Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for joining us today. Wallbuilders.show for our radio site and wallbuilder.com for everything else WallBuilders. Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton. Guys, we got Brian Stivale coming on after the break. He's the voice of Samuel in the new movie, David, which I'm jealous. You guys have already seen it. I'm gonna get to see it the next couple of days, but this is gonna be a treat. 

Tim Barton [00:00:26] So fun. It was such a great film. We, we went, my parents, siblings, nieces, nephews. I took my oldest six-year-old and it's PG. So, you know, just kind of a heads up for, parents out there. There are some intense moments. It is, it is nothing you need to worry about. Like there's not a David and Bathsheba moment. In fact, there is no girls to speak of. There's not Saul's daughter, there's not Abigail, there is not Bathsheba. So, there's no romantic connection. There is the mom, which is very important in it. But it's, man, it was so good. Dad, I know we talked afterwards, I think the family and we said, man, we could just about come back and see this again tomorrow. It's now been several days since we've seen it. I'm ready to see it again. I have the soundtrack. We've been singing along to it. It was such a good movie. 

David Barton [00:01:20] Yeah, it was so good at so many levels. The orchestration was phenomenal that went with it. There was nothing dinky about this movie. This was like an old throwback to some of the really good classics out of Hollywood, whether you had great cast, you had great acting, even though it was animation. The animation was great. It was not cheap stuff. It didn't look like they skipped frames on it. It was just so good. But the story was absolutely so compelling. They put so much in and worked it together so smoothly. It was just phenomenal from start to finish. 

Tim Barton [00:01:54] And the animation was like Disney level and not like the bad Disney, right? Like when Disney was doing really good animation and really people have made connections to the Prince of Egypt because it is kind of that feel. Really good animation, a really well told story, a really good soundtrack. There's just so much to like. And I know there's critics out there who are saying, wait, but they didn't tell this part of the story or they combine these parts of this story. Or whatever the details are and frankly we were super impressed with how much of the story they included in the film and when you have an hour and a half kids film and you're covering the majority of the story of David you're not squeezing it all in there but how much they got in was impressive and it was such a good film. 

Rick Green [00:02:36] Well, we're going to take a quick break when we come back. Brian Stivale, the voice of Samuel in the new movie, David, is our special guest. Stay with us. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:03:45]  

Rick Green [00:03:51] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Great to have Brian Stivale with us, he's the voice of Samuel in the new hit animation movie, David. So excited about this, absolutely incredible. Brian, thanks for coming on with us man. 

Brian Stivale [00:04:03] Thank you for having me on. 

Rick Green [00:04:04] This thing has exploded. I think it's like number is, oh, it's up to like 50 million bucks at this point. It's a number 10 of the year. I mean, it is probably Angel Studios biggest hit. So that's pretty cool to get to be a part of something this big, bro. 

Brian Stivale [00:04:19] It is absolutely a gift from God. It's the biggest thing that's ever happened to me. Greatest moment of my career. It's a pinnacle moment that's gonna be really difficult to top, but I have been attached to this project and in love with it since the very beginning. And I gotta tell you, while everybody stood by, shocked and awed that this was making waves and it was number two at the theaters, just behind the blue space monkeys, we did something that I expected the entire time from the very begin of the process with me when I saw their heart. When I knew how many believers, how many like-minded individuals after the heart of God were seeking to do something family-friendly and unique in this climate of insanity, I knew God was about to do Something big. And it truly was that underdog story of David versus Goliath. But if you read the Word, you know how it ends. And I sat in this place of, I'm telling you, and I have this moment as Samuel, right after the battle, sorry, spoilers, where I literally turned to my pet goat and say, I told you. When David defeats Goliath. And I've had that moment so many times this past week over all these milestones. It's amazing. 

Rick Green [00:05:24] Well, man, you've been able to play Venom, Batman, all kinds of other cool characters to get to do Samuel for frankly, a whole generation that's probably going to get exposed to the story that either maybe just kind of heard some of the story, but didn't know a lot of details for an entire generation. This is how they will see and hear David and Goliath and Samuel and all the rest. I mean, that's pretty cool. 

