Everything you watch, read, or listen to is manipulating your energy.

You're being lied to about the world you live in.

You're being lied to about your history.

You're being lied to about who you really are.

Question everything.

All right, folks, welcome back to the Awaken Podcast.

I'm your host Brad Lee, and joining me on the show today is writer, actor, and director Dean Kane.

Dean and I had a great conversation about the portrayal of masculinity in the media and the importance of fathers and other positive role models in the child's life.

We also talked about his faith in God and the importance of protecting children.

Dean has a new movie out called Little Angels, which he wrote, directed, and starred in.

That's in theaters now and will be available for streaming July eighteenth on angel dot com.

You know we're in America.

Newslash Soccer's for girls.

I'm questionably talented but outspoken coach Jake Rogers, who is now out of a job.

I'm Charlie Martin and your athletic director, your boss.

You're suspended indefinitely.

You are to perform fifty hours of community service.

This is soccer.

I'm a football coach.

Oh where I come from, this is football.

You guys speak English.

We're girls, not guys.

Let me see what kind of athletes you are.

I want you guys to all run over that tree over there.

Chop job, you say, chop chopping is am Asian nice.

I don't have a whistle.

Are you on the team?

So I get the reject team off and soccer get off the field.

Coach, you really think you're a good coach, than prove it.

Turn your soccer team into winners.

Probably we got we gotta see rut your steamroller.

No more from you, coach.

Don't get thrown out?

Need you you need a coach, Jack.

Life is about more than just winning.

It's about having someone to share it with.

Being part of a team.

It's like being part of a family, win or lose.

I want to be part of this family.

Didn't thank you very much for joining me, Man, I appreciate it.

I'm honored to be here.

Brother.

It's been a long time.

It has, yes, sir, The last time I saw you, I believe, was at the Medal of Honor event at the Reagan Library in California.

Man, And you know that was like the probably like the highlight of my life because I got to hang out with you guys, and I got to hang out with, you know, a bunch of Medal of Honor recipients.

It was such an amazing night.

Well again, it's always a weird thing for a guy like me who played Superman to be among like real superhero types and being like, yeah, I feel stupid now.

This guy, you know, saved six hundred people from here and you know, was shot seven times and then still ran forty six miles and killed a buffalo, And I'm like, okay, well I jumped around on when tights on screen and got to kiss a pretty lady.

I think you win the hero card.

Do you remember how many Medal of Honor recipients were there that night?

By any chance, I think there.

Were dozens, Like literally, I think it was like yeah, but I remember seeing I don't know why the number fifty four sticks out, but that can't be right, But there were there were There were so many, and I remember, you know, I got to sit next to one of those gentlemen all night and just chat them up.

Here's some stories and unbelievable.

Later on that that evening, I went back.

I guess it was at the Four Seasons we were staying at and there was a bunch of those guys in the bar area, and I just went hung out with him that name, and it was just the best just listening the stories.

It was incredible.

Man, what an honor to be there with those guys.

And also, man, what an honor to be there with you and and the rest of the I don't want to call you guys conservative, because I don't think that's a fair thing to say for people who just care about our country and people who have good family values and Christian values.

But it does seem like it was all of those people who are very vocal in in you know, the Hollywood circles, I guess you could say, and very outspoken about religion and God and Christianity and you know, all the all the things that most Americans care about.

Right That's the.

Way I look at it, for sure.

But you know, whether that's considered conservative values or what, you know, Having grown up in California, it wasn't even thought to me.

I just thought those are the right things.

Family values were important because it was instilled in me from my family.

Religion was something else I found on my own.

It wasn't really a family a big family thing, you know, and then the idea, you know.

Early on when I started being an actor, my dad told me, don't even talk about anything, talk about as little as you can about yourself in these interviews and things, because as an actor, the less they know about you the better.

And it was you were able to do that back then for a while, but it just changed, and the world has changed where everybody has an opinion on everything.

And really, for me, when I started speaking out about things was when I had my son.

My son was born in two thousand and I had to fight a custody battle to get joint custody in my son, and that's when politics really started to make sense to me, to talk about things politically and about my faith and about right and wrong and those sorts of things, because I was exposed to it.

I had to fight for my my my child, for access to my child, to talk to my child, to have overnights with my child.

This is completely unfair because his mother and I weren't together, and it was unfair and it was unfair for fathers, and I thought, Okay, that doesn't make sense.

And ever since that time, I've been speaking up and speaking on issues, and supporting what I thought was worth supporting, supporting real heroes like those Medal of Honor winners, and and I just think it's for me.

It's just the right, the right thing to do.

I respect everybody.

I give everybody their peace.

And if you disagree political with politically with me, fine, I'll tell you why I feel this way.

But I'm not gonna hate you at the end of the day, unless you're wishing harm upon myself, my family, my my country, or or you know, you can.

You can wish ill about my God, but you'll I think you'll end up paying the price on that one, and it won't be me that makes you pay.

That's right.

Had a conversation with a friend of mine the other day.

He's got full custody of his son, and I was just we were having the conversation about how the mom doesn't have to pay much in child support, and it just doesn't seem fair that, you know, men are treated with a different you know, it feels like we're sort of the most important.

I think obviously mothers are very important too, but I feel like the father kind of sets the tone for the child, and you know, guides him in the right direction.

I can see my nine year old son doing and saying things that I do and say, so I have to watch what I'm saying.

I have to careful with the language I'm using, and things like that.

Those stories on that one.

