Veritas magazine recently got Christian Hollywood film producer Ralph Winter on the phone to get his thoughts on God and Hollywood. Well known for his blockbuster films such as X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Star Trek series, Winter even shot a helicopter chase in downtown Des Moines about 15 years ago for a movie called The Puppet Masters.

"Your city was kind enough or crazy enough to let us film there," Winter says. "We didn’t hurt anything, but helicopter work is always a little dangerous. But they had confidence we knew what we were doing."

Veritas Magazine: What is taking up the majority of your time right now?

Ralph Winter: We’re trying to set up and sell movies. A third of my time is spent raising money, a third is selling and persuading, and a third is evaluating, looking at material, and meeting with writers.

We have a documentary in production right now on climate change called Cool It that follows a Danish environmental educator, Bjorn Lomborg. We hope to be out in the fall with that documentary. Trying to kick off from where Al Gore started and try to come up with some radically practical solutions about climate change. What should we do? Should we all go buy a Prius? Should we build more nuclear power plants? How do we engage? What should we do? We’ve interviewed scientists, environmentalists, politicians, and engineers all over the world. We’re trying to stir the pot a little bit. On one end of the spectrum is everything Al Gore told you is the truth and the other end of the spectrum is there’s no such thing as climate change. In between those two are a lot of different positions, and there is no voice. We think Bjorn Lomborg is that voice for the vast majority of people in the middle.

And we have about 25 other projects at various stages.

VM: Hollywood is often characterized by power, fame, fortune, and cutthroat competition. How are you able to pursue your relationship with God in that environment?

RW: The first thing I would say is that power and competition and all that seems to me to describe Wall Street, academia, retailing, manufacturing, the church. I don’t think it’s much different. The choices of maintaining your journey of faith in Hollywood is not much different from trying to maintain that on Wall Street or Main Street. The challenges are the same about the human condition and how are you going to get along and how are you going to represent yourself and what do you value.

We certainly read more about Hollywood in the newspaper because people seem to care about who’s sleeping with who. But I think that happens in the accounting business, as well. People just don’t want to read about it.

I don’t think it’s anything special or remarkable about surviving in Hollywood. I think it’s remarkable that you can stay married and have a family and work on Wall Street, or work in retailing, or work as an engineer, or work in government. I think it’s a struggle we all have.

Hollywood’s competitive. All those things come into play. I would imagine it is competitive in a web startup company. The challenges are not much different.

VM: What role do you see the local church playing in your life?

RW: We go to a small church near our home. I’ve been a member of a big Presbyterian Church for about 30 years. I enjoy the smaller church environment. It’s very simple and nonpolitical. There are five services of about 150-200 people. It has good teaching—straightforward telling the gospel story and a good worship service.

When I’m in town, that’s where we are. When I’m not in town, we try to visit other churches, depending on proximity and availability and all of that. We’ve visited a lot of churches in this country and a number in other countries.

I think church plays an important role. That’s where the members of my small group are. The sort of support community that I look for is within my church community. Those are the people I depend on.

VM: Tell me about your family.

RW: I’ve been married for 36 years. We have two children, both married. Two grandchildren. My wife is school nurse in Glendale. We’re pretty typical. Pretty boring.

VM: I see you’ve made both Christian and non-Christian films and some of them tend to be pretty dark. Why is that?

RW: I’ve made a lot of movies at different budget ranges. Some of those might be more catered to a Christian audience, but I don’t make Christian movies any more than I buy Christian Levi’s.

I am attracted to the darker side. I have a theory that most of the stories that you remember in the Bible, you remember because they are inherently dark. I think that’s probably where a lot of the world lives on a day-to-day basis and probably why the gospel makes sense to a lot of people. It speaks to people that live in a dark place.

The story of Noah and the Ark is dark. We make it nice and happy for Sunday School, but it’s basically God pushing the reset button and saying I want to start over; we’re going to kill everyone. It’s kind of dark. If you told the story today of a U.S. president that had someone killed so that he could remain in office, that would be kind of a dark story. Well, that’s the story of David. Moses killed somebody, and yet he’s held up as a leader. The lineage of Christ is filled with all sorts of people who were not all good, church-going folk. The story of the Prodigal son is a dark story. It opens with the younger son saying to his father, “I want you dead. I want my money. I want what’s due to me as an inheritance now. I don’t care about you. You should be dead.”

For me, as a storyteller and producer, those are interesting because they’re dark stories. I’m more attracted to movies that have a darker side. I’m less attracted to movies that are all just about being happy or all just about surface issues.

VM: What’s with your interest in superhero films? Do you see a connection to your faith?

RW: I love hero stories. I think science fiction and fantasy can get at issues and topics in a way that is a little less strident, and you can get at issues without all the emotional baggage attached. I’m attracted to the X-Men in terms of the issue of, can we all live together or should we all live apart? Can we all get along, or are we just meant to be in different places?

The issue of whether or not I fit in as a mutant is an issue if you’re 14 years old and how do I fit in in junior high? Or if I’m 75 years old and do I still have any value and worth and where do I fit into society? Those deep resonant kinds of themes that I think everyone deals with at some point make for good movies and make for compelling stories. That’s what attracts me about some of those things.

VM: If you could be any superhero, who would you be and why?

RW: I’m attracted to Wolverine. I’m attracted to a guy who seems to know the right thing to at the right time—willing to fight, willing to walk away—but seems to know the right thing to do at the right time. And I think people would stay away from you if you had claws coming out of your hands.

VM: I understand that you may be producing a film version of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. Could you tell me more about that?

RW: We’re still in the phase of sorting out the rights and setting it up for financing. This is a well-known literary piece of work that was bought up by the studios in the 50s, soon after he compiled his magazine articles and lectures into a book.

Again, it’s a little dark. That reverse point of view of a senior devil teaching a junior devil how to keep humans away from God is an interesting way to get at the subtleties of temptation and evil and the insidious slide into destruction. I just love the way the story’s told, and we’ve been fortunate enough to control the rights for some time. We don’t control the rights at the moment, but we’re hard on that issue and hoping to clear all that up within the next 60 to 90 days so we can finance the screenplay and get it made.

VM: How would you sum up the mission statement for your life? What gets you up in the morning?

RW: I can tell you that what I’m interested in doing right now is leveraging 25 or 30 years of making movies to make movies that I want to make, that I think are valuable, with the people I want to work with. And I want to bring good entertainment to the screen.

To me, the journey of a character in a movie and the journey of making movies is intertwined with my journey. I enjoy that process, I enjoy telling those stories and I identify and look for the same things in heroes that are issue for me.

Heroes in movies learn something in their journey. They learn something about themselves they didn’t know in the beginning. So I love finding stories where I can learn something about myself. I can learn something I didn’t know in the beginning that helps me to be a better person, a better father, a better husband.

VM: Do you ever see yourself filming anything else in Des Moines?

RW: Never know. I like Des Moines. I’ve been there a couple times. It’s all about finding the right location for the right story. Just need to find the right story that would fit in Des Moines.