The Eric Metaxas Show - Max McLean (Encore)

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

Max McLean drops by the studio with interesting behind-the-scenes stories about his new film based on the life of C.S. Lewis, "The Most Reluctant Convert." (Encore Presentation)

to the Eric Mettaxas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey there, folks. Welcome to hour two of the Eric Metaxus show. There are only two hours, so I'm afraid this is it. Chris Heimes, my co-host today, sitting in for Albin. That's right. Hello. Albin, as we know, is having a kind of procedure done. Yeah.

Rimes with... Facelift. Hair transplant. And he's going to come back. looking like Elton John with just a head like a carrot top kind of head. And it's going to, people aren't going to believe it. They're going to think it's a wig. But I know the doctor that he's using, and this doctor is not fool around. Yeah. He's a, he's a real artist. So, highly sought after hair transplant, magician. So, but anyway, I was, I was saying in the last

hour that I wanted to finish my story about, I was speaking at Rob McCoy's church. Right. People come up to you in line. Yes. And you don't know who's going to come up to you in line. And a lot of times people will say things that are either not funny or funny or in between. Like, you have no idea. But I feel like it's a stand-up routine that I'm doing with the people coming up. And you get the standard thing where people go like, they bring four books to be signed.

They go, I'm really sorry. Do you mind signing four books? And I think, I'm an author. Yeah. You're asking for my autograph. I'm really flattered. I'm flattered to the point that. I can't believe you're asking for my autograph in the book.

And the fact that you bought for books, I'll be able to feed the children, you know? Like, come on. So I got to say anybody who does that. So you never know what's going to happen in line. The woman comes up to me with my book, I mentioned this earlier, she has my previous book, Fish Out of Water, which is the story of my life growing up in Queens and everything. And she says, I think you were a little hard on Mr. Siambas.

And if I've ever done a double take or a spit-tie, this was the time. I was like, what? This woman, I can't give her name out on the air, but she said she was going to email me and she better. She was there with her husband and her daughter. She was in the same school. I think she was in my class very briefly. I think I skipped the grade. I can't figure out. I think she was between my grade and my brother's grade. She remembered me and my brother. She remembered the coats we wore. That's how I knew that this is like, this is your life. She said, you wore these little coats with these little toggle buttons. I was like, get out. And it was so incredible reminiscing with her, but this is in California,

Thousand Oaks, or what is it, Newbury Hills, wherever his church is it's up there. But it was just such a wonderful thing. And this happens all the time you meet people in line that, you know, you just, it's a big surprise. So it's fun signing books. Because a lot of times people say, like, well, if you don't want to sign books, I know you're tired. Are you kidding?

That's dessert. Yeah. You know? Like I enjoy preaching. We're speaking or any, I love it. But this is really fun because you never know. And another person came up in line when I was speaking in Leesburg, Virginia. Actually, I got to give the backstory on this.

This is nuts. This is nuts. About nine years ago, my brother. in-law, Drew Merns, was on a plane. And the woman next to him was reading Bonhofer. Oh, right. I remember this story. Yeah, yeah. And I've never seen anybody reading any of my books on a plane. So he's just talking to her. He says, yeah, this is my brother-in-law wrote or whatever.

She insists that he signed the book. So my brother-in-law, by marriage, signed the copy of Bonhofer. Yeah. In Leesburg, Virginia. It was a terrible forgery, though, right? No, no. It was his own name. I want to be very clear legally. It was his own name. Got it. But in Leesburg, Virginia, recently, I was signing books.

And a woman comes up with the book. Wow. And says, I'm the woman who got your brother-in-law. And I said, someday I'll get Eric to sign it. This is that day. Wow. That's great. She says, that prophecy is revealed in your hearing.

Yeah. And I signed the book. but you just, you know, this woman was a mythic figure to me. And I got to meet her. It's almost kind of like the one upside down stamp that gets printed, you know. It's like the odds of that happening. And now it's like even more rare. Right, right.

It's the rare Drew Burns. It was just unbelievable. So I have so much fun. And this is a way of letting me mention that a lot. Oh, by the way, I got a minute before I forget. Before I voted this morning. Oh, congratulations. I voted for Curtis Sliwa.