You know what's really important about that, though, Bradley, is that when you look at the fatherless crisis in this country and around the world, it happens in a lot of other countries.

I've traveled to fifty six different countries and spent a lot of time in a lot of these countries and seeing some of the same problems, the Marxism and things they're against.

That nuclear family, the nuclear family is the biggest, strongest you know, I'm god family Country's those are That's the levels that I like to believe in and live my life by.

And family is so important.

But there needs to be a mother and a father.

I mean, that's the best thing for child as you have that nuclear family.

Marxists don't want that to be the case.

They want to indoctrinate your children and have them floating around.

I don't understand that.

So I do believe that mothers and fathers the most important thing for a child is to have both.

However, in my circumstance, I did want to have just joint custody.

I just wanted to be a fifty to fifty parent.

And it cost me a tremendous amount of money, a humongous amount of money and opportunity cost in the projects I couldn't take and the things that I had to turn down in order to stay and fight to be a dad, and unbelievable restraints on my time and the movies I could make and where I could go.

But I'm an adopted kid.

My dad stepped into my life and raised me from the age of four till today.

He lives five minutes away from me, and I can't put a value on how important his guidance and strength was for me.

And then my mother gave me other support in other ways.

And and you know, I look at some of my football games back in college, even televised games in college, and during the televised game, you can hear my mother screaming over the crowd.

It's unreal.

So but but you know, I think for the best balance for a child is to have both parents in their lives if they can.

And and I had to fight so hard to be in that situation, and I paid all she didn't work for, you know, twenty three years after our son was born and he's twenty five now, so you can do the math on that.

And I paid for everything, and I was also the one who was hamstrung, and so I wasn't fair.

In my opinion, I think it's highly slanted towards the mothers.

And I think unfortunately some of our policies and welfare policies today they penalize uh mothers for having fathers in the in the household, and and and and instead of encouraging that, our our policies have been the opposite to discourage that, especially in the black community.

I mean, I was a professional football players.

You know, I don't have a couple of black friends.

Most of my friends are black, and they were you know, I met their grandmothers and their mothers.

I didn't know many of their fathers.

But when I did know someone's father, that you know, that dude was solid as could be.

So there's a there's it's been encouraged, unfortunately, and for some reason in our our country, our society here for that because of I don't know whether it's welfare or what the specific thing is.

But you know, they're they they lose their their benefits and things.

So it should be changed where we encourage families to stay together.

Policies should help encourage that.

And I think that if we as a society place if someone's a father and and that's a good friend of mine and isn't around their kids, I don't really want to hang out with them that much because my son is my favorite person in the world and my best friend, and you know, my life is centered around you know again, God, family, country, So it did only makes sense for me to work that way, and I don't understand the ones who don't live that way.

Yeah, first of all, I didn't know you were adopted for whatever reason.

I guess I should have known that.

But my grandma, sir, you shouldn't have known.

My grandma used to keep foster kids and she adopted some a few kids as well, and she was the light of the world.

I mean when she was alive, she she I mean, she's just seen the people at her funeral was lines and lines for a mile around the block that comes here, because she put that light in people's lives.

And so yeah, I'm not.

I'm not disparaging women by no.

By no means I don't know.

Yeah, I'm saying that there's an energy balance, right, there's an energy balance for men and women that need to be there to balance the home out.

Yeah, it does.

It does almost feel like there is a divide.

Like it feels intentional.

You know, when you look at commercials, when you look at some movies, TV shows, it feels like the dad's always the goofball, that maybe he's not there.

There's you see it a lot in Disney movies.

There's always one parent in the Disney movies.

That kind of stuff.

This again, this isn't against Disney or anybody like that.

It just it Sometimes it feels intentional.

Do you think that there's some sort of intentional you know, they're trying to demasculate or emasculate.

I guess you could say the men in the homes and separate the families, divide the families.

Listen, when you're making a show, a television show or a film, very few things are done by happenstance.

It's all very intentional.

What you decide and how you want relationships to be, and the way you tell stories, whether it's based on your own experiences or the writer's experience or whatever, but it's very intentional.

Every decision is intentional.

So yeah, I think there's been a real focus on doing that.

That's why I make so many faith based movies and films that that support us.

You know, there's problems.

Everybody hasn't, but it supports you know, what I think are the right value values and morals that I want to teach my son.

There's movies or I wanted to watch because I wanted to learn a moral or a value or something of that nature.

It's good, you know, we my son and I, you know, he was growing up, we would watch Friday Night Lights the football.

Football was very important to me growing up, and I played forever and you can see my NFL helmet here and a college helmet there, and that stuff is a big part of who I am.

But we would watch that show, and you know that had a strong father at the core, which was great.

Kyle Chandler did a wonderful job.

My son used to joke with me, He's like, you remind me of Kyle Chandler, like in Friday Night Lights, but you just get mad at nothing.

I'm like dude, you'd be quiet, go to you.

It's not nothing.

There was a build up to what makes something somebody snap a little bit.

And he always thought it was funny when I got mad, and he got thought was funny when Kyle Chandler's character got mad.

But we would sit there and talk about those things as issues that were going on during the show.

And I think when you get hit with all the you know, the Cosby show, if you go back to when I was a kid, that was a strong nuclear family, you know, and that was great, and the dad did the things, the moms, those were great.

We don't seem to have many of those.

These I can't think of them, you know, I can't think of what it is.

So I think that when you see so many things where the man is weak or missing or whatever it is, I think it's a lot of it is intentional.

I think a lot of it.

Not every single time.

Sometimes it's just this happens to be a real story.

