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1:18
We've got a special guest on the podcast's name is Max McLean so he is an award-winning
1:27
actor and he's also the Artistic Director of New York City-based Fellowship for Performing Arts.
1:32
He played C.S. Lewis in the film The Most Reluctant Convert, the untold story of C.S. Lewis.
1:37
Guys, if you're listening to these podcasts, one right after the other is Norman Stone,
1:41
who directed and wrote this movie and then Max McLean who starred in this movie.
1:45
It was a very, very fun conversation with both of these guys and I asked him a lot of the same questions
1:49
because I want you to kind of see this from the Artistic side as the director and then the Artistic side as the actor.
1:54
But with this interview with Max, we talked a lot about specifically how he got into acting,
2:00
what kind of led him to that type of life.
2:02
Some of the misconceptions about what it means to be an actor,
2:05
whenever you kind of get into it and you think that people are just going to be overwhelmed with your looks and your talent
2:09
but that you actually have to have the chops, you have to practice, you kind of have to get yourself out there.
2:13
But then beyond that, we're going to talk about The Most Reluctant Convert
2:16
and we're going to spend a lot of time talking about the story of C.S. Lewis
2:19
because he is a guy that history should have forgotten because he was a smart guy that went to Oxford
2:24
and that's reflective of thousands of people before.
2:27
But why are we still today talking about this guy and why has he sold a quarter of a billion books?
2:33
And each year that goes by, he sells even more books.
2:37
This is a guy that last wrote stuff back in the 1950s and 60s and we are still just basically sitting
2:45
and hanging on his every word.
2:46
So we spend a lot of time talking about that.
2:48
We talk about how Max's conversion to Christianity as an adult kind of attracted him to the story of C.S. Lewis
2:54
because it was a similar thing for C.S. Lewis.
2:56
It wasn't this big dramatic conversion experience falling down on his face and crying.
3:00
It was more of an intellectual pursuit.
3:02
And we see that with his time with J.R.R.R. or Tolkien from their time in Oxford, which is depicted in the film.
3:07
And guys, the film really is fantastic.
3:09
The Most Reluctant Convert, it will be in the show notes.
3:11
You can check it out for yourself.
3:12
Family friendly, you can watch it with the entire family, even if you're not terribly familiar with C.S. Lewis.
3:16
But then I also asked him the same thing I asked Norman, which is,
3:19
"Hey, if you had to delete all of C.S. Lewis's catalog, but leave one book for all of humanity for the rest of time,
3:26
which one would it be and why?"
3:27
He actually gave me two, but his first one was very, very interesting.
3:30
And I wanted to get in there because I have a unique story with that particular book as well.
3:34
But then we talked about kind of what is coming in the future and what's coming after this film.
3:38
Is there going to be more stuff that comes from him working as C.S. Lewis?
3:41
I think you guys will be excited to hear all of that, but I'm not going to keep him from you any longer.
3:45
So without further ado, let's get into it.
3:47
Max McLean, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
3:51
Well, thank you, Kyle. Good to be with you.
3:53
I'm so excited to have you on. I will say, though, and we'll get to this in a second.
3:57
I'm a little weird to hear your American accent because for about an hour and a half of my life,
4:01
you sounded vastly different, but we'll get there.
4:04
So part of the reason why I guess you're so good at going back and forth is that you yourself are an actor.
4:09
And most people might know a professional actor here or there, but that's not a common thing that I guess most people are used to.
4:15
So I guess for you specifically, Max, just to start broadly, what kind of got you into, or I guess what got you interested in the world of acting?
4:23
How did you kind of get into being able to do that on stage in film and on television professionally?
4:28
Yes, yes.
4:29
Well, I got into acting in college because I had a fear of being in front of people.
4:33
So I went to the weird part of campus and took an oral interpretation class in the bug bit.
4:39
And I spent my senior year in the drama department learning how to use my voice, how to interpret scripts, how to use my body.
4:48
Because an actor is essentially his voice in his body and his mind is like his musical instrument that he plays.
4:58
Then I left the states and did my graduate studies in London.