And the odds of him becoming mayor are, it's an uphill swim, as I say. But I also coined that term, folks, uphill swim. Please write that down. I coined that. But Curtis Slee was a hero. I hope he wins. But I just have to go back to say that last night, I was on, or yesterday I was on the plane flying home from California. California.

Exhausted. Yeah. But you can be on email on the planes, and I get an email from Katie, rhymes with Katie Madonna, saying that, oh yeah, Eric, you have to sign a thousand books like tomorrow night. Wow. Right? At a Lifeway Christian bookstore in Queens. Wow.

And I thought, please have this be a bad dream because I'm really tired. Yeah. And I wanted, go ahead. Yeah, I was going to say, on the robot, Eric Metaxus that signs the books normally is in the shop. See, that's the thing is, like, I think there are people who don't, they're not sure if I signed the books. And I'm here to tell you, if a book is not signed by my hand, like, that would just be gross. Like, that would be, that would be called lying. Right.

Okay. So if you ever get a book that I didn't actually sign with my hand or a bookplate that I didn't sign with my hand, you know, like with a row. You know, like with a robot pen, that's like, that's called lying. Yeah, yeah. Unless you're Drew Merns and then your brother-in-law. Yes, Drew Merns. He's the only person. So, but on the plane, it occurred to me tomorrow, which is now today.

I don't know, funny how that happens. I want to drive up to Connecticut because I said my dad's still in the hospital and this is all this stuff and whatever. So I thought, what am I going to do? Wednesday, I got to fly to Wichita. Kansas. So like I'm on the road like crazy signing books and whatever and I have no time, but all these people have been complaining they didn't get their books yet. Now I want to say there's weird reasons for that. Some of the like giants like Amazon or Barnes & Noble like I think bought up like most of the copies because they knew this was a hot ticket item. So the smaller stores

are having trouble so people aren't getting their books and all this crazy stuff. So anyway, I knew that the people who had gotten the sign books from Socrates in the city, they've been waiting. And I've been on this road trip. So I got to sign the books. So I called up a friend of mine, a tubby fella named Bobo. I mean, his friends call him Bobo. That's not his real name. And I emailed Bobo.

And I said, yo, Bobo, how do you feel like picking me up at JFK? How do you feel about picking me up at JFK when I land? at 5 o'clock, exhausted, and driving me to this bookstore in Queens, where I can sign a thousand books, and then they're going to bury me in a shallow grave off of the Van Wick Expressway. So Bobo shows up. Now, by the way, driving to JFK is always miserable. Bumper to bumper traffic.

It's so dangerous, I wouldn't even ask my family to do it. Yeah. Like Suzanne might have done it. I couldn't ask her because you could die. No. You could die. Okay. And people are dropping like boulders from overpasses.

Very few people make it. Yeah. And I, so I get to the bookstore. I signed last night with this withered claw, I signed 1,400 books. Wow. Last night. All legibly. You know how like most big shots I go like, like, get a signature from Glenn Beck or anybody and see what it looks like.

Yeah. All right. It looks like Sanskrit. And I'm very legible. I'm very careful because I care about my readers. And to be clear, you used a pen, not your own blood. I may have used this pen. Okay. These are the only pens I use.

But anyway, I signed 1,400 books so that today I could go to Danbury. There was more that I was going to share. But you know what? Isn't that enough? So when we come back, we're talking about C.S. Lewis, are we? Did I mention ADF? ADF, this is the last chance. Metaxus.com, please go to ADF. This is our last week, Metaxus.com. We want to show the other Salem hosts that they stink, that their audiences stink, and that this audience is awesome. Go to Metaxus talk.com. Thank you.

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Have you heard about CS Lewis? Neither of I, but somebody has evidently made a movie about him. You know what? I just realized C.S. Lewis, that is the writer C.S. Lewis. That's right. Max, I've seen you perform on the stage as C.S. Lewis many times. I get so excited about C.S. Lewis that when I heard you were doing a stage play, I flipped out. It is now a movie.