You look at the story you know of our vice president, our current vice president, the Hillbilly elergy.

You know, there were stories of drug abuse and alcohol abuse and you know, abandonment and stuff.

But there was a guy who pulled him up.

You know, the America is saying, pulled himself up by the bootstraps.

And look at him now, he's forty years old and he's the vice President of the United States.

A jar head, and that's right.

And you just have to have someone kind of guiding you and that and that's every time my son kind of steps over the boundaries, I kind of, you know, pushing back over the boundaries and go, hey, man, you need to go go in this direction.

And I had that, and you had that obviously in your life.

Man, I pushed the boundaries to find out what they were too.

I did this far as far as snack, okay, just as far as I can get.

Yeah.

That that's but it's important, man, And it's not talked about enough.

And I do feel like, you know, when you do talk about it.

It's anytime we get into a situation where when you're from the time you're a child, when you're when you're in school and things like that, you can you can have ailments and they tell you to suck it up, you know, deal with it.

You're a man, you're a boy.

You know you're gonna have to deal with it.

And you are constantly being told you're less Dan, and I don't know, it sounds like I'm kind of it sounds like I'm kind of being anti woman here.

I guess I'm just stop talking about it.

But it sounds like you're being pro man.

And yeah, you know, in that sense, just to be pro man, you don't have to be anti woman.

There's a thing these that you know, listen, there's a there's that term that flies around these days toculate toxic masculinity.

You know, Toxic masculinity is that is that guy that that Coastguard swimmer who saved one hundred and sixty five people uh in Texas during the fourth of July fifth of July floods.

That's toxic masculinity.

I'm sorry, but that's a hero period and the heroes.

If that's to toxic toxic masculinity, then then I'm all for it.

I mean, that's hero.

You need those men.

I'm all for chivalry and opening doors and that's what I do.

People don't want that, Okay, that's fine, but that's how I was raised, That's what I was taught.

I was taught man as a protector and a provider.

I think that's a natural role.

I embrace that.

I embrace it completely.

You know, nobody's perfect.

I'm by far from perfect, but you know, I'm pro man, I'm pro woman, you know.

And and I think that it's a weird time now because there's so much information out there and different things flying around in social media, these opinions, that opinion blah blah blahlah.

When you really get people together, I think the roles.

You know, I'm kind of a traditionalist in that, like you know, but I've dated very very very famous, very very independent strong I love a strong woman.

I love that, and I like an accomplished woman.

Someone doesn't have to be, but that tends to be who I've been attracted to in the past.

And but they're still very clearly defined roles within the relationship.

And that's just for me.

It's been traditional.

For other people that might be a different way.

But when you're constantly getting bombarded, I think it's hard for people to sort of find that.

I've watched my own son and his relationships and the way things have gone, and you get to go through it too.

My friend, you're just about ten fifteen years behind me, But that's it's it's amazing to watch.

These kids have to navigate that and it's with the social media and they're you know, look, there are bad actors in social media who are trying to put the wrong message out there on purpose.

I'm also a sworn deputy sheriff, have been for almost ten years now, and one of the errors I work with is crimes against children, Internet, crimes against children, the IKX, stuff like that.

And when you have when you're a parent or a child, especially a young lady, you have a they have a cell phone or a video game console or a computer or an iPad in their bedroom.

There that allows access to predators and they are everywhere, and that's a very frightening, scary thing.

And there's misinformation in people are creating false realities and false so there's it's a really tough time for the young ones to grow up these days.

But I'd love to see more and this is why I make these projects more you know, more traditional family values.

That's why I make these faith based films, so many of them.

I want to get young Christian filmmakers involved in the filmmaking process.

And then when you're in the process, you start to understand how you can affect how people perceive this event or this thing, and you can affect how they understand something, you can educate them on something.

So you really have a lot of power when you're doing that.

And you're a storyteller, so you'll have a point of view.

And that's I don't try to pretend that I don't have a point of view.

When I make a project, I'm like, look, this is what I support.

I have a movie out right now, Little Angels.

It's in theaters, it's going to it's going to streaming in about a week, and that has a lot you know, an imperfect guy that ends up finding his way and doing the right thing by coaching a bunch of young under thirteen year old girl soccer players.

He's a college football coach, legend and no desire to doesn't like kids and doesn't like soccer.

It's me, I'm kidding, I like kids.

But then he's thrown and thrust into that position, and through that he turns these girls into winners and starts to protect them, and they teach him grace and how to be a human being.

And it's a lovely film.

And I like those values that are trade and talked about in my film, and I made the film.

So if there's something you don't like about it, or I'm talking to the audience, it's on me and they can argue with me, well, why didn't you have any you know this or that, And I'll explain why.

It's refreshing to hear somebody talk like you who has such a position where it's it's kind of a fragile position where if you say the wrong thing, you might not get you know, a bunch of doors might close on you in Hollywood and stuff like that.

So it's really refreshing to hear man, I'm happy that you're doing.

So.

Do you feel like you're being used for God's will?

Oh?

Yeah, there's no question about that.

But let me go back that one thing before that question was there there haven't a lot of doors to get closed on me in Hollywood because of that.

But like you know, some of those guys, I know, I'm gonna kick that door open and I'm going going through it.

I think absolutely I'm being used to support God's will.

What do you want?

I think He's got a play and for me and given me an incredible amount of influence over you know where I've had an effect on millions and millions of people.

It's overwhelming to think about the numbers of people that, you know, a conversation like we're having right now, there might be one person, six people, one hundred people, a million people who are affected by it.

