Gerard Butler is a Machine Gun Preacher and Michelle Monaghan is his wife

Contrary to what the title suggests, Machine Gun Preacher is not — I repeat — is NOT a grindhouse movie.

Darn.

The film’s stars, Gerard Butler and Michelle Monaghan, were also intrigued by the film’s title — but not in the same Death Proof way that I did.

When Butler’s agent pitched it to him, he barely had time to translate the title into grindhouse fare. Instead, he immediately connected to the main character, Sam Childers — a real-life ex-convict biker who turned into a gruff evangelist that focused his belief in a higher power to help the civil war-ridden lands of Sudan. And he was known as the “machine gun preacher” to the people he help save.

“I like the Machine Gun Preacher title — I think it’s very catchy,” says Butler. “It’s not for everybody, but it allows the movie to reveal the far deeper, complex story — at the same time it is a crazy-ass movie — (Sam Childers) is a crazy-ass guy! (laughs)”

The movie, based on the larger-than-life story of Sam, his wife Lynn (played by Monaghan) and his family is quite a feat. I had the opportunity to chat with them about the movie (with a table full of other journalists) and this is what I learned:

Gerard Butler wanted to be an apostle in biker gear.

In order to prep for the role, Butler consumed three things that would help him define his portrayal of Sam Childers.

“I did an awful lot of research,” says Butler. “I watched documentaries about Sudan, movies about bikers, documentaries about preachers — I even watched Robert Duvall’s incredible portrayal in The Apostle.”

Violent scenes and how to deal with them

In the film, there are LOTS of scenes with burnt bodies, dying children and other violent glimpses that are hard to ingest. Seeing that Butler was in over half these scenes, one would have to wonder how he deals with them.

“They are tough, but they are some of the most rewarding scenes because you have to go to the furthest place,” says Butler. “The harder you have to work for something, the bigger the reward is in the end.”

Meeting the real Sam and Lynn Childers helped their performance

Meeting the real-life human beings you are portraying can be intimidating, but when Butler and Monaghan met Sam and Lynn, they didn’t see it as an opportunity to change their portrayal, but to inform it.

“I knew (meeting them) was going to enhance my performance,” says Monaghan. “There was more to her than I was reading. Spending time with them made me realize that she was a quiet giant. She has a lot of faith and it helped her endure a lot throughout the years.”

Real People vs. Fake People

As mentioned, Sam and Lynn are living human beings who actually lived the life that Butler and Monaghan are bringing to the big screen. Now that they were “informed” of these people, how did they execute their performances?

“As an actor, the more you do the more you approach it the same way,” says Butler. “Most of the work I did as (Sam Childers) was the same as I would approach any role — working on the understanding the deeper layers of the character. But here, I took full advantage of the fact that I had the source in front of me — and I went to that source. But I can’t get too affected by that. I had to go back to the script, director, and the other actors — in that respect, it’s like any other performance.”

And how did Sam and Lynn like their performances?

“They loved it,” says Monaghan, “but Sam was upset that Gerard wasn’t better looking — we all were. (laughs)”

What happened to The Real RocknRolla?

I was more than happy when one of my fellow journalist threw the title The Real RocknRolla on the table. The Real RocknRolla was supposed to be the second installment to Guy Ritchie‘s grimy London crime caper RocknRolla — which starred Butler. The sequel has been in the works for a couple of years, so to finally find out if there was any progress with the movie was a treat.

“The more I look back at my career, the more I look at that as one of my favorite movies,” says Butler. “It’s the only comedy that I’ve done where I actually laugh at my own self. In other comedies that I am in, I appreciate the humor, but I don’t laugh at myself — it just seems sad. But in RocknRolla, the situations are just so funny that I laugh every time I see it — but it looks like Guy has moved on to larger adventures. He has a script for The Real RocknRolla, but who knows if and when that is gonna happen because he seems to have plenty of other opportunities. But I would be more than happy to go back.”

So would I.

Machine Gun Preacher is currently playing in select theaters and opens in San Francisco on Friday September 30.