5:04
And so I did a lot of Shakespeare.
5:07
So I really understood the British language and the use of language there.
5:13
Came back to the states and started to develop my own productions.
5:18
We started my own theatrical production company Fellowship for Performing Arts.
5:24
It's now based here in New York.
5:26
We do theater.
5:27
In fact, before the pandemic, we had three shows on the road.
5:31
One was here in New York.
5:33
And we really focus.
5:35
Our mission is to produce theater from a Christian worldview meant to engage a diverse audience,
5:41
diverse meaning intellectually diverse, which I think is the only kind of diversity that's not allowed.
5:47
So that's my background and how I got into theater.
5:53
So specifically, the thing I find interesting is about the company that you developed is there are people that get into acting.
5:59
So we're talking about people that went far beyond just doing drama in high school or in college or something like that.
6:04
You actually went into it.
6:05
But then you actually started a business, you didn't just leave the business to be you yourself, Max McLean, the actor.
6:11
So talk about that transition a little bit because that's not a transition that everybody makes in that industry.
6:16
Yeah, that's good.
6:17
Actually, I think any artist and I think a lot of your audience would appreciate this.
6:23
Any artist has to have two skill sets, really.
6:27
He has to be really good at his art and he has to be really good at promoting it and selling it.
6:34
And having an opportunity to get it out there.
6:40
I've been aware of a lot of talented people that just didn't have the discipline that it took to do all the auditions and make all the rounds that you had to do it.
6:49
Now, in my case, though, because I'm an adult convert to Christianity and as such, I wanted to find a way to integrate my faith with my work.
7:03
So the reason I developed the company was I knew people weren't going to produce the work for me, so I had to produce it.
7:12
And the one thing, and I tell young actors and directors and theatre people, I tell them all the time, that the theatre in the film business doesn't really need more actors.
7:24
We've got millions of those, got a lot of directors.
7:27
We need more playwrights and we need producers because those are the people that make things happen.
7:33
If you don't have the script, you don't have the foundation.
7:36
And then, of course, the producer, just like the producer in any business, he's got to get all the pieces together and get it done.
7:43
Yeah, absolutely.
7:44
And one thing that is you're talking about that, I remember here in Jack Carr, so number one New York Times bestselling author several times over, he's talked so much about the fact that it's not just about writing the best novels possible.
7:54
It's about everything else.
7:55
It's about making sure you're doing social media and making sure you're sending out emails to your mailing list and all those different things.
8:00
And I think some people think that the world's just going to be overwhelmed with their talent and everyone else is just going to take care of the other things, podcasting the same.
8:07
You think, well, I can just buy a laptop and a microphone, plug it in and have a podcast.
8:11
It's like, well, yeah, but if you want more than dozens of listeners, it's probably going to take a little bit of grinding.
8:16
So you mentioned there, Max, that you became a convert to Christianity as an adult.
8:21
So talk to me a little bit about that because I grew up in Oklahoma.
8:24
That's the belt buckle, the Bible belt.
8:25
So you're a Christian just because you were born on the red clay, that's kind of how it is. And then you kind of decide for yourself at some point.
8:30
It's a very cultural Christianity. So did you grow up in kind of a Christian household or was there any kind of Judeo-Christian ethic?
8:36
And I guess kind of give me the spark notes version of how you accepted it as an adult.
8:40
Well, I was, we grew up in an anomaly Catholic home.
8:46
It was important to my mom and dad that we go through the first communion and go through the confirmation process.
8:52
And I do remember as a young child kind of being engaged in that.
8:58
I mean, it was information and opening up to a world that is not your day-to-day life.
9:07
In fact, I do remember as a very young child. In fact, I had this memory hit me recently.
9:14
I think when I was seven, my neighbor invited me to vacation Bible school, you know, all about those, right?
9:22
And you're supposed to invite people, right?
9:24
Sure.
9:25
I went and it was at a Baptist church and being Catholic, Baptist is weird, but I really felt the love of the people.
9:33
And there was a, I went every day tremendously expectant. And I also found that, this is very strange,
9:45
that I wasn't particularly good at drawing in those days, but I found there, I drew really well.