Right. And that's why you're here. That's right. How did this happen? This is, I mean, look, you know that it just doesn't get bigger from me than C.S. Lewis. I want the whole world to know. about this guy, you have spent much of your life making him known to the world. I know there's probably people listening or watching who actually don't know who he is. And I'm telling you,

folks, he's one of the greatest writers who ever lived, whoever lived. One of the greatest writers who ever lived wrote in innumerable genres, mastered just about all of them, just a genius and a profound Christian and one of my greatest heroes in life. So I've lived long enough to where my friend, Max McLean, has made a film called

The Most Reluctant Convert, The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis. So how did you come to make this film? Well, COVID had a lot to do with it. You know, the play was running. We were doing a lot of college tours with the play. March 15th of last year. year everything ended.

When did the most reluctant convert become a play and tell my audience in case they don't know why is it titled the most reluctant convert? Well, it's about Lewis's journey from vigorous to bunker of Christianity to becoming the most reluctant

convert in all of England. I gave in and admitted that God is God. Nelton prayed perhaps the most dejected reluctant convert in all England. So those are his famous And that was a long story. It started with the death of his mother at, I guess he was nine. He had a terrible relationship with his father. He experienced the brutality of World War I.

And this got him to the conclusion that either there's no God behind the universe, a God indifferent to good and evil or worse, an evil God. And that's where that's kind of the nader of his disbelief. And it's from there that we, follow his journey to becoming the most influential Christian of the 20th century. Am I in this movie? You should be. So I'm not in this movie. Hey, Alvin, that's the code. That's when they say you should be, but you're not.

I noticed not only are you the star of the movie, but my friend Michael Ward, I just read this. He's in the movie. Yeah, he plays the vicar. He plays the vicar. So we actually filmed at Heddington Quarry, the Holy Trinity, Eddington Quarry, and we hired Michael to be the parish priest. Unbelievable. I would have done it for half whatever he charged you.

What a bloodsucker. Michael, if you're watching, I'm on to you. Michael Ward, listen, I have to tell my audience, Michael Ward, if you've watched Socrates in the city, one of my favorite conversations I've ever had was with Michael Ward, who is a C.S. Lewis scholar of scholars, and he wrote a book, two books, one called Planet Narnia, and the other

the narnia code. The Narnia Code. Just genius. I mean, we don't have time to get into that. But I'm thrilled. I know, of course, he's in Oxford. And when you refer to Heddington Quarry, that's the church where Lewis and his brother Warnie worshipped.

And there's a little plaque. I have a picture there. So you did film it right where much of this happened. Yeah, there was 18 locations in and around Oxford. We had 17 actors. three actors playing Lewis. We had a boy Lewis, Eddie Ray Martin, young man Lewis, who went off to war,

became the scholar. That's Nicholas Ralph, who stars in All Creatures Great and Small. And then I play the Elder Lewis looking back on his life and reflecting, kind of like Mark Twain looking back on his youth. It has that sort of format. Well, one of the other exciting things.

Well, first of all, let's start with the headline, November 3rd. This is one night only in theater. This is a form that people are doing increasingly. So tickets are on sale at c.s. Lewismovie.com. Folks, if you can get to this, please, we've got to patronize great art about great subjects, and it doesn't really get better. November 3rd, in theaters around the country, you can go to CSlewismovie.com to figure out where.

There's a trailer there. You can watch it. But I was most excited about this when I found out that my friend Norman Stone has directed it. Tell us about Norman. I love Norman so much. Norman, I've respected him for 30 years because he put together the original Shadowlands, the BBC Shadowlands, which became the movie with Anthony Hopkins and Deborah Winger. He and I met about 10 years ago at an arts conference in Santa Monica, stayed in touch. And about two and a half years ago, I called him and asked him,

You know, the play was doing very well. And I said, would you consider making a movie this play? And he said, well, send me the script. And so he looked at the script, really liked it and wanted to stay close to it, but open it up for film. And, you know, we thought it was going to be a 22, 23 project. But when COVID came, we moved it up. And he said that, this was back in June. He said that filmmaking was opening up in the UK,

and he could get a really good crew and cast if we worked quickly because nobody was working. So I said, well, if you can verify that and verify that we have the locations we need, I'll see if I can get my board to release some funds to get it in the can, and then we can talk about post-production and distribution later. So we did. We got the rights in the C.S. Louis Estate to do the film, to do the shooting. And I went in late August, empty plane as big as Air Force One with few people on it, fewer people on it.