But hey, you know what, that's the kind of family I want to have, or that's the kind of movie I want to make, or I'm that's the kind of thing I'm interested in supporting.

It's it's pretty awesome.

And you know, when my son was born and I want witnessed a miracle of life.

I was always searching for my faith growing up and growing because you're trying.

It's the same journey we're all on.

Why are we here?

What am I doing?

You know?

What is morality and why is it?

And I've searched sort of been went to Catholic school.

My best friend, my girlfriend of college were Catholic.

I had to listen to them and their thing, and I would argue about this and we'd go through and that's all the process that we all go through and read the Bible and go through this, and some people cared about it and go to church, and then some of the people are are there for the social part of it.

Some people want to sing and be in the band, and that's their whole thing.

You know, what is the reason for going there.

I remember saying something when I was younger, that my moment that I would have conversations with God, but when I would be outsurfing and the sun was going down, and you know, and with the sunset and I'm out there in the water and by myself, and those are moments I'd have a lot of reflection with God.

And then somebody made fun of me.

I don't think, you know, some surfer boy who thinks that, you know, God talks to him through sunsets is important.

You know.

It's like it's completely subjective.

Everybody has their journey and whether you go to church or don't go to church, whatever that happens to be.

I think that what I'm doing and the movies that I make and the voice that I can have to affect people is God's will, and it starts with my house and my family, and it works its way out from there.

That's why I support this country so much, because I've traveled to fifty six countries.

I think this is the freest, most fantastic country in the world.

Far from perfect, but always striving to be a more perfect union one hundred percent.

That's why I support the kind of you know, Christian films and the kind of things that I like.

And that's fine.

You can make all the different other movies and I can choose to watch them or not.

Some of them are good and some are not, and that's fine.

But I choose to do that and put my voice out there because I think that is for me.

I think that is God's will for me.

You know, I've I would have those conversations with God out there surfing by myself or when something scary happens.

I visited our troops in Iraq in two thousand and five, in May of two thousand and five.

I think I was there for seventeen days or something like that.

I talked to God an awful lot there, my friend, because I hadn't seen the kind of things that I saw during that period of time.

I had read about them, and it's different.

All of a sudden, I was there, and I was placed in that situation with a five year old boy at home, and all the thoughts of how what happens if something happens to me?

Here?

There are rockets, there are mortars, there's gunfire everywhere incoming.

I would go everything, and you know, I was like, wow, this is this I experience.

I'm in the middle of a war and this is crazy.

And there are people getting hit and shot, leaving going outside the wire right now and coming back triaging them because there was a big gunfight and some people are dead.

And just to see that stuff firsthand just absolutely stunned me.

And you think about what goes through each person's mind.

And there I and everybody was thanking me for being there, and I was like, thank me, thank you.

You know.

They're like, you don't have to be out here, man, you could be in Hollywood doing something.

I said, I'd rather be in Hollywood right now because this sucks.

But I'm happy to be here with these people because those are some of the best people I've ever met.

So it's a it's a strange thing and all these experiences that I get to have and talk about and try to share with other people, especially because it strangely seems to be going against the grain of Hollywood and the eitgeist at the moment.

It's weird.

So I do feel like I'm doing God's will through the way I live my life and the things that I do.

Not to say I don't strew up, because I do all the time and we all do.

And that's why I ask for forgiveness virtually every single day.

It's I mean, you can find God in every single situation.

And I was just telling someone this weekend, we just left my mom, my wife, and a couple other people were having a conversation and we were talking about church, and I was like, church sometimes, to me, worship is just looking up at the sun and looking up at the clouds and looking up at the trees.

That's worship to me.

You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be in a place you could you could just be there with alone, with your thoughts.

And you know, when I was in Afghanistan, I remember seeing a little girl carrying a you know, giant jug of water, you know, two miles to a well so she could pump water out.

And even in those moments, it makes you appreciate everything you have, and you know, you get a lesson from it.

So I'm very grateful for everything I have in my life.

And it sounds like you are as well, man, and I think that's the only way to be.

That's The only way to worship God, in my opinion, is to be grateful for where you're at and the journey of your own and you know it.

Just relish every moment you have, whether it's good, whether it's bad, and just enjoy the journey while you're here.

But going back to the Little Angels movie, I was showing my twelve year old niece and my seven year old daughter is here right now, and I was showing them the trailer and they were both like, can we go to the theaters and watch it?

And I was like, I don't think it.

I don't think it's here in South Carolina, though, Man, I don't.

I'm gonna look around pretty pretty hard for you.

Go on the website Little Angelsmovie dot com and check it out.

But I think we're nearing the end of that run because it was a very small release.

Anyway to get out there, just raise some awareness about it.

But then I think it's going to be where it'll do its job.

Its work is streaming, you'd be able to instead of just they can just turn it on.

I love that they wanted to see that they're excited.

It's never really they were excited.

I'm not even kidding about that.

They my niece is staying here with me for a couple of days, and you know, they're always looking to go to movies and do stuff, and it just it's kind of weird though, because movies seem to disappear for a while and now they seem to be making a comeback almost, and people want to go back to the theaters.

Or it's going to the theaters, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, they were well COVID murdered everything, you know, and so everybody was staying home and the until till Tom Cruise made Top Gun Maverick and and there's a you can there's a little interview where Spielberg kind of bumps into him at some premiere somewhere and says, you saved you know, theaters, movies in theaters.

You saved the box office world, because people, that's a movie.

Look.

And I have a wonderful, gorgeous I'm very blessed.