9:55
But you know, or at least they told me I did. But no, I got a sense. I says, "Wow."
10:05
You know, all of a sudden, you know, there's a discipline, there's a clarity that is infecting.
10:12
So all these things, you know, sort of came together in my 20s because I wasn't thinking about it.
10:20
I was trying to make my own way. You know, I wanted reality to revolve around me. I didn't want me to revolve.
10:29
You know, I didn't want to humble myself to the world, you know, to the universe.
10:35
I wanted the universe to humble itself to me. And of course, I think the universe wins every time, right?
10:42
So, when I was confronted with the claims of Christ in my 20s, I remember somebody said that I found out I was a history major.
10:54
Even though I did, my minor was in theater. This person very, I'm still in touch with him.
11:01
He said to me, Jesus was a person in history, you know, just like Lincoln, just like George Washington.
11:08
And that was news to me because I thought Jesus was fairy tales, you know, and what was interesting, that clicked that Jesus was a real person in history.
11:20
So that made me go and I read John's Gospel in one sitting and he came right out of the pages.
11:26
And then reading Lewis shortly thereafter kind of confirmed it because he said something and I used it in the film.
11:33
He says, if Jesus statements are false, Christianity is of no importance.
11:39
If true, it is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.
11:44
And so I took the leap of faith and what I found was a leap of faith is not a leap into the dark.
11:58
That's what pagans want to tell you. It is a leap into the light. And if it wasn't a leap into the light, people would come back.
12:06
They would say, this doesn't work. It's not there. I found that as I walked in faith and grew in grace, that things opened up, that my mind opened up, the possibilities opened up, the world opened up.
12:21
It was a leap into a whole new glorious world. And so I've been walking it ever since.
12:30
Well, Max, I find that to be very important because there are some prominent people, Joe Rogan's one that comes to mind that questions whether or not Jesus was a real person.
12:38
There's no, as a history major, you know this, but it's like, there's no more testifiable fact in all the antiquity than the fact that there was a man named Jesus from the area of Nazareth.
12:48
I had the born in Bethlehem that was killed on a Roman cross at the behest of the Jews, right? Like there's no more.
12:53
And suffered under Pontius Pilate, you know, and he was the Roman governor at that time. So there's all that's there.
13:02
And I think most people and I think even Joe Rogan himself would really push comes to shove. He would acknowledge the reality of the historical person of Jesus.
13:13
The question everybody has, and it's the whole premise of our movie, is when he calls you, he calls us to repent.
13:26
And Lewis didn't want to repent. He said, you know, he took a sort of a spiritual inventory, an emotional inventory.
13:36
And he said, what would I find a zoo of lust, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds?
13:44
He said, my name was Legion. And so I don't want to deal with that, you know, and you're forced to confront all that.
13:53
And of course, Lewis gave in. Now, in Lewis's case is really kind of interesting. The way the film works is because Lewis had a conversion to God.
14:03
He probably had a conversion from atheism to the God of the philosophers, which is kind of a random, not random, but sort of a first principles type of God.
14:15
You know, kind of deistic got the ball rolling and left for other universes.
14:22
But his conversion, the one that's the most emotional in the film, and the most emotional in our play was his conversion to what he says, theism, pure and simple.
14:37
And the more I look at that is it was kind of like he believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses.
14:46
It was like he had the great I am. He was confronted by the great I am. And he gave in and admitted that God is God knelt and prayed perhaps that night, the most rejected reluctant convert in all England.
14:59
That was his conversion experience that he knew that he was beholden to God. But he couldn't find it. He didn't quite get where Jesus fitted until a little bit later.
15:10
And of course, our film covers that as well.
15:13
Well, and you've teed up the film a whole lot. So let's go ahead and get into it. So the film was the most reluctant convert the untold story of CS Lewis guys you can get there in the show notes.
15:22
You definitely need to check this out. Family friendly film, even if you're not a CS Lewis fan or you're not really super familiar with his life. That's part of the point of the movie is kind of getting you familiar with that.
