A Tight Schedule and a leap of faith

Something Kelsey Grammer said on set changed the tone of everything for me during the filming of The Christmas Ring. I had asked Kelsey how I could pray for him. He paused for a beat.

“Karen … I will tell you in the morning,” he nodded once. “Ask me then.”

In the morning, I found him in actors’ holding. “How did you sleep?”

Kelsey smiled. “Very well.”

The famed actor was only with us for three days. The part of Howard Miller is a meaty one – lots of screen time and emotion – but it was written to be filmed quickly. One location, three days. Whether we secured Kelsey Grammer or a local actor.

Honestly, I didn’t think Kelsey would even have time to read our script. But he did. And he loved it. Two things threatened his ability to take our offer. First, he needed to be home for his son’s birthday. And second, he had a flight booked to London to finish filming a Marvel movie.

The time between those two events? Three days. That was it.

We made a few changes to our schedule and Kelsey said yes. Of course, nothing could go wrong. Even a late flight would leave us no way to shoot all the scenes we had to shoot in those three days. We prayed and surrendered. Because at the end of the day producing is not for the faint of heart. Everything could go wrong. Any series of events or illness or delays could derail and destroy a film. Especially this time around.

Indeed, making movies is for the brave and bold, and so we asked Jesus to bless us and provide for us, and to go before us and guide us.

I remember the night Kelsey Grammer arrived in Nashville. He checked into the Harpeth Hotel – a cozy boutique spot in Franklin, TN, directly across the street from where all Kelsey’s scenes would be filmed. That evening, I met the iconic actor nearby at our production office, where he had time for a brief fitting before turning in and readying himself for an early call time.

 We were friends from the start, and it was there that I asked him how I could pray for him. His answer kept me guessing until we saw each other that next morning on set.

“I know what I’d like you to pray for, Karen.” He smiled, his eyes filled with that Kelsey Grammer warmth. “Pray for the true lie.”

The dissonant words played around the edges of my heart. True lie? I love words, but I had no idea what he meant. So I waited.

Like a poet, Kelsey took his time before speaking. Finally, he said, “All creatives are only looking for the true lie.” He gave a slight nod. “The Sistine Chapel is covered in beautiful images. But they aren’t real. They’re a lie.”

Locked in, I was beginning to understand.

Finding the True Lie on Set

“We artists can only ever lie when we create. The goal, then, is to find the true lie. The art that is closest to the truth. So close that people forget it’s a lie.”      

Now, I have no idea if this was the first time such a thought had occurred to Kelsey Grammer. But in that moment – like fog lifting from my soul – I understood what he meant. I understood it to my core.

I’m a novelist, after all. I write fiction. It’s always a lie. Simply put, I make things up for a living. Still, I always aim to make you believe that the stories I tell are real. They’re so real to me that I cry at the sad scenes and laugh when something is meant to break the tension. In other words, I try to find the true lie every time I open my laptop.

            “So …” the familiar sparkle shone in Kelsey’s eyes. “Pray for the true lie, would you?”

            I grinned. “I’ll pray for that every day. Every scene.”

            And I did. I prayed every time our director Tyler Russell yelled, “Action.”

Give him the true lie, Father, I would ask God. I prayed that He would help Kelsey see the deeper currents of love and relationship as he took the life of a man who doesn’t exist – Howard Miller – and turned him into someone we can all connect with. Someone we can all find familiar. Please, Lord, let him find truth here.

Guess what happened? Scene after scene after scene, Kelsey Grammer found the true lie.

He found it when he was talking to his son Ben (Benjamin Hollingsworth) and when he was sharing about loss, and he found it when he pondered about Christmas, a Savior born, a way from here to Heaven. He found it with emotion welling in his eyes as he listened to Ben talk about his feelings for Vanessa Mayfield (Jana Kramer) and as Kelsey’s character remembered how his son hadn’t felt that way since the loss of his first wife.

And he absolutely found the true lie in a scene of reconciliation between Ben and him. I watched from Video Village, tears streaming down my face and all I could think was there will be people across the nation watching this scene in theaters. People who will be so caught up in the possibility of forgiveness that their hearts will break. And after the movie, they’ll make the call. They’ll make things right.

Because that is the power of a true lie.

The Lord in Every Frame

There were miracles every day filming The Christmas Ring. Jana and Ben had crazy amazing chemistry and a friendship off-camera that brought the cast together. It felt like 109 degrees on some days, but Tyler and our cinematographer Matt Rodgers found the shadows. Every scene in our movie looks like winter because of that.

Miracles when our producing team found ways to pivot scenes inside during a lightning storm and a crafty duo that brought in fresh juices and ice cream when the cast and crew didn’t think they could take another hour of the heat.

Maybe the greatest miracle was watching the team circle up for the safety meeting and seeing that moment end with Tyler Russell praying. “We invite You into our presence, God … go before us, please. We cannot do this without You.”

So that’s exactly what the Lord did. He joined us. He went before us. He provided every time we needed Him and he answered prayers whispered throughout our twelve-hour days. Our independent team with no major partners, privately funded without any help from the Hollywood elite fairly danced through our 15-day shoot and the seven weeks in post that followed.

It was one miracle after another. But maybe none as great as the one God gave Kelsey Grammer. See The Christmas Ring in theaters and you’ll know for yourself what miraculous thing happened on set this past summer.

The Lord helped Kelsey Grammer find the true lie.

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