I have a beautiful theater in my house and it can rock and roll.

It's not the same as being in a theater.

Theater, though, one of those amazing theaters now nowadays, I'm so spoiled.

I want I like to go to those theaters where you go in there, sit down and your recliner chair, press a button.

It's check or guy or whatever comes over.

You know what can I get you?

You're like, I'll have a bottle of wine bring me.

So that kind of stuff is I don't really drink much, but still it's it's I'm so spoiled in that sense.

And so you know, you have a full meal and just watch the whole movie and it's just it's great, it's incredible.

But to have that sound and hear the other crowd gasping and things.

We when we had Little Angels, we had a premiere for it.

Now that was a home crowd.

It was a Homer group for sure, because it was cast and crew.

But they were screaming and cheering at the at the camera, I mean at the at the screen and laughing.

And as a filmmaker, to make that, you're like, wow.

And plus I stand behind the values that are taught in that.

My character undergoes a big change because he he is a college football coach.

It's like being a drill sergeant.

You know, drill sergeant doesn't say a whole lot of nice things all the time to to your young and if you will, because you got to learn them a little bit.

And I've been that football player.

I've been through the ropes and that have been up and down, and I deserved a lot of the punishments I got.

Some of them were unjust, but there you learn that about life.

And I think there's great metaphors between sports and life and merits, merit and having grace and all those different things.

So I was so proud to hear people talk about the film afterward, all the young actors who did such a great job.

They were so good and great little athletes, these these young ladies were, and it was just it.

The whole thing for me is is something I'm so proud to stand in front of, behind around and say, yes, I created this and these are the things that are important and important to me.

And in my family.

It's a guy who doesn't have a family, he doesn't have a family, and this, this this team becomes his family.

Just like your your squad may become your family, and you know your your cadre of friends or whatever happens to be.

We all go through that your click that you hang out with, your whatever, and so it was really wonderful to make that because I've been part of teams.

I've been fortunate enough and blessed enough to be a part of a lot of different teams, and it's an amazing, amazing experience.

Just watching the trailer, I was like, this reminds me.

It takes me back to like the eighties nineties where little Giants, lady Bugs, bad News Bears, those kind of movies, dude, and I just I'm like, mighty ducks.

I love those kind of movies, man.

And it's funny because my kids are, you know, seven and nine, Like like I told you, they they watched like Full House and all these you know, home Improvement and all these older they watch all the TV shows that have like values.

And I think that's it's really telling about it.

It seems like not just kids, but people in general are hungry for those kind of movies.

Again.

They won't the fake good family values.

They're tired of seeing half naked people on screen and demonic scenes of this and that.

So it's really refreshing.

Man.

I'm glad you're doing stuff like that and you keep, you know, you continue to make movies and be a part of all that.

And it goes back to something Andrew Breitbart, whose name now was a friend of mine.

I coach, I was.

I was the basketball coach for his son and my son this one team and we're playing and he's like, hey, whenever we were just talking, I had no idea who he was because he wasn't Andrew Breitbard yet you know, he had conservative firebrand.

And he's like, I wrote this book that kind of picks on Hollywood.

And I was like, really, let me see it.

I'd love to see it.

I think that's awesome.

He's like, you wouldn't offend be offended.

I was like, I offended.

I can completely agree with you, you know, And it was the hypocrisy of Hollywood or this.

And one of the things he said was that politics are downstream from culture.

And you know, as a filmmaker and as a person who creates content like that and movies and television shows and specials and documentaries, you're helping to create that culture by the projects you make.

And I've always thought about that, and that's why, you know, listen, I'll make some big, bang them up, shoot them up movies and things like that that are fun to watch, that are entertainment.

But I love that.

I'm a big fan of like Frank Capra movies.

You know, It's a Wonderful Life is still one of, if not my favorite movie in the world.

For those things that his giving up everything for his family and the thing in the community, and then you realize, you know, he is the richest man in town because he has all that loves and mean that those are the kind of things that it's just it's so cool to be able to do that as a filmmaker, and then it does pass down.

So I'm glad that that young generation is watch.

You know that in your household is watching, you know, those kind of things.

I love that those things are available, you know, to them now.

It's wonderful.

That's one of the positives of all this information that's out there.

They can see the old shows.

You don't have to just go out.

But I grew up on the Brady Bunch, you know, that's one of the happy days.

Those are things I grew up on.

You're like, gosh, those were twenty years before I was born.

Thank you, Brett.

I appreciate that I could see the thought bubble in your head.

Listen, man, I'm forty two.

Now I'm the old man.

Now is I'm over the hill now as well.

I'm about to I'm about to hit that.

I'm I'll be fifty nine and oh man, so I'm looking at the six Thank you Japanese jeans.

They're helping me out.

I was gonna ask you if you coach your son in any sports.

I coach a little league baseball and I love it.

Man.

It just is I get to be in control of what my son learns.

First of all that it's a selfish thing, but also helping kids learn and watching them do better and grow, and getting to teach them values and things like we say yes sir and no certa in the South a lot.

So there's a lot of kids that should be yes.

Stay in my household.

Yeah, we do too, and some of the kids on our team didn't.

So instilling some of that stuff with those kids, you know, some of them unfortunately doesn't.

Maybe their their dads aren't in their lives or whatever.

So it's a good it's good to kind of fill that void for them in some small way.

Oh, it's incredibly important.

I can tell you the names of my best coaches and the effects that they had they had on my life.

I can tell you some of the terrible coaches too, and the negative effects they had.