15:31
Now one thing, because I've got several questions about the film, but one came up as you were talking there just just now Max's is the fact that you were a convert to Christianity as an adult just like CS Lewis.
15:42
Is that what's kind of ingratiated you and maybe attracted you to some of his work because this film is not the first thing that you've done in your career that centered on the life and work of CS Lewis.
15:52
Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's this sort of, there's this kind of apologetics of admiration in the sense that when you admire something, you ascribe to it, you reach for it.
16:07
So you say, I want to be like that. And so that's kind of what Lewis has been for me.
16:17
He's given me a picture of how to live my life, how to think through the challenges of life and how to explain Christianity to others that are reluctant.
16:36
You may have these preconceived notions of what Christianity is that they don't want to be a part of.
16:46
And so you have to separate sort of some of the cultural accoutments of it from the reality of the resurrection and the reality of the person of Jesus that he came from someplace else entered into our created world.
17:01
The story that we have to believe otherwise, we're just, you know, the alternative is this universe came upon something came out of nothing.
17:14
The world looks like it has the appearance of that it's finally tuned, but it isn't, you know, it's, you know, every effect has a cause except the universe.
17:26
We're supposed to believe and it doesn't make sense to us. And so what happens is when you, you, you, you express Christianity as a positive.
17:40
And you also show what's the alternative.
17:45
In Lewis's case, and it's, it's in the film, you know, his, his conversion, he was a vigorous debunker of Christianity because he was a vigorous bunker of Christianity primarily because of the problem of evil.
18:03
Right.
18:04
You know, he lost his mother to cancer when he was nine.
18:06
He had a terrible relationship with his father.
18:09
He, he experienced firsthand the, the, the, the butchery of trench warfare in World War I. And he came to the conclusion that either there's no God behind the universe, because it, it's, it doesn't make any sense of the God who's indifferent to go to an evil because of his experience of evil
18:27
or worse and evil God.
18:29
And then his friends kind of talked to him about, well, what's your assumption there?
18:34
You know, his argument against God was that the universe was so cruel and unjust, but then his friends asked, well, where do you get this notion of cruel and unjust?
18:41
Right.
18:42
You call a line crooked because you have some idea of a straight line. If you're calling something cruel and unjust, you must have some picture of something good and merciful and just and, and, and good.
18:54
So because if the universe has no meaning, which is what you're arguing, you would never know it has no meaning, you know, because meaning wouldn't exist. And so this got Lewis into, into the, the realm of out of atheism into his theistic and final Christian perspective.
19:14
Well, Max, that's why I think apologetics in general and the study of apologetics is important for Christians because I know that there is some Christian pushback to the world of apologetics. I've heard Christians say before purported Christians say, if something is so apparently obvious, we shouldn't have to make all these arguments as to why it's true.
19:30
It should just be readily available. And I want to ask that person is like, in what other areas of life is that true? There's no area of life. You have to. And of course, you know, scripture tells us to be prepared to give a reason for the hope that's within you with gentleness and respect.
19:48
I think particularly nowadays because, you know, Christianity is becoming debunked at a, at a rapid pace and, and the universities, it's, it's, it's considered irrelevant.
20:05
You know, it might be privately engaging. You might, you know, want to have a little quiet time. You might want to go to your little church on Sunday, but it has no relevance to getting ahead in modern life.
20:16
And that's kind of what our young people are hearing. And they, they, they need that needs to be responded to.
20:23
Well, and I think that it's very important because at the very minimum max, it gives you the confidence to enter into those discussions because as I tell people all the time, because, you know, here in a little while I'm going to be doing a speech in front of my entire church talking about how to engage pro abortion arguments.
20:36
And it's like part of my training is going to be calm yourself. The first one to raise their voice loses. The first one to go, goes crazy and calls somebody a name loses. And it's like, again, we do need that gentleness to be able to pull people towards the truth, especially when you know that your worldview
20:51
or your stance on a particular issue is the moral one, because that's the thing that you're kind of talking about earlier.