Brian Stivale [00:05:49] Yeah, I believe in very much the same capacity that the Prince of Egypt impacted an entire generation and continues to do so as a mainstay classic film with the story of the Exodus and Moses. This will be like-minded, like-spirited along the same path. And I think the reason that that would be is because its heart is the same. It's the same soul food. It the basis of what we are all made of. It's Old Testament. Iconic biblical teaching, but it's not just a story. It's history and that opens up a door for an entirely new generation to discuss it. Because look, you know, it's, not scripturally perfect. It was definitely made for kids I love to describe it as, if you're a parent if you've read from first Samuel to your child before they went to bed and this is their fever dream remembrance of it because we dream so vivid as kids. And I believe that's the best way to interpret it. So there's some things, there's some time that gets stretched, you know, Engedi's not seven years where he wrote half of the Psalms and there's some other things, but what it does, it facilitates an opportunity for parents and teachers to open the door to the Word of God, to teach them the true Bible stories, from the Torah, from the Old Testament, from the New Testament about these stories. And I think anytime you take this subject matter, which is public domain, by the way, and that's why I think Cecil B. DeMille and all Billy Wilder, all the greats in the old golden days of Hollywood used to use this material. It's the greatest story ever told from start to finish, from cover to cover, all the way through the map. Why wouldn't you use the Bible as subject matter to tell stories that we need even in this day and age? And David Goliath is truer today, I think for little ones, especially little ones who want to live a moral, godly life with a heart after God than it ever has been. 

Rick Green [00:07:38] Man, it's so good. And like you said, it will pull them in to now learn more of those stories. So, this gets their attention, gets them into the word. David and Tim actually got to see it. I won't get to see until, I think, another day. I'm gonna see it tomorrow night or the night after with my grandkids and everybody. But David, Tim, y'all already seen it. 

Brian Stivale [00:07:55] I totally spoiled it. Yeah, 

Rick Green [00:07:56] No, not at all. 

Brian Stivale [00:07:57] I told you; I told ya, sorry. 

Rick Green [00:07:58] What'd you guys think? 

Tim Barton [00:08:00] Well, well, Brian, I have not, I've not stopped singing the songs.  I got the soundtrack. I took my six-year-old and there was a couple of moments and just like disclosure of parents that were a little intense, like the Amalekites. They could be a little intimidating, right? But I mean, with it being said, I encouraged my six-year-old at points it's like, hey, remember David's going to make it. He's going be the king. He's gonna survive this moment. And so, it was kind of, you know, encouraging and coaching my daughter through the moment, but I bought the soundtrack and I am playing it now where I'm singing, my six-year-old is singing, I got a four-year old and she's like, Dad, can we play that one song again? She loves the adventure song for the beginning; the whole thing is so great. And Brian, one of the things that from, from taking my six-year-old. And as you mentioned, this is kind of an introduction to a different generation where for I think all of us probably we grew up in an era where there was Sunday School and in Sunday School you learn Bible stories in most church today doesn't have Sunday School. And so, I think maybe there's a faulty perception or perspective from parents that what we knew growing up, well, our kids know all this, but really most of them don't. And the fact that you guys were able to tell a story. And as you mentioned, right, this, this is not trying to go all the way through first and second Samuel and give all the details and skipping some gaps. But it's showing the important parts of the story that that there was King Saul and he knew who God was but he was so troubled in his spirit and he had some issues and there was Jonathan who has this good heart and there's David who just wants to please God. And it's showing you the right things about these characters and Rick already pointed out that you have in your career, you've done a lot. But also, before we even jumped on you pointed out that you had met my dad decades ago In a Christian network production where you were I think you and your wife were singing some music along the way. And so, I'm just curious and in all that you've done professionally in your career when you've had some, as Rick pointed, some noted roles in different things, when there's something like this coming out, is this something that because you are a person of faith, did you pursue something like? Is this something your agent was like, hey, I think, and you're like, yeah, it's fine. Or knowing you're a person of faith and knowing that we are in a significant moment in culture where we've talked about it a lot on the show since the Charlie Kirk assassination, and there's been some, some very real spiritual awakenings for people in this culture where eyes have been opened, some, you know, arguably demonic things were revealed where people are like, Hey, something real is happening. I'm just curious in the midst of all of that is, is this something that you are just so excited because how it goes cause you're a person of faith? Or were you looking for more of these kind of faith connected moments because that's part of who you are in your background?