And quarantined for a couple of weeks, and then we did the shoot in about a month. It's unbelievable. Norman works fast. I've never seen anybody like him. He's like just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. He just gets it done. And he's directed so much wonderful stuff. Most famous, I guess, for his, you mentioned, his 1984 BBC drama called Shadowlands, which most of us know the Hollywood version 10 years later with Deborah Winger and Anthony Hopkins.

But Norman, he's been in and around the world of C.S. Lewis all these years. He actually did the Narnia Code with Michael Ward. Okay. I wasn't going to bring this up because I had forgotten. but this is true. It's because of me. I'll never forget it. I was feeling slightly ill, and I was supposed to meet this guy

named Michael Ward in New York. Norman Stone, dear friend, was staying with us in our apartment, and I said, Norman, I said, I'm not feeling well. Would you come to this lunch with me because, you know, you know about Lewis, and it'll be more fun if you're there

because I don't know how much energy I have today. He comes to the lunch, and at some point, I say, Hey, hey, he said, Norman, I'm not the kind of person to do this to a friend, to put him on the spot. But you realize you need to make a film about this. And son of a gun, he made a film about it. And it was on the BBC. And it did very, very well for the BBC.

But I totally forgot that I can take credit for introducing them. And even telling him, like, you've got to do this. This is so, I mean, that's another conversation. but it does lead us into why Lewis is worth knowing because he really was an uncommon genius. There's a lot of bad writing. As a writer, I can tell you folks, a lot of times people read things by so.

And I just go, you know what, that's really not great writing. Great writing is great writing. And Lewis is one of the greatest writers who ever lived. And what Michael Ward brings out, the depth, the poetic depth, the mythological depth of his writing, it's just it takes it to a whole other level

that thanks to Michael Ward we now know about. So I'm thrilled, even though I joke, that he's in this, but I could have played Warnie. Think of all the people I could have played. Let me ask you, before we go to a break, this comes out in theaters, November 3rd, around the country. Do we know how many theaters it's in yet?

Several hundred. It's selling very, very well. Okay. I'm not surprised. Lewis has a huge following. Folks, even if you don't know who he is, trust me. And you were speaking about his words, 99% of the words in this play are his. So, you know, it's not like we're making stuff up.

It mostly from his autobiography, surprised by joy. Well, that's what's so interesting. I mean, he wrote so beautifully. And the line that you quoted that he was, you know, perhaps the most dejected, the most reluctant convert in all of England, he tells us the truth, that he was almost disappointed that he had found his way to this place because now what's going to happen to his life. You know, he's going to maybe lose some friends. And in the end, it worked out pretty well for him.

It did. But at the time he was afraid and he wrote so beautifully in surprised by joy that to have it turned into a play by you and now into a movie by you. It's the most reluctant convert, the untold story of C.S. Lewis. Folks, go to C.S. Louismovie.com. Tell your friends, because I know Max McLean and because I know Norman Stone, I can say, you cannot go wrong. At its worst, it's going to be wonderful. C.S. Louismovie.com. We'll be right back. Hey, folks, Eric Metaxis here.

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to life on the stage. I've seen you do a number of things. They blur together in my mind. Screw tape, great divorce. Okay, so screw tape, the great divorce, and the most reluctant convert, which I saw, what, three years ago?

I don't know. It opened in New York. It ran for 15 weeks in New York in 2016. Well, not only that, but I was privileged, I think, in either, maybe it was 2005.

to see you, it might have been after that, to see you give the sermon the weight of glory. Oh, that was at the... In St. Mary's Church in Cambridge. That's the place where Lewis gave that sermon in the 50s, I guess. 41. 41, really? Wow.

One of his most famous sermons. And it's funny as a sermon because, you know, people have different ideas of what sermons are. This is just like a spectacular essay that's also a sermon. But you memorize the whole thing. That was pretty influential in the writing of this play. In fact, it concludes with a good bit of weight of going. There are no ordinary people. We've never met to mere mortal. Yeah, I'll say. I want to convert a lot of what looks. wrote into hard-boiled 30s dialogue. Gee, Joy, your swell.

She probably spoke like that as a New Yorker. You've done so much of this, but to bring it to the screen, because that's to me, it's always been one of the frustrations of theater, is that only so many people get to the theater and that there is something when you can put it on the screen. Of course, it's different. But you had our friend Norman Stone, turn it into a film.