20:56
When someone's like, you know, I, there's too much evil in the world. Well, in order to know what evil is, you have to know what good is. You need a moral law with which to differentiate between the two.
21:03
And then you got to figure out, well, how the heck did we get that? Is it just because we used to be goo and then we were fish and then we were chimps and now we're us.
21:09
And we just sometime in the 1700s somewhere in Europe, we decided, okay, this is a way that monkeys should treat each other and this isn't a way that monkeys should treat each other like, again, people want to talk about making sense, right?
21:20
That certainly doesn't make sense at all, but most people just buy it hook line and sinker. But now I'm getting off into a sermon. I need to kind of bring it back.
21:26
Yeah, but that was good stuff. Thank you for that.
21:28
Well, Max, I appreciate that. But here's the thing that's interesting to me. That doesn't quite make sense. And I ask Norman, you know, the director and the writer of this film asked him the same question. So I'll be curious about your answer is after all these years.
21:41
I don't know when CS Lewis last put, you know, pen to paper or something like that, but it's been decades and decades and decades.
21:47
Why is CS Lewis still so interesting to people? Because plenty of writers have popped up and gone away. Plenty of writers have written, you know, tomes that, you know, people love and appreciate and teach in school.
21:58
But I have a book list on my website called the 100 books every modern Christian man should read. And I've got, you know, a marriage category and a money category and a philosophy and a literature.
22:08
But only one author of nonfiction has their own category. And that's CS Lewis. That's because I'm incredibly reverent of the things that he wrote. I don't worship at the altar of CS Lewis by any stretchy imagination.
22:19
But the things that he wrote, I feel like are so profound and so sticky. But that's me. And like, I understand why I think it's cool. But why are so many Americans and so many people around the globe, millions and millions of people per year still buying his, his books and still reading his words.
22:32
That's a good, good question. You know, just before Lewis died, his, his, his attorney, his, it managed his literary estate, asked him, "What are you going to do about your literary legacy?" And Lewis wrote back, said to him, "Oh, man, you know, five years after I'm dead, no one will read a word I write."
22:58
Wow, wrong was he. Wow. And it's just, you know, I'm sure Norman might have told you this, but since he began writing in the 30s, he published some 30 odd books on various subjects with such area addition and such imagination that he sold almost a quarter of a billion books.
23:21
It's very likely that he sold more books this year than he did last year and will sell more books next year than this year. That doesn't happen to dead writers.
23:31
And why is that? Well, you know, he was a, he was a scholar of the first ranked. His field was medieval and Renaissance literature. And in that field, he read everything from the Greeks to the Moderns. He had a steel trap mind that could recall everything. I mean, it was almost photographic.
23:51
There's stories about his ability there. That once he read it, it was locked in. It's stuck. But beyond that, he had this magnificent ability to translate all that knowledge from his reading into magnificent prose and speech.
24:13
And he did it all under the headship of Christ. Then you add to this along the lines of what you're talking about the apologetics because I think he's actually the key to the modern apologetics movement that happened after the post war is because he was such a vigorous
24:31
personality that when he converted, he never forgot what what it felt like to not believe. Right. He says, he says something very interesting. And I thought about having got my arm around my brain around it. Yeah, he says a believed idea feels different.
24:53
He feels different than an idea that's not believed. And he says, I believe there is but one God in that Jesus Christ is only son. I believe in prayer, the second coming in judgment in heaven and in hell.
25:09
And he also says, you know, when when you run into difficulty, he said he was thinking in terms of World War II and the bombing of Britain, but he says when bombs destroy our homes, talk of Armageddon no longer seems fanciful as in this week piping time of peace.
25:29
And in a certain way, people can make arguments in these week piping time of peace that they don't make when they're in the fire.
25:37
I think that's absolutely the case and you see that all throughout his writing and you see that whenever you talk to people that have a reverence for CS Lewis and his working again yeah there are people that want to quibble with some of his theological points and all that but I think for me.