Brian Stivale [00:11:05] Great question. And I'm so thankful that your kids are loving the music and that you're being haunted by that, especially the Adventure Song, it's a good one to be haunted by. As far as the attachment to this film, yes, I've gotten to do a lot of other wonderful things, but I out myself wherever I go because whether my agency likes it or not, I don't wanna necessarily work with certain properties that wouldn't have somebody who's a constitutional conservative Christian, who's Bible believing. I'm an ordained pastor. My wife and I both planted the first United States plant of King of Kings ministries here in the United States. King of kings is located in Jerusalem. I found it over 45 years ago. I teach Hebrew roots, biblical archeology. My wife, and I keep the feasts. Our congregation keeps the feats. We keep Shabbat. I sing in Hebrew all the time as part of the prayers, as part the regular attributes of what we do. We're not Christians trying to become Jews. We actually have built a bridge between both because Jesus wasn't a Christian, John was not a Baptist and Mary was not a Catholic. They were all Jews and that's how we understand the richness of the New Testament. So, when I saw this project, which came through my agency, who are, you know, neither. They just love me and they serve me very well. They are, they are, I will say they have a heart for Israel and that much I will, I'll just leave it at that. I'm a, my wife and I are both official goodwill ambassadors to the state of Israel. We lived in Jerusalem for two years, and so we're very tied to the land and the people. And so, when I got the call for this to audition for Samuel, to sound like a pastor, it made my baby jump. So, I immediately was latched onto the project and then I read their synopsis and what they wanted to accomplish with this rang so many spiritual bells with me. They wanted to write a love letter to the Holy Land, to the land of the people, to the history of the Bible, to understanding who we are in our heritage through that tapestry. They also wanted to pull a thread from the Prince of Egypt across 22 vacant years. Well, at the time it was 19 vacant years, to this point in history to tell a new story from the Old Testament, to wake people back up to the God of Israel and understanding that to love Jesus is to love that. Especially in this day and age. What an important time. And that was just, you know, I got involved three years ago and it was still, you could see this ugly spirit of anti-Semitism brewing up. The writing has been on the wall and it repeats itself over and over throughout history. But This is when I prayed for him. My wife is an ordained pastor with me. We both planted the church together and have been in ministry together for over 25 years. And I prayed about this one and said, you know, this is one that matters to me, not because of the role, not because there's any kind of remuneration. Lord help me, I'm a voice actor, but because of the attachment to the meaning of what I think this will be, what I see this being in history. And it was one of those things where I got the call from my agent and I said, I called my wife and said I got it through tears. And it's been that kind of run ever since. I've been fully attached. So yes, it's fully relevant to me. It is completely a gift from God and I don't look at it as any other thing. And that's why it's so different from everything else that I've ever accomplished or done. 

Tim Barton [00:14:12] Well, Brian, I want to jump back in, Dad. I know you probably have a question real quick too, but, Brian. I had no idea you’re a pastor and ordained minister. So, this is even more fun that as you're connecting the dots that, hey, you know, this wasn't, this, wasn't supposed to be a verse-by-verse commentary of first and second Samuel, because one of the sill criticisms, genuinely, I'm so silly, the criticisms were people like, wait a second, you didn't tell that part of the story. Right. And I'm like, that's not the story they're trying to tell right now. Right. They're not, they're not. And spoiler, right? So, if you haven't watched it, just for everybody listening, spoiler. So, David doesn't try on Saul's armor before he goes and fights Goliath. And literally, like people are leaving out or that they're, they're picking on details. 

Brian Stivale [00:14:57] He does, though. He does. 

Tim Barton [00:14:58] Well, I'm sorry. 

Brian Stivale [00:14:59] They put it on him. They put him on him in it. 

[00:15:03] He doesn't, the connection of Saul saying, hey, try my armor. It doesn't fit. Let me, so it does and then as a song is playing, the music's playing, right? But I saw somebody criticize the interaction with Saul, that it doesn't tell all of the story. And again, I am like, you're missing the heart of what it's telling that David just goes out and like, Saul doesn't know he's going and all of a sudden he sees I'm going. The reason I'm saying all of this is as a pastor, you saw the heart of what they were trying to accomplish. And I think there's people that have missed the heart and therefore they are critiquing things that is not the point of what was trying to be accomplished. Can you as a pastor maybe just help people understand the heart of what is going on again? It wasn't a verse-by-verse commentary going through this. What was the heart behind? I think you already explained it a little bit, but I would love for you to kind of squelch this criticism that's, I think, very ridiculous. 