What did he do to take something that's in a theater and say, okay, now we have the whole world. Well, it exploded. I mean, it was a one-person show, you know, just one person telling his story. And then what Norman did was capture the memory and then put it on the screen. So as soon as I begin to reflect,

Yeah. We actually see it. And, you know, and of course, we go from a one-person show to 18 locations, 17 actors, 190 extras, 270 costumes. Are you able to share the budget? It's, I think it was, it came in under three, which is pretty good for all that. And that's American dollars. Yeah.

Three bucks. That's unbelievable. That is really, I would have thought at least a sawbook. for something like this. No, but it's, that is a wonderfully low budget, and it gives you the ability, hopefully, to make some money on it, because this is something,

I just hope everybody goes to see it, because people are always thinking, what is out there? You can be scouring Netflix and Hulu and Amazon and whatever, and there isn't much that is a must-see. I'm sorry to say. In my opinion, this is a must-see. This is something that I don't care where you're coming from.

C.S. Lewis is just, one of those figures that we were talking earlier about his writing. I am a writer, but I'm not just a writer. I'm a writerly writer. I'm a literary writer. And so there are people that they write books, but it's mostly about the ideas. For me, it's often about the writing. And what I noticed about Lewis is his writerliness. He has a talent for fiction and for other things. I don't know anyone who can top him. There are phrases, there are passages in books like, um, perilandra, especially toward the end, it's some of the greatest writing I've ever read. It's that good.

And it, it, it, it, it wasn't always that way. He said that, uh, his, his, his ambition, his life was to be a writer, not just to be a writer, but to be known as a writer. Yeah. And he said in that, he would, he failed, uh, in that, uh, because as he was, uh, in his mid-20s, I mean, his conversion was 1931, so he was 32 years old. In his mid-20s, you know, Keats and Shelley were dead. Byron Chesterton had completed their most distinguished works. Okay, but here's what's funny. This is, I love this kind of stuff.

What's funny and what's ridiculous is he is still living in a world that's dead. He's living in a world, I mean, in the early parts of the 20th century, when he was coming of age, and it happens to all of us, right? It happened to me. I grew up at a time when, you know, I'm watching certain things on TV. and I think that when I'm an adult, I want to do that or I want to do that. That goes away. But you think it'll always be there.

He wrote, you know, long poems, cycles of poems. What is it, Dyson and other poems? Dimer. A dimer. Spirits and bondage. He writes this stuff. And the reason I'm bringing this up is that it was just a weird time to be alive because you're thinking like, yeah, I want to write stuff like Keats and Shelley.

And the point is no one was doing that. No one could do that. Most of the poetry in the 20th century is Elstinko. I can say that because I've read some of it. It's a funny time to be alive. So here he's trying to recreate stuff from these greats. And yeah, how old was Keats when he died? 30.

Yeah, something crazy like that and he wrote this great stuff. So he's comparing himself to them, not realizing that he's coming into another era when people aren't going to read things like that, even though he did write some spectacular poems for a fact. But it was his conversion. It really wasn't until his conversion that he found his voice, not so much in poetry, but mostly in prose and the literary flow, you know, just did not cease till the day

died. Yeah, because what is it that he wanted to say? I mean, I wouldn't want to compare myself to Lewis, but I found the same thing is that sometimes you say I want to write, but you don't have a voice. You don't know who you are, what you want to say. And my goodness, he wrote so much. I often stress how many genres he wrote. Oh, we're at a time.

We'll be right back. And I will repeat the word genre. Hey, folks, you've all helped build my pillow into the amazing company it is today. Mike Lundell has an amazing offer for my listeners on his standard my pillows. You'll get a standard my pillow regularly 6998, now only 1998. You'll also receive deep discounts on all my pillow products such as My Pillow towels, mattress topper, my slippers, and so much more. Go to MyPillow.com and click on the radio listener square to receive Mike's standard

my pillow for just 1998 or call 1-800-978-3057 and use promo code Eric. My Pillow is made in the USA with a 10-year warranty so you know it's going to last and a 60-day money-back guarantee so you have nothing to lose. It's time to start getting the quality sleep we not only want but need. Go to MyPillow.com or call 1-800-978-3057. use promo code Eric to take advantage of Mike's special offer on his standard MyPillow. That's MyPillow.com promo code Eric or 1-800-9778-3057 MyPy7 Mypillow.com promo code Eric. Folks, I was just trying to pronounce the word genre.