25:49
He was he wasn't okay he was just a regular guy, but he was exceptional as well, but he wasn't a professional Christian he wasn't a pastor. He wasn't a theologian. He was just so deeply involved in the work of Christ here on this planet that it just came out and all the things that he did and all the things that he touched,
26:05
which kind of gets me to this because he talked about you know 30 plus books he has all these other different writings but I want to know from you and then I'll tell you what Norman said after.
26:13
I want to know that if you personally had to delete all of CS Lewis's catalog of writings except for one book so you could leave one CS Lewis book for humanity, which one would it be and why.
26:25
Wow, well I can't have two. You can tell me what the other one would be but you know the rules of the game are one. Yeah I think it would be the scoot tape letters.
26:37
I do and I'll tell you why because he really gave me a picture of spiritual warfare that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
26:44
I don't know if you remember the very first letter of it.
26:47
For those who don't know, scoot tape is a senior devil in hell who's instructing a junior devil on the art of tempting a unsuspecting human honor.
26:57
And in the very first letter scoot tape is sort of bragging about his accomplishments, how good he is at his job and he tells the story of one such accomplishment of a man in the British Museum who is reading something of significance that Lewis is worried about.
27:16
He says not Lewis scoot tape is worried about. He says, I saw 20 years work beginning to totter just go out the window, but I struck instantly at the part of the man that I had best under my control and suggested isn't it just about time for lunch.
27:33
A subtle and it gets him out of that moment, you know, and that's how certain spiritual warfare works and what he goes on in that letter is very profound.
27:47
So I would say that one and the second one only because of the breadth, it reveals the breadth of his knowledge and it's these essay collections that he has.
28:01
The one I really like is called God in the Dock, and he just the breadth of subjects that he covers.
28:10
And he does it with such area addition, such wisdom, such depth of insight, such imagination, and such brilliant writing that I go back to it again and again.
28:24
Okay, so I wasn't as familiar with that work but with the scoot tape letters. There's an odd thing about that book for me personally Max and it's that I've, that was one of the only books that I started reading I think I started reading in college, and then I just stopped.
28:38
And I'm a finisher, like even if I'm reading a book that is a heaping pile of garbage stinky hot garbage, I will finish it because I have to finish it I will finish my plate, I will finish the rates like that that's kind of my thing.
28:50
But I just didn't finish it. And I don't know if it was because I was in a weird place in my life to wear that the real contents of the book wasn't going to soak in and be sticky with me, but I did pick it up years later and finish it but I've always wondered why was that the one book that just fell
29:04
away from me because that is so completely outside of who I am as a person and as a finisher. So that's why that was interesting now what Norman said was a grief observed.
29:13
And so the interesting thing about that is you know the screw tape letters is fiction and then I'm more drawn to see us Lewis is nonfiction, but hearing somebody that had his experience to talk about grief to talk about loss to talk about death.
29:25
What it reminded me of and it really hit me during the interview with Norman is that's what the Psalms are Max, like I'm listening to a pastor Joby Martin out of Florida right now go through the Psalms.
29:34
And there's so much lament there's so much pain there's so much embarrassment and shame and we have this culture now Max that doesn't want anyone to feel shame and I'm like no no shame is a tremendous motivator.
29:45
If you're ashamed that that you cheated on your spouse or that you used to be significantly overweight or that you used to think something that was really really stupid. I think shame is a great motivator and reminder for how we should model our lives moving forward so I thought that that was really important so I guess do you agree with that sentiment
30:03
with with a guy like Lewis that he's able even as a normal guy to look at these incredibly big subjects, but without quoting David, without quoting any of the Psalmist makes it feel like a Psalm or am I just drawing some lines that aren't as well.
30:17
I've been reading the Psalms recently too and I think there's a tremendous you know Lewis was really high on the book of Job.
30:24
And he loved he you know because Job talked back to God, you know and but he had his comeuppance and he recognized how far that that goes.
30:35
And I think the grief observed is a is a I mean the very first line of that book is so powerful. I never knew that grief felt so much like fear.
30:45
You know just that insight because he's examining himself and he never intended for that to be published he was just journaling really his feelings at the at the death of his late life wife so.
30:59
But see you can make an argument for for each one of his books.