Brian Stivale [00:16:02] So the creators of the film, who I honor, Phil Cunningham and his wife, Jackie, and our director writer, Brent Dawes, all from the Cape Town, South Africa studio of Sunrise Animation are brilliant. And they're the ones who had the vision. Phil had the visual over 30 years ago. And immediately the vision was built on the fact that his mother, when he was a reclusive child, staying indoors and not having very many friends, said, what are you doing? You need to go out. You need to go and be like David you know at your age David was fighting lions and bears and he slayed Goliath he was having adventures go out have adventures it inspired him. And how many other people did that story inspire and he thought about that while he was living amongst the wild and he was canoeing down the Zambezi River one day and he saw all these wild animals and he said I want to tell the story. I want other kids to be inspired like I'm inspired by this story. And it became a 30-year journey for him to build this movie. It was never built with the intention of being scripturally intact to the rabbinical perfunctory of you know yeshiva. Anyone who looks at it from that that viewpoint is missing the fact that it's an animated musical and the animals have humanized faces they're like they're anamorphic okay they have personalities more so than my own four dogs do. This was first and foremost built to entertain and inspire that's what the Bible can do on a very very base level. We weren't building this for the people who are sitting in an apologetics class going, you know, they missed that part. They missed that, I'm stopping here, right? We're stopping here because then you're gonna throw the baby out with the bathwater and they don't understand. This is going to reach hundreds and hundreds of millions of people and kids and Muslims and unbelievers who've never even understood the Messianic aspect of this story. And if you really miss it out because you say, well, he didn't say to Eliab, what about this one? And the Lord didn't have that exchange. Well, you know, God doesn't speak throughout the entirety of this movie. He's represented in symbolism, and that's artistic. That's a choice, and films do that. And I think something beautiful, and I want to stomp one of the things was that Eliab thing, because there's the point of, and God does not see the outward appearance. He's looking for a man after his own heart, which is how he identifies David. But the whole film starts out in black. Where we quote that scripture before anything transpires as the whole purpose of this movie. And so, I think there's a lot of people miss if they if they look at it to be in-canon like a literal transaction. This isn't John Huston's the Bible where the Lord my God said this or that this is a kid's animation that was meant to inspire and entertain and then open the door to really get into the scripture. He's like I said he's in Engedi for 20 minutes maybe. Okay, that's not seven years to write the Psalms. But it's a beautiful interpretation of it that like I said if you consider it from a kid's fever dream of the story you can really open up the romantic understanding of what it is. And the musical aspect makes perfect sense because David was a psalmist he was a skilled and wonderful musician and that was the whole gift that made room for it.

Rick Green [00:19:08] Hey, David, you've got actually got some of Cecil B. DeMille's stuff and certainly from Ten Commandments and, and Ben Hur and a lot of cool stuff. How does that feel though? You know, now you've gotten this new generation at this point. We've asked for this for a long time, right? We've talked about a lot on the program. Where are the Cecil B. DeMilles? When are we going to have more movies about these amazing Bible stories? So here we have, you know, just like, I mean, Brian was saying that the 19-year gap between the animated Prince of Egypt and now this. Do you think this could, especially with the financial success, could spur more projects like this? 

David Barton [00:19:42] You know, it was interesting when I went in, didn't know exactly what I'm gonna get. No angel studios, no kind of what to expect, no the tone, no kinda words had it, but that doesn't mean it's gonna be a good movie when I go in. And so, I kinda go in as a critic a lot of times that, okay, is this gonna be really corny and dumb, or is this going to be, and it didn't take long that I was all the way into the movie, thought this is really, really good. And you know, one of the things that really struck me at the end, when it was all over and done with, I said, all right. We just saw the entire book of first and second Samuel in like an hour and 45 minutes. That is an awesome job of hitting all the high points, all the big stuff. And Tim, as you point out, critics are gonna say, yeah, but you didn't get every verse, no. But to take two entire books out of the Bible and tie in the story and have the nuances in there with, you know, Saul, who's a really complex character and to have the nuances, but yet at a kid's level. And so, I was just sitting there and I got I got really pulled into it and then I started thinking about what I think this may do. Because you know we talk in this program a lot about where we are with you know polling and stats and everything else and we know that over the last two generations we become very biblically illiterate in America we just do we just don't know the Bible well at all. And we've done the same with American history I mean we just don't our heroes. And the problem is we don't have storytellers to tell the stories like we used to. 

[00:21:09] Wow. That's such a good point.

[00:21:10] You know, we knew the story of George Washington. We knew the story. And I sat there and watched this and said, this is a story of David. It's a story of Saul, it's is a story of the Philistines, we're getting a lot of stories in here. And it makes it really easy to start understanding more complicated things. When you go, I thought it was just phenomenal. The way it went. 