So it's it's it's hugely important, and I take that label coach is a label of respect and it's huge and to play.

So my character in Little Angels was coach Jake, and so all the kids would call me coaching.

Well, they'll still call me that, and that is awesome.

My coach from college, you know my position.

Coach from college, Uh, coach Verbs.

We'll call him Verbs and things like that.

But he's still coach Verbs, He's still coach.

And I've been like to say, what's going on, coach?

When you say that, that is a huge, a huge level of respect.

So to be called coach, it's awesome.

But there are a lot of kids who don't have that father figure at home who are playing sports, and i'd and and then then as a coach, you become a surrogate father, and I think that's really important because you have to teach them the same values and things that will imply to life on the field.

You can't do this.

We're playing football.

You can't be a great linebacker if you're getting you know, two linemen on you all the time.

Because the the the d Lineman's not picking up alignment, not doing anything, not taking up space.

You're part of a team and this is how it is, and so on and so forth.

And you learn those values play in sports and they absolutely apply to life, and I think it's just tremendously important.

And having coaches who are good, who can instill those things on these kids is huge.

One of my favorite teachers of all time was Paul Carey.

He was my AP history teacher in college, and he was a He was a real, a major hurdler in college at USC, but he wouldn't coach our track team.

I think he thought the track coach sucks.

He might have been right, But since I was in his AP history class and he took a liking to me and I ran hurdles, he took me to the side and he helped coach me in the hurdles, things my coach had no idea about.

But he also used to just run my ass, ragged about my history stuff and about my discipline, and I was like it.

But I also when it came time for me to apply to colleges and Princeton University, who did I turn to to write that recommendation letter?

Mister Paul Carey, who wrote obviously a good enough one to get me in there.

So bless him because he's up there now and and hopefully smile and looking down on me.

But but having a great coach in your life is so so important, and you can provide such a fantastic I don't.

I hate to say, sirro good father, but there is.

I've seen so many people that were coaches become like fathers.

And you see these coaches, these college coaches who've gone so far with their kids and they just love their guys.

And you know, I can't explain that camaraderie anymore than I liking it.

I liking it too, you know, being on the battlefield and having gone through that with with guys, and there's there's a family ness that you can't you can't explain to someone who's never experienced it.

Yeah, I agree, man.

It's also it's also a village thing too, because when I was growing up, you know, going to school, I mean we would get spanked by the principal, by the teacher, by the bus driver, but when we got off the bus, the bus driver would walk up to my mom or my grandma's, you know, a tart to the door, and they would and she would say they got in trouble.

So then we'd get it from my grandma or my mom, and then my dad and everybody else in the family.

So but it took.

It took a village, and I learned a lesson that everything I did in life, every you know, working at a grocery store, bagging groceries.

Uh.

I used to paint cars when I was eighteen years old, just every little thing.

Somebody taught me something about everything.

It was attention to detail here, you know, showing up on time there.

Like we had a we had a no nonsense.

The guy who owned the grocery store, he was no nonsense.

Well you if you called and said, hey, I'm a little bit sick today, if you don't come in, you're fired.

He would literally say that.

So so you know, tell you taught you a lot.

I mean, but the people that came through there were like you might know Courtney Brown for example, he went to the Cleveland Browns, right he went.

He's from I went to college Penn State.

I know who he.

Is, Yeah, but he from he came from my town and he worked at the same grocery store I'm talking about with the same manager.

And by the way, there was one of his teammates was a guy named Joe Hamilton, who was a He was the Heisman runner up for Georgia Tech back in the in the in the mid nineties.

Maybe I can't remember, and look at the character that they had, Yeah.

Of course, yeah, I mean, but it wasn't just them.

By the way, in our small town of about twelve hundred people, we probably had ten pro football players come through there, which is a which is an anomaly of itself, but they all went so Yeah, but they all worked at the same grocery store.

So there's something that he was teaching and something that the community as a whole would teach.

You know.

But yeah, having someone guide you in that direction is very important.

Hey, don't give out the name of that grocery store or else.

Like, you know, prospective students just be showing up there trying to get to the NFL or work in that grocery store.

Now they're going to be flooded with all these athletes over there trying to get to the league.

But that's the important thing, is that discipline is a big part of it, and being part of a team.

It's funny because I say something in that you'll probably laugh at a few of these moments in Little Lange because one of the things he says is if you're five And then I learned this in the NFL because we had we got fined if we were late for meetings, and I did not have a big rookie contract, so I was not going to be late.

But that the joke was, if you're ten minutes earlier, you're five minutes late, right, And I say that in that thing all the time, you know, And but that's hugely important and it applies to everything except for parties.

Like I always like to show up a little bit late to the party.

That's just me.

I don't want to be on time at the party because it's you know, the host still said.

I want to come in do my thing, and I also want to leave her.

But if it's work or some sort of a commitment, I want to be there right on time or slightly before.

And I say that in the movie, and I make fun of it because there's a lot of those things where you can have fun with it.

And one of the guys is like, so you always say your and it was Brian Callen is a very good actor.

He's like, I'm glad he's doing movies and stuff.

Again, by the way, well he you know, he's there's been things that's gone on in his life and things like that, and I just know how intelligent, what a great guy he is.

And he crushes it in this.

He's sensitivity seminar, guidance counselor guy.

It's Brian Khalit.

So it's great and he's like, you know what's going on.

I think you're perfect for this.

And one of the things because he's very passive aggressive toward my character, it's very fun.

And then if you know who Brian is, it gets extra fun.