John Cheever would say John. I say genre. But what I was saying was that C.S. Lewis was such an amazing writer. I will compare him to Shakespeare because he wrote his own literature. And I don't mean he wrote literature. I mean, he created a literature. I guess Chesterton's a little bit like that.

They wrote in so many genres with such genius that they created a whole world. Yeah, yeah. Well, you're right. You know, Chesterton was the inspiration for much of his apologetic works. Yeah. But I would say it was McDonald was his inspiration for his fantasies, you know. And also Charles Williams as well.

I mean, I just read That Hidious Strength, and that's a Charles Williams novel. I was going to say, that Hidia Strength, which is the third of his so-called Space Trilogy, which always annoys me. It's not really a Space Trilogy. I don't know what it is, but it's kind of like Narnia, you know, for adults. Well, it's pre-Narnia, too. And it was pre-Narnia. Yeah. Well, those books are just their genius.

They are. I find Peralandra to be one of the great. It should be taught alongside Paradise Lost in survey courses of Western Literature. It's genius. It's a retelling of Paradise Lost. It's incredible. And that hideous strength, what do you even make of the, of? Well, it's prescient.

It's prescient. It's prophetic. It is amazing. When you read that, you think we're living through this now, unfortunately. but a lot of people aren't familiar with those books. But Peralandra and that Hidious Strength, they're just crazy, amazing books. But he wrote poems.

Some of them are great. One of my favorite ones is the one that I was there in 1998 when they put it up in Addison's Walk behind the colleges, behind Marlund College where he was, where his rooms were, and where I bumped into you one day. Do you remember that?

Yes. You were, this was before you, you gave you anyway. I remember bumping into you on Addison's walk. It's a beautiful place. It is where Lewis came to faith on some level. Tell us that story. It was the famous conversation he had with Tolkien. Yeah. And because he, Lewis had, Lewis said that he, he said, I've come, I've come to believe in God, but not Christ. He couldn't understand how someone who lived 2,000 years ago could help us here and now. And Tolkien explained. to him that when you read or myths of Osiris, Balder, Dionysus, talking to Lewis, you like them

very much and are mysteriously moved by them. Provided, when you meet the story of a dying God like in Balder, Osiris, you like it very much as long as you meet it anywhere except in the Gospels. He says, well, the Gospels are a myth, just like the other myth with one tremendous difference. It really happened. It's the myth that, it's the myth that became fact. And what was interesting about that conversation, it allowed Lewis or it motivated Lewis to read the Bible differently, to look at Jesus in a mythological way. And that's where, you know, he's, you know, He came to his liar, lunatic lord. And we don't mean, when we say mythological, we don't mean not historical, but we mean in the genre of myth, except also historical.

Right. You know, just like you could say what happened, you know, the story of Noah, the story of the parting of Red Sea, these are mythical stories. They have resonance as stories, but we believe they actually happen. Well, they're like archetypes. That's right. They hit you so deep in the soul. Right. You know, in fact, all of the Marvel and all the great film heroes are mythological stories that get retold.

And the Jesus story is the story in which all of those are a point. I can't believe you're bringing up Marvel. Marvel is just messing up everything. They've come out with a new comic book that says Liberace was gay. I don't know what the heck that's all about. We can't talk about that right now. I should have said Johnny Mathis. I think that would have been funnier.

Okay, but here's the issue. Lewis really was a genius, and he wrote in so many genres, and he wanted to serve God, and because of that, in a way, he fell a foul of the academic establishment. In other words, the Dons in Oxford and then in Cambridge, they really looked down their noses at him because he had the misfortune of being popular. His books were read.

