04/21/2023
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Actor says he has a passion for faith-based movies and wants them to succeed at the box office so even more will be produced.
Ritchson, known for his roles as Jack Reacher in Amazon's Reacher series and as Gloss in the movie The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, will star alongside two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank in the new motion picture titled Ordinary Angels. It is scheduled to be released on Oct. 13.
The movie is being produced by the Erwin brothers' Kingdom Story Company. They're the producers behind the faith-based box office success Jesus Revolution. The production company also produced American Underdog, I Can Only Imagine, and I Still Believe.
Described as a remarkable true story, Ordinary Angels centers on Sharon Stevens (Swank), a fierce but struggling hairdresser in small-town Kentucky who discovers a renewed sense of purpose when she meets Ed Schmitt (Ritchson), a widower working hard to make ends meet for his two daughters. With Ed's youngest daughter waiting for a liver transplant, Sharon sets her mind to helping the family and will move mountains to do it.
The Louisville Courier-Journal reports the story took place in 1994 during a record-breaking snowstorm. Stevens had "raised tens of thousands of dollars for the family's growing medical expenses and arranged for a private jet to fly the family from Louisville to Omaha when the time came."
Ritchson, a Christian, told Christian Headlines the movie is a story of God using broken people to accomplish His will.
"God continually shows up in our world in a way that kind of boggles our mind," Ritchson said. "Because we, for whatever reason, I think we continue to buy into the idea that ... God chooses heroes to do His work. And it's just never been the case. It's the broken and the dysfunctional that God proves His power and strength through. And this a story of that, too."
"It's important that we remember that those who may be struggling to follow the rules, who don't look like the perfect Christians, who are the broken, are the people that God has a funny way of expressing Himself through," he added. "And that story is very much told in Ordinary Angels."