And he says that what you know.

I explained to him, like, well, my world, if you're fifteen minutes earlier, or if you're ten minutes earlier or five minutes later.

He goes, so, in your world, you're always fifteen minutes early.

And I was like, yes, He's like, I don't like that.

It's very funny, and he was so good.

He absolutely owned that and it was wonderful.

But those are those little things that you learn and you hear and but at the end it all comes back down to you know, even as a coach, those those lessons you learned as a as a as a player, as a teammate, how it applies to real life.

And I love that.

I'm making another one.

We're starting another movie.

I'm here in Las Vegas now is where I live in Henderson, Nevada.

And I love it.

My son loves it, and we have a blast out here.

Your dollar goes a lot further than it does in California, and your tax a lot less on it.

You got a lot?

Are you a refugee from California?

As I have a full refuge I got my green card here because I'm not going to think the way I'm gonna I'm gonna vote.

I won't vote California style here.

And I didn't think that people, Yeah, they come to South Carolina.

I'm like, please, just don't with you.

Yeah, you gotta figure if you're fleeing that, don't vote for the same stuff.

People don't vote for California.

I kept voting the way I wanted to vote and trying to support the projects I want to support and try to explain to people you can't pass a bond forever, you can't keep raising taxes on everybody or else.

Eventually people are gonna leave, especially when you're not providing the services that you you you you present will be part of it.

You know, we'll do this and blah blah blah.

Look, I mean, you know I think that that that high speed rail to nowhere, none of it's been done.

Billions of dollars gone.

I mean it take a a large surplus and turn it into a deficit within a year and all those things.

It's like it's not sustainable.

So I'm real happy to be out here in Nevada.

I'm not trying to California as Nevada at all.

I want Nevada to be me personally.

I happen to be a political independent.

I vote very Republican certainly at the time now right now, because those the Republican Party is absolutely has other values and the ideas that I want to push that I would like to live under more so than what the Democrats are putting out there by a long shot.

Without getting too political, I'm not really quiet with my political beliefs, but which I don't recommend for other actors.

Do it as you wish and then speak if you want to.

I mean when everyone says that's just a stupid actor, they're right, but you have to take other, you know, experience in hand too.

They may just be an actor, but you could be Rob Wriggle and just be an actor.

But he was also a twenty five year degree you know.

I mean it's like the same job as him in the Air Force by the way, really yeah, yeah, yeah, we went to the same training and everything.

But.

Artist no public relations though he was like a public affairs he.

Did in my makeup.

I was no kidding.

I love it.

But the fact he and I have it we share a strange not a strange obsession, but like like a fascination and obsession with World War two stuff.

And so we were he and I were chatting about, like, let's do a World War two like from our perspectives, going back and learning about these places, because I mean that one of the I don't I travel so much, but I and I get tired of it.

But one place I want to go is I would love to go visit you know, Normandy, the beaches of Normandy, but not like on a you know, a tour with a bus, and but I want to walk on that beach by myself as the sun's going down, as we talked about earlier, and have those conversations with God and go man, what went on here and what these people went through on both sides, and it's just that to me, it's just incredible and that Rob and I were talking about that and my respect.

I was a history of major in college, and my respect for those who came before is through the roof.

Especially during World War Two, which was just such a fascinating time.

It was pretty clear who what was right and what was wrong, at least in our perspective now those hindsight is twenty twenty.

It seems to be pretty clear to me what's right and what's wrong these days, but we don't talk about it enough in those terms.

There's it seems like there's a war on children as well, man, So there's a there's there's a I'm really happy to see those kind of movies like you're making, like I said, with Little Angels, where you're it's it's a kid friendly movie.

It's not and it's not dark.

It's like full of light and love and stuff like that.

But it does seem like there's a war on children, and I'm glad you mentioned that about being you said, sworn deputy sheriff.

Is that right?

My dad was a deputy sheriff for twenty years, man, and you know he saw to stuff too that you know, I think, I think there's people grow from that kind of stuff by the way they grow from those kind of experiences.

Post traumatic growth is what they call it.

That that's a real thing.

I haven't heard that term, to be honest, that's funny.

It's the first time i've heard that term.

Yeah, it's a real thing.

But I believe when you, yeah, when you go through a traumatic event, you you grow from it.

And that's kind of what And I didn't really go through a lot of traumatic stuff when I was in the military.

There was mortars and stuff like that that that hit, but it wasn't like you know, uh, close combat or anything like that.

It was no real nothing that blew up on me or anything like that.

But I did grow from that because like I said when I mentioned the little girl carrying the water earlier, that that kind of stuff you do grow from.

You go, oh, man, there's something you know, like I need.

To be what God go, I that's what I want to think, I say, you know, could easily be your daughter or your kid.

You and then you look at your life.

Ram.

Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt that, but look at that the same way.

Yeah, No, I mean, I'm I'm incredibly grateful for everything I have now.

And in fact, it became like almost like a hippie in a way, like I love bugs and animals and everything, protecting everything that you know, because you know, we were supposed to be stewards of the earth.

And you know, I'll literally before my kids will try to kill a bug and I'm like, no, let me just scoop it up with a napkin or something to put it outside, because you do kind of you know, you do have this immense love for things, everything that God created.

But one of those things, like I said, are the children man.

And you know, one of my favorite verses is in Matthew and it's it talks about when when the disciples asked Jesus, they said, who's the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven And he talks about how the children are and He's like, and if you mess with children, you might as well just put a millstone around your neck and drown yourself in the depths of the sea.

