejuvenating with its blend of drama and comedy. SCH Contributor Kathryn Sommers reports.

Andrea Powell (ENDERS GAME) stars as “Mrs. Heller,” cheering on her son, Sammy, to win the game in HERO; Photo Courtesy of Advent Film Group.

SCH: Why did you pick this film to produce?

GE: Manny Edwards (the director of Hero) and I were at a film conference, and we had just finished Come What May. We were putting it up for distribution, and we wanted to figure out what we wanted to do next. It really boiled down to the fact that we both loved baseball and that our sons were becoming interested in the game. I thought it would be a good way to connect with my own sons. My youngest son, Vincent, was the one that was most interested in playing, and he just asked me to play catch with him in the spring.

Of course, I said yes. My middle son, Steven, did not like baseball because he got beaned (hit hard in the head) several years back and developed a dislike for it. But as Steven saw Vincent and me really enjoying it, just a few days later he asked me—and it almost causes me to tear up because I’ll never forget it— “Dad, can we play catch?”

That really broke some barriers there, in bringing us closer together as well as him beginning to pick up the game again. So that was a really good personal testament and testimony that yes, if dads just start playing catch with their sons, a lot of good things can happen.

SCH: What is it about baseball and about playing catch that really unites father and son?

Justin Miles stars as “David Finn”, Burgess Jenkins (REMEMBER THE TITANS) stars as “Coach Joe Finn” (David’s dad in the movie), and Mark Joy (THE ULTIMATE GIFT) is “Coach Fred”; Photo Courtesy of Advent Film Group.

GE: I think it’s this exchange: you’re physically throwing something that somebody is going to catch. It sounds like it’s something really simple, and it is, but you are making a physical connection by throwing that ball around, because you’re trusting that that person is going to throw it so that you can catch it.

As you’re playing catch you’re also talking, and you are telling somebody, “I’m going to throw you a fastball,” or “I’m going to throw a strike,” or “I want you to catch this pop fly,” and there’s a little bit of a challenge on both the person throwing it, how accurate he can throw it, and the other person receiving it, how well he can actually catch it.

And for guys in particular (I’m not saying it’s exclusively for guys), that begins the dialogue of other subjects, perhaps that you can talk about while you’re playing catch.

SCH: In the movie, Joe Finn really inspired the fathers to be at their sons’ practices and to help them practice. What does it mean for a dad to be there for his kids?

Gregory Alan Williams (TV’s NECESSARY ROUGHNESS) stars as “Kent Redding” the local prison warden who finally resets his priority and goes to see his son; Photo Courtesy of Advent Film Group.

GE: To me it means having or looking and finding those things that they can do together. It doesn’t have to be playing baseball: maybe it’s building model kits. People used to do that all the time instead of playing video games. I guess you could play cards or board games or put a puzzle together, especially with younger children. What it really boils down to is that for a child, they know their dad is willing to take time to be with them and that they are having a moment in each other’s lives where they’re just there for each other.

SCH: For audience members whose parents maybe aren’t like Joe Finn, how do we encourage the fathers we know to be more engaged?

GE: I think the dads that are like Joe Finn just need to be out there to model and mentor and set an example. Hopefully with a movie like Hero— which doesn’t beat you over the head to be a good father—people will see this and will want to share the movie because it’s a soft and entertaining way to get the point across. That’s another reason for the movie: you can lecture someone, but you have to touch their heart, and we hope that’s what Hero does. Moms are having to take on that role of fathers.

Blaine Goodwin stars as Mark Redding, surprised and pleased to finally see his dad attend one of his baseball team practices; Photo Courtesy of Advent Film Group.

We’re hoping that men who have some available time, or older boys who are coaching the team could come alongside a younger kid and help them, not to replace their fathers but rather to show that somebody else cares enough to help you improve your hitting and your pitching. I think for a lot of kids, you don’t have to reform their entire life. It’s just the little things that begin to add up and change people’s attitude.

SCH: Obviously, Hero focuses on the family unit. Do you think that God primarily works through families?

GE: I think God works most effectively through family units because there’s order there: there is that direct relationship the children can see very readily. A lot of our impressions of God really come from our relationships with parents because they are effectively trusted by God to take care of the children.