31:04
I will say something about scruite letters that may may impress you with regard to your own experience Lewis said it was the book that he least enjoyed writing.
31:15
Right.
31:16
Didn't he say that at different points he felt like he had gone too far like he felt like it was all dust and itch and scratch and he had to remove joy out of his life to get into the mind of scruite.
31:29
But but the other side of it is that that helps a lot of people is the book in many ways is autobiographical in that he is the subject.
31:40
Right.
31:41
You know he is the the raw material for the for that book is his own experiences with temptation.
31:50
And I think part of the reason that I was attracted to it again to come back to it and this is this is odd but I think it's part of my calling is there's a there's a certain level of darkness in that book.
31:59
And I seem to remember people talking about how Lewis thought maybe at certain points that he was even becoming possessed because he was trying to literally shake hands with the devil to understand how his minions work.
32:08
Well he's he stopped writing he stopped writing and then that book they had eight publishing's in its first year and and they wanted him to write more and he said no, I'm not writing anymore.
32:20
I'm done.
32:21
Well it's such an unbelievable work just yesterday and I won't talk exactly about it because you know it's something that we're working on for later.
32:27
But what what we do it undaunted life is we're here to equipment to push back darkness. So part of the thing about that is we need to inform them of how they can so the world view like critical race theory why is it evil where does it come from why should we fight against the ideals
32:41
of Marx and postmodernism and all those things and how do we do that in the school board. Those are all things that I want to be able to quit men to do.
32:47
But sometimes what that causes me to do Max is what I had to do yesterday which I viewed a documentary that that dealt specifically with sexual violence predation on minors and things like that.
32:56
And it's stuff that I just you know it's you can't just you know have that and then just go on outside and go for a walk and just skip around and whistle because it's like the level of depravity in our world is something that men are not doing themselves a service
33:09
or the world of service by covering their eyes covering their ears and pretending like it's not there. And so seeing a guy that was his erudite as someone like a CS Lewis and a smart to go into those areas of darkness.
33:20
It is at least a lamp to us as you know followers of his work or just followers of Christ to be able to be like guys it isn't just about you know Jesus raining down blessings on you and the moment you become a Christian all of a sudden you get a new car
33:33
and a new house and you know two different new jobs that all pay you more like this is a struggle and there is darkness here that needs to be fought back and Jesus has equipped us with the power to do so.
33:44
Amen.
33:46
That's it that's true.
33:48
Well I keep leaning into sermons and I keep getting all excited but I do want to kind of come back to this but in all honesty I think that you did an absolutely fantastic job so much so that I didn't know you were American like because you're actually well let me actually ask that it seems
34:01
like a minor question compared to the other stuff that we've gone through like your accent to me to a non trained ear and I didn't go to Oxford.
34:10
It sounds incredibly legit it sounds like exactly what you would expect.
34:14
Well if you're doing a film you've got to be you know you've got to be convincing and I did train you know I had a pretty good British accent to begin with because I live there so I had the music of it already.
34:29
It's the little subtleties that get you tripped up and people you know just like if a Brit is trying to play an Oklahoma accent he may get the broad generality but he'll miss a little something here and there.
34:45
And so I hired a vocal coach and we went through the whole script each time and I would my natural instinct was to articulate this.
34:58
One particular I would say experience and I thought that was British and she would say no it's expedience.
35:12
And so I would have to do that right I would say I would say complex complex and she said no it's complex.
35:28
You're too fancy. Yeah so yeah I was too fancy that time yeah and so it was and so she'd bring me back but those there's a lot of subtleties like that throughout the play that I really worked on.
35:42
Well it's good to have a coach because then also you know if people say oh that's an American accent I'm like do you mean like Oklahoma or California or Idaho or Maine like that's a lot of different.
35:52
Or New York like what even over there like if you're from Wales that's not you're not going to sound like somebody from Liverpool or Scotland or London or Manchester like it's all going to be a little bit different.