And that's that's kind of how I look at it too.

Man.

So anytime we can get a message out about protecting children and things like that and and highlighting the the beauty of children versus you know, uh, you know movies like Cuti's or something like that, that's showing the disgusting sides of of you know, exploiting children and things like that.

So it makes no sense to me whatsoever.

I can't get that whole idea.

I don't get it fetishizing children and things of that.

I'm like, what is minor attracted person?

It's I say, Millstone in the lake.

I'm with you there.

I mean, I just thought it doesn't make any sense to me being a parent and raising a little individual.

I mean, that's just it's just madness and crazy, and we allow way too much of it in this at this day and in this day and age, and you get near my son.

I don't have a daughter.

If I did and you start doing that kind of stuff, there's gonna be a real problem.

There's gonna be a real problem.

I had a daughter, and there was some you know, an intact mail in there changing and saying that it's not happening it's just not happening period.

And why they're at tad going after children, I guess because of that innocence and because of that malleability that you have with children who are still children, who are innocent and have that you know, pure and they're just you know, not expecting these these people who I think are so many of them are predators.

It's crazy.

It's crazy to me, and it'd be tough.

My son's twenty five now, so I've done my job of raising I'm still always talking to him and my goddaughters.

My goddaughter and my niece are both fourteen, so they're in that world of just you know, just just growing up and then getting into that what I always called the trouble age.

Fourteen he's kind of it for girls when they're really getting there, and fifteen and sixteen for boys.

I found, at least my own experience, my kid, I would have traded him for a bucket of but had he had to go that to become the man that he is now.

And that's part of it.

But it's just real tough this day and age, with all of the incoming stuff these poor kids are having to deal with.

It's a rough time.

So without having a good family and peers to lean on, it's very easy to see how people can get led astray.

And I see so many of them every day on TikTok, Instagram x or whatever.

You see somebody who completely unhinged, You're like, what do you?

What do you?

How is that your reality?

Why do you?

How do you think that way?

How did you get so corrupted that that's okay by you?

Someone who's championing, Oh, I can't even remember how many abortions I've had, you know, celebrates your abortion?

What what are you talking about?

It's the worst thing in the world, and it should be the most traumatic thing in the world.

You know.

If I met a woman she's like, oh yeah, I can't even remember how many abortions I've had.

That that and have a good night.

Right It's it's insane and it's sick to me.

Would you say that it's spiritual warfare that's going on right now?

I mean I think there, I think it's I think there's always been spiritual warfare going on, but with the way technology is, there's there's no question about it.

Again, someone like that was was in my circle or in my sphere.

They must go.

I can't.

I don't want that in my household.

I don't want that around my family.

I don't at that, And to me, that's that is shunning it.

I rebuke it completely, and I would say that openly there.

I listen.

I'm all for people who want to live their life their way, but you know, again, leave the kids out of it.

If you're gay, I don't have a problem with it.

Go ahead, do your thing, be as gay as you want to be, but don't go after this fourteen year old kid because you're thirty two years old.

You know none of that.

That stuff is not okay, and don't talk to them about that.

And you're not that's not your that's the parents world, and it's not some weird ass teacher trying to indoctrinate them.

And then there's definitely spiritual warfare going on.

And the way to fight that, in my opinion, is through information, making the kind of movies I make, having this conversation with you right here, teaching my children and my god children and my family, and discussing that amongst ourselves.

I think having a voice and making it hurt is the is the way to fight back with it.

And then by the way you live your life.

But I'm standing at the gross broom.

I don't know where to our news and control.

Trying not to see it.

O my soul.

I'm standing at.

The gross I don't know where our news and control, trying not to set up.

And you want me in the right direction, God, send me your blessing.

I'm so tied up stress and its music's turn to obsession, upsession.

I got a long way to go to.

He's my family, my clothes, looking wed bikes, you sweat, and the rain going happen to send me happens and wors and I can change all my mistakes, but y'all be half down here, fall out and enough things that all looks of nats from that out the hall.

But now I can stop my own fall.

I gotta stand tall.

Don't become a scene jumping down the dor roll stand at church here so dead, little.

Lord, Well, I'm standing at the cross.

I don't know when to I news a control, trying not to see my soul.

I'm standing at the cross.

I don't know when I news a control.

Trying not to say up now witting back thinking about the man Maris.

Now, I don't know who's a friend of me.

These people lact like they can to me.

Well, that's still a mister ries.

A man's never wants me to lose my my religion.

But I won't stop what out of fight.

I won't give and won't give.

So I'm gonna sit down right head, pray, and that's the Lord above to help me change my way.

To the world's filling with green and be and you move a jewel fan the vibration to the break.

You can love me.

I'm in a don't break.

I'm at the cross room.

I'm trying to find my way.

You can your health be oh, okay, your health be oh.

But I'm standing at the cross I don't know which to the control, trying not to see it, Ye Soul, I'm standing.

At the gross.

I don't know where you go.

I was the control.

I'm trying not to self soon got me, got me all pacisty side like Joe Head, take.

Miney, shooting the wig, showing the wig please.

Got me, got me on ps inside like joe Head.

To take money, shooting the wig.

I standing at.

I don't know when I'm it was a control, trying not to say it, Ry Soul, I'm standing.

At the cross homes, I don't know where to go.

Ourn was a control, trying not yourself so.

But I'm standing at.

The cross I don't know where to Our news a control, trying not to say it.

Ry Soul.

I'm standing at the cross homes, I don't know where to go.

Ourn was a control, trying not your self so