I’m not saying that every parent will be perfect, but they need to strive for that. And I think, more and more, people are beginning to realize that entrusting their kids to others—public school or daycare or other organizations—isn’t going to be as effective as parents who commit some time to being with their children or their families.

One of the Gapper’s best hitters, “Sammy” is played by Nicholas Edwards. The final showdown with the Sharks brings a surprise for Sammy and the Gappers team; Photo Courtesy of Advent Film Group.

SCH: What was it about Joe Finn that made other people listen to him? Do you think it was his testimony, or do you think there was more than that?

GE: Well, he has everybody’s respect at one point because he was a winner. We didn’t want to be specific as to all the reasons that he left and pursued his career, because we decided that if we did that then people in the audience would say, “I’m not like that because I didn’t do that.” By keeping it ambiguous you can sort of pose or plant your own weaknesses onto the characters.

Even though people remember what Joe was like, now that he’s come back and they see that he is trying to reach out to his son, it is very convicting for the other men in the community.

Certainly one of the interesting characters is Winston Heller, because even though he’s incarcerated he becomes the first free man in his community. He’s the first one who says, “I’ll do what it takes to connect to my son even though I’m in jail.” You know, Winston can’t even hold his son, can’t even embrace him because he’s behind bars or walls or fences, and yet these other men have no excuse. If Winston can do what he’s doing, then all of us can do much better than we’re doing.

Jim McKeny as “Hank”, Dean Slate (team trainer), and Fred Griffith as “Coach Bill” of the Sharks youth baseball team; Photo Courtesy of Advent Film Group.

SCH: How have Winston and Joe inspired you in your own life?

GE: It’s a daily conviction. I see this movie, and it’s like, “Oh, I better start living up to what we’re trying to show in this movie.” I’m not always successful. There’s a lot of busyness in our lives as filmmakers too. I’ve been very fortunate that as we make these films it’s a great opportunity to be with my sons because they work on the movies with me for ten months on end. A lot of fathers don’t get that chance, so it’s a bonus.

It means I’m able to go to them and give them a hug. We eat together, to save money. We’re all in the same hotel room. At the end of a long day, we’re all exhausted so we just crash in the room, get up in the morning, go to the set again. We’ll always have those memories of making these films together. They’ve worked on all the films that we’ve made so far, so that’s been great.

Burgess Jenkins (REMEMBER THE TITANS) stars in the leading role of “Joe Finn,” a father looking to rebuild his relationship with his son and community through baseball, the game they love; Photo by Advent Film Group.

SCH: How did you see God working in and through your film?

GE: We had a mixed cast and crew: some were believers and some were not. I think there was a good piece of unity between all the cast and crewmembers. And having a film which focuses on relationships with fathers and sons, ultimately with God the father, affected some of the cast members because years later, some of them—not all of them—became believers. Now, I don’t know whether it was a result of working on Hero, but certainly that helped to plant some seeds.

SCH: You mentioned that the relationship between Joe and David Finn, father and son, was a reflection of our relationship with God; was that a conscious decision throughout the film?

GE: Oh yeah, definitely. I hope it’s evident in the fact that David is upset and doesn’t want anything to do with the father, but his father never gives up; he continues to pursue his son, which is exactly what God does for us. Sometimes we’re at our arms’ length, or we close the door. As you saw in the movie, he literally shuts the door in his father’s face; his father opens that door and doesn’t barge in, but rather says, “I’m here; I’m not going to go away.”

Prison guards Jerry Adams (L) and Timothy Mark Sayles (right) watch inmate Keith Harris (BIG FISH) starring as former minor league baseball legend, “Winston Heller”; Photo Courtesy of Advent Film Group.

SCH:  Hero doesn’t hit people over the head with a lecture but delivers a moral message through story. Could you tell us more about that?

GE: One of the difficulties in making faith films is the criticism mainly that it’s either too preachy or too wholesome (so people don’t have faults), or sometimes they go on the other side where people are into really bad things like drugs, alcohol, life of crime, and then there is that moment called the come-to-Jesus moment. I don’t want to sound critical of films that are highly evangelistic because I love those films. I think they need to be made, and I think they are very, very powerful and useful types of films.