Especially after he did the broadcast talks that became mere Christianity, and he became one of the most popular spokespeople in all of England. Yeah, it's hard for us to think of him as being that famous. It's also fascinating, isn't it, to think that the BBC in the 40s would have allowed someone to be in a... apologist for the Christian faith on national radio. Right. Well, of course, you know, they had a thousand German planes come up to Thames, bombing everything in sight. So, you know, London was like an ocean of flames. It looked like the day of judgment. So people, you know, when, when bombs destroy your

home, talk of Armageddon no longer seem fanciful. So it's, uh, he, the people were prepared to hear him. And I saw a little bit of that at 9-11. you know, in a lesser way because it was only a one-day thing there. It was from September 40 to May of 41. Right. And then he began speaking in that summer. Well, it is, it's just so amazing. The poem that I was referencing at Addison's walk,

I never remember that it's what the bird said early in the year. Yeah, I don't remember it either. It is such a beautiful poem. But the funny thing is it speaks to me about the larger themes that are all through Lewis, how the fairy tale world is really a way of talking about heaven. And that's sort of what Narnia is about. And that poem is really about that, of entering in, you know, past this sort of cyclic time and into the eternal present.

I mean, it's such a beautiful poem. And I remember they put it there in 1998, which was the centenary of Lewis's birth, 1898. But, yeah, he wrote some gorgeous poems. And then, of course, he wrote the poem that our friend Michael Ward, who I'm bitter to find was involved in this movie, and I wasn't. Michael Ward wrote his book, Planet Narnia, where he takes one of Lewis's poems and uses it as the clue, the key, to unlock the Narnia book.

I mean, it is just so rich. So I'm just thrilled to think that there are people who are going to discover C.S. Lewis as a result of this. Folks, please go to C.S. Lewis movie. com. C.S. Lewis Movie.com. November 3rd is the date. You owe this to yourself. We'll be right back. Folks, we're talking about C.S. Lewis.

There is a movie coming out. One day only, November 3rd. Write it down. C.S. Lewismovie.com. I'm sitting here with a man who plays Lewis and who conceived of the whole thing. Max McLean. Max, that must make you a producer.

That's, well, I wrote the adaptation. A producer, a writer. Right. In this case, though, we have producers, and that my main responsibility is to play C.S. Lewis, which it's really a joy to do. It's fun to be that smart for 90 minutes. Where did you grow up?

Well, Dad was military, so we didn't have a particular place. I'm an immigrant. I came from Panama, came to America when I was four. In fact, the west side passenger terminal on 48th Street is about 10 minutes from where I currently live. So it's kind of interesting that I'm close to that. First thing I had to do was master the English language. I've been working on it ever since at 4. Dad was all over.

I mean, I went to 10 different schools from first grade to 12th grade. Oh, my gosh. When do you come to faith and how did that play a part? Well, I'm an adult convert. I was 23. And Lewis was the, somebody gave me a copy of Surprised by Joy, which I didn't understand a word of it at the time. But the second book that was given me was the screw tape letters. And I said, oh, I know this guy. This guy has been in my life for a long time. And that's, that really is what, what sort of nailed Lewis as a key figure in my life. But I didn't read him very much until about. about 15 years later, oh, no, more and more than that, maybe 20 plus years later, where I was doing a show and a theater professor suggested that I would make a really good screw tape. And I didn't know if that was a compliment or not. But I was really intrigued.

And we had an idea how to do it. And he said, well, if we can get the rights, we would have a goal of it. So from that point on, that would have been in the early 2000. So it's been about 20 years of. really investing in Lewis. Screw tape about spiritual warfare from the demon's perspective, the great divorce from kind of the Holy Spirit perspective. In both cases, Lewis is being so transparent.

He's talking about his own battles against battles with temptation and screw tape in great divorce, how he resists the Holy Spirit. And doing those two pieces made me want to go back to his conversion because he's always going back to that spot as, you know, how he resisted it, how he fought it. And we just got a minute left, but you talked about what he calls joy, the German word. Yeah, the dialectic of desire. It's zain soot. It's hard to explain, but something that as a kid, he remembers this, something awakened in him.

And he recognizes eventually, that's my longing for God, even though I didn't know at the time what that was. Yeah, he says, I think, Miracr, if I find myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is I was made for another world. And he also says that he doesn't think that that desire is found in this life. This life is only meant to, pleasure is only meant to arouse it to suggest the real thing. and that he thought that the best he could do with his life is to pursue that desire and help others do the same. People really don't say this often, but it occurs to me as you say this. He was a tremendous thinker and a tremendous philosopher. He put it in beautiful writing, but even those thoughts are really original, beautiful.

We're out of time. Folks, you've got to go to c.s.luismovie.com. The movie is the most reluctant convert, November 3rd. Max McLean, congratulations, and thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much.