Tim Barton [00:21:29] And Brian, let me ask if I can ask one more question and toss to you, because I know you have, you are lined up for so many interviews and we can't keep you forever. Although it'd be fun to talk more about this. One of the things I so appreciated was the head nod to Jonathan. And I'm asking you maybe now as kind of a critic, pastor, I'm not just the voice actor of the prophets, but I love that it showed Jonathan having such a good heart. Again, I'm not going to get a spoiler on this one. But you know, his head, not at the end to David, literally. Just, it was so neat, how they were able to, I felt like again, accurately portray so much of the character and the heart of the individuals from the real-life story. What was your vibe going in when you go in again as a person of faith and you're reading scripts, are you? Are you having any kind of biblical lens that you have any analyzation of this? Are you seeing it and just so happy that we're telling a good story again? Or are there parts that stood out to you in the film as well? 

Brian Stivale [00:22:35] You know, I went in very forgiving from the very beginning, having scope of the script and even seeing a change. It was minor, but one of the biggest changes I saw was the focus turning from completely being on the Philistines into the Amalekites being inclusive into the midst of that. And that, I want to say, was not crafted by current events, but it was really prophetic of current events and of October 7th and the kidnapping at Ziklag and the fact that we take the story that far. Meant so much to me on the level of you know nobody ever tells that nobody talks about that. Everybody talks about how he danced naked in front of the Lord and his clothes fell off and that he had an affair with Bathsheba and sent her husband to the battle line to be killed and that makes him horrible. And you know you know there's all these elements of David's story that we could focus on but they've been done. Richard Gere did them poorly other people did them. Okay I love the House of David effort from Wonder Project I think they did an excellent job I love their Samuel as well, even though we were competing with him at the box office just recently in Avatar. But I think that the beauty of this story is what David offers, and that's that it opens the door by hitting all the major stuff. And it gets you to Ziklag and it gets to an inspirational message that is now timely. Not only does David unify Israel and the people, but how he does it is by showing them that when they're scattered, there's no hope. But when together, there's no reason to be afraid. I will not be afraid as an anthem that Israel itself needs to hear right now more than ever. And every Israeli, and I'm tied to very many, lots of family, lots of friends. Well, we had the casting crew premiere in Burbank recently we had some of our Sabra friends come and one of them was sobbing so heavily at the end I could barely understand her. But through her tears said, this is such a gift. We need this now. We need to hear this. They need to hear this in Israel. They need hear these messages, all of the songs, all of the music and all of the work because it's an inspiring message to people who feel completely on their own right now, an island if you will. 

Rick Green [00:24:36] Brian, God's timing's perfect, is it not? Man, I am praying that this success of this causes so many good animated movies to be made that you're having to turn down jobs for some of your favorite characters. 

Brian Stivale [00:24:48] I believe it's going to have that type of effect. The impact of the industry is that even the, you know, even the other side that doesn't want this is now savvy to where America stands, where our audiences stand, where the world stands and getting more family centered, family friendly, uplifting. You know, it doesn't have to be Christian. It doesn't to be conservative. You don't have to label it. How about you just make good quality, moral, family, friendly entertainment. Doesn't all have to light. Doesn't it all have be animation? Some of the stuff that Angel Studios does actually offers a bit of darkness to it because you know what, if we don't understand that, we'll never appreciate the light, but they do it in a way that's still family friendly and centered on the, on the heart of us getting out of there saying, Oh, I'm better for having seen that movie, not I feel dirty, which I got to be honest with you. Last year's Oscars altogether, just, I looked at it was like, I feel dirty. 

David Barton [00:25:39] Man, this was such a good movie. It was so wholesome in so many ways. I don't care what age you were. It had something for everybody. You know, I, I'm the most white-haired guy in this group and it had lots of stuff for me. That's right. Getting there. But you know. And by the way, Brian, if you get to the Fort Worth/ Dallas area, you come by the, we have the two museums there and we got all that Cecil B DeMille stuff included, including the 10 Commandments he had that he kept on his desk.  

Brian Stivale [00:26:10] I’m going to take you up on that. I have a live event in Dallas in the next month I'm literally you're gonna see me knocking on the door and go oh no it's him! 

David Barton [00:26:16] You'll love it! You'll love the Hollywood stuff.  So come on. 

Brian Stivale [00:26:19] I love it! I will! I'm a big fan of that! When I was a kid I watched all that stuff all the way through my adulthood. Let's bring it back!

Rick Green [00:26:25] Brian, thank you so much, man. 

Brian Stivale [00:26:27] Thank you, appreciate you guys. God bless you, go see David. 

Rick Green [00:26:30] That's Brian Stavalli, the voice of Samuel in the new movie David. What a treat to have him with us today. Go see the movie David, go see it this week. And I believe it's gonna cause us to get a lot more great entertainment like this. Thanks for listening today to the WallBuilders show.