On the other hand, I think we need to respect the spectrum of stories that God gives us, and some stories are more meant to begin to plant the seeds that can then be harvested later by your highly evangelistic films. So for us, it’s important to tell stories, number one, that show Christians working through their life, although they’re not perfect, and they cry out to God: they need that relationship with Him.

(L to R) Sam Dubin, Burgess Jenkins, Kenny Hinkle, Nicholas Edwards, Justin Miles, Mark Joy; Photo Courtesy of Advent Film Group.

We also need to show non-believers in positive light with the difficulties they’re facing. It’s that interaction between believers and non-believers typically is what creates the drama in the film that we’ve made. And we like to show the way that God works. Let’s look at one of the best examples in the movie Hero. David, about three-quarters of the way in the movie, finally explodes because his dad accuses him of how they’ve mishandled these kids and how they’re fighting, and then David gets upset with his father. But Fred disciplines David and tells him to sit down, and essentially he’s benched.

I love what he says to him explaining that parents aren’t going to be perfect. “Honor thy father and mother doesn’t have the stipulation of their being perfect.” It’s those kinds of moments that I think audiences can see biblical wisdom without it being too preachy and also shows our frailty in how we need to really examine what we believe and why we believe it.

In a concise statement, I’d have to say that stories that cause you to understand, explore, investigate the nature of who God is and make incredible drama and powerful storytelling, rather than exploring yourself. Those movies are all about self-actualization, self-realization, all about you. You just need to figure out who God is.

SCH: What would you say is the main challenge for a person making faith-based films?

GE: Well, there are so many challenges. Here, to me, is the biggest challenge that the film industry is facing: you have legions of both young and veteran filmmakers that are really working very hard to perfect the craft and get better and better and better. Yet, you have audiences that are saying, “Hey, we really like these movies that are coming out,” especially when they’re well done. The biggest problem is the Christians who have the means to help finance these movies.

The secular world, they’ll spend billions of dollars in investment funds to get secular films made because they realize how important it is. And the Christians who are wealthy, they’re not aware. They haven’t educated themselves that on the fact that we need to invest in more than just politics. We need to invest in film, because that’s what really affects whether people vote a certain way or not, more so than any political campaign. And so that’s where our problem is, lack of understanding from the investment side of Christians. Rich Christians focus their money on things that are far less important.

You can’t blame them, because they just don’t think about it, and not enough writers write articles about it, frankly. But just to give you an example: there’s a company called Relativity Media that over the last decade, from hedge funds and Wall Street money, has put in twenty billion dollars to make Hollywood films. There’s nothing even coming close to that in the Christian side. The filmmakers like myself, we have to scrape and crawl and beg while other filmmakers have a source of funds that are in the billions. So where are the Christian investors? They just don’t know, so we just need to educate them.

See the trailer below:

SCH: Corbin Bensen said that his films may be his words, but they are God’s brushstrokes. What are your thoughts on that as a filmmaker yourself?

GE: I like that. We think that every film that we’ve made so far and what we hope to make in the future are all really part of God’s story, and that’s part of our checklist. We always ask the question, “Whom is the story going to serve for God’s purposes, and where is God already working in people’s lives that would then be beneficiary by having this movie part of the message and the tools that they can use in their ministry?”

I think good entertainment that’s part of God’s mission has the double difficulty of trying to make it compelling and entertaining. If you succeed, it doubles the effectiveness in that it isn’t just pure entertainment, but that it really points to how God is working in people’s lives; and also how those who are commissioned by God, say, in fatherhood ministries or family ministries, God is providing tools, equipping that ministry by those filmmakers or by any person who is listening for God’s call to make their lives work for not just a product or service but for His purposes.

Whether or not your father was active and positive in your life, there is a Father who unrelentingly pursues you! George Escobar’s film Hero poignantly displays that kind of love, and challenges fathers to become more active in their children’s lives.

For more information on George Escobar’s films, or to order the movie Hero, check out Advent Film Group

Don’t miss SCH’s special article as Corbin Bernsen Reveals the Story Behind “Christian Mingle” the Movie