36:04
And you have to watch a little bit more than just the English Premier League to get all those different accents you know what I mean so and I know you got a lot of things going on so I appreciate all the time we'll make this the last question
36:12
today and that's just what are you working on now like what are some things that we can see from Max McLean here in the coming time but also one thing that Norman shared with us is that this first movie the most reluctant comfort is hopefully going to be part of a trilogy
36:24
and that that's something that is going to be worked on and kind of moving forward so I don't know how that's going to affect you necessarily are you going to be part of these projects moving forward give us an idea.
36:33
Now we've we've, we've just signed a deal together to create to do films. The plan is to go into production next summer, hopefully release the first of the two films in 2024 and the second 2025.
36:49
So the idea is the first film covers his his conversion so it's like from nine years old when when his month when is he lost his mother the cancer to taking Christmas communion in December 1931 when he was 32 years old.
37:07
Like you and I we had conversion experiences we didn't become CS Lewis so what what what made him so unique what made him so different and we're going to explore all of that in the next two films.
37:20
When he died on November 22 1963 the same day John F Kennedy was assassinated they died about an hour apart and what we want to do is sort of look at juxtapose what was happening in Oxford at the kilns where he lived his last day and and maybe what's happening in Dallas.
37:40
And also sort of look at the legacy of Lewis you know he died and they both died the same day.
37:49
And we're coming up to 60th anniversary of that.
37:53
One could argue who would have the greater legacy and I would say it would be CS Lewis.
37:59
I don't think it's even close. I mean it's kind of like I know this is going to make a lot of people mad a lot of people and this has nothing to do with what we talked about.
38:13
But some people that died quote unquote too soon elevates them in people's brains beyond their actual talent level.
38:19
So a guy like Kurt Cobain and Nirvana that's an okay band but people talk about them as if they're like top 10 band all time it's like if Kurt Cobain didn't decide to eat a bullet.
38:28
Are we having this conversation and I think you can have that debate so I don't personally think it's really debatable between a guy like JFK and his legacy.
38:36
Perhaps if he had lived longer if he had lived till CS Lewis's age.
38:40
You could you know then the comparison might be different but again quarter of a billion books you said it yourself and next year will be more in the year after even more beyond that.
38:48
All of JFK's accomplishments had to do with politics law and his sexual peak of dillies whereas like what CS Lewis was dealing with is he was dealing with eternity and with people's souls and so I don't know that it's even comparable so I'm so excited
39:02
that you're going to be on on board for the next two projects and this the next one especially around the time when the BBC kind of brought him on the radio to talk about God and to talk about Jesus and Heaven and all that.
39:12
I mean that led to mere Christianity so I'm super excited about that.
39:15
Yeah and you know they gave him a national platform because people needed hope and he and he probably had after Churchill perhaps the most recognized voice in all England.
39:29
Absolutely incredible and I'm so glad that you're a part of this project you're a fantastic actor I'm really glad that you're lending your talent to the story but as of for now that's all for me is there anything else you want to get off your chest.
39:39
It's terrific look forward to doing this again thank you. Well you keep making movies and we'll keep having you on all right Max McLean thank you for coming on adult life a man's podcast.
39:48
Thank you.
39:49
There you go guys I hope you enjoyed my time with Max McLean but before we let you go we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
39:54
Add-on daunted life our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that for just spiritual, mental and physical resilience so the only link I've got for you today is a link to the film the most reluctant convert the untold story of CS Lewis you can go to the website make sure you check it out guys get some popcorn set everyone down on the couch
40:09
have a good time it is a fantastic fantastic film.
40:12
All right guys thanks so much for listening to the show we do appreciate it wherever you're listening to this please subscribe rate and leave us a positive five star of you.
40:18
If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast you shoot me an email to info at on to dot life that's I N F O at on to dot life.
40:25
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.
40:31
Just go to www dot undaunted dot life and as always we want to thank the band August Burns read for allowing us to use their music for our content.
40:38
The music on this podcast is our song cutting the ties which is off their 10th anniversary re-recording of their album leveler the links are in the description.
40:45
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
40:47
Remember keep pushing back darkness keep forging spiritual mental and physical resilience keep seeking the lion of Judah.
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[Music]