Adam Anders: 'I stayed true to the vision God gave me'

Adam Anders is a Swedish film, television and music producer who has sold more than 100 million albums and worked with  artists including Miley Cyrus and The Backstreet Boys. This November, he made his directorial debut with the film, Journey To Bethlehem, the first musical retelling of The Nativity Story. 

Journey To Bethlehem stars Fiona Palomo as Mary, Milo Manheim as Joseph, and features Oscar nominee Antonio Banderas as jealous King Herod. It is a live-action musical adventure for the whole family, which weaves classic Christmas melodies with humour, faith and new pop songs. Here, Adam speaks to en's Rebecca Chapman and honorary en journalist, her seven-year-old-son Benji!

en (Rebecca): I have a little tag team with me this afternoon if that's okay. This is my son Benji, he's seven. He's been watching the trailer with me, and he's got a couple of questions.

en (Benji): My first question is, why do you put funny things in a movie about Jesus?

Adam: That's a great question. I did it because I wanted kids to enjoy and be engaged for the entire movie - so that the'd want to hear what it is about. When I was your age, I had a storybook Bible that was really colourful and beautiful, and I kept turning the page and wanted to read more because it was so beautiful and vibrant. So I wanted to make a movie like that, with colour and animals and fun - and then be very serious when we need to be, and when we need to respect the story and God and Jesus. I know there are so many great Christmas movies about Santa and elves and things, where we laugh, and they are awesome, but none of them talked about Jesus. I wanted to make a movie like that but that would really tell you what Christmas is truly about.

en (Benji): Why is the angel Gabriel dressed in silver? Like, why does it have silver scales?

Adam: I've never seen Angel Gabriel, so I had to imagine this Archangel that has been all though the Old Testament and the New Testament. This is a battle-tested warrior angel. So that's his armour – it sparkles, but it's leather and metal and all this cool stuff.

en (Rebecca): Tell me a little bit about how the film came to be. Is it something you've been thinking and praying about for a long time?

Adam: Seventeen years ago I first had this idea, a dream or vision. I was visiting my wife's family in Iowa, here in the States and I couldn't find a movie that told the story of Christmas through music and song. I wondered 'why hasn’t anyone done that yet?' I was a songwriter and music producer then and my family loved Christmas music - it just seemed crazy to me that there wasn't a Christmas musical film.

Every year since then I thought someone's going to do it, someone is going to beat me to it. I wrote an 11 page document back then which is still the framework of what this movie is. I continued on my journey to try to make it, but God kind of pushed pause on it until I was ready. I had no intention then to direct it or to write it, but God had other plans! I spent the last 17 years working with the best of the best in Hollywood, learning how to be a filmmaker and then God said, 'Okay, it's time to do it'.

(Adam Anders - he is best known for his work on Glee and High School Musical.)

en (Rebecca): Do you think music has a way to communicate things in a way that words can't?

Adam: 100%. A great song can cross so many borders and boundaries, and break down so many defenses - music penetrates to a soul level in a way that words sometimes don't. A beautiful melody with a lyric that's tied to an emotion of a scene can really change somebody, and change a heart. I believe in the power of music, it's why I do this. To me, it was the way to tell the story so it would reach as many people as possible.

en (Rebecca): You and your wife wrote the songs together for this film?

Adam: We did. Our first date was writing songs, and twenty six years later we're still writing songs together. We still fight when we write every song; we joke if we don't fight, it's not going to be good! I've written many songs with other people as well, but you're not really fully truthful with somebody that you just met. My wife has been my secret weapon through this whole process, because she's a phenomenal artist in her own right but she's completely honest with me. For everything, not just the music, she has been the one I go to, and she's also the one that wouldn't let me quit when I wanted to, so many times.

en (Rebecca): That sounds like such a joy to be doing it together. You know, whether it's easy, whether it's hard like to have something in common like that?

Adam: It is a big sacrifice. To make the film, I moved away from my family to the other side of the world. There was a nine hour time difference between us, and I could only talk to my kids once a week, for six months. It was a very rewarding year, but the hardest year of our lives... It's definitely a family affair. If my wife and I hadn't written this movie together and worked on all these years, I don't think we could have gotten through it. 

en (Rebecca): Now the film is being release, what are you most proud of?

Adam: That I finished it! I'm proud after all these years despite all the ups and downs, of the battles I fought along the way to stay true to my vision for this movie. Many people said ‘No, you can't do that, you can't do this’. I know I can't make everyone happy. It's impossible, especially with a story that's so important to so many people. And if you try to make everyone happy, you make nobody happy, frankly. I had to stay true to the vision God gave me. What I'm most proud of is that the movie that you are going to see is the movie I wanted to make.

en (Rebecca): I love the detail of it, and the detail you could provide when Benji asked about Gabriel’s costume.

Adam: It's all very intentional. There's so much thought that goes into everything. At the beginning of the movie, I say this is inspired by a true story. It's important distinction - this is not a documentary. They didn't break into song and dance to pop music in biblical times! The other thing is important is that it's a true story, according to the director and filmmaker. Watch it with that lens. I believe this story happened. Not exactly like this. But what I'm doing is I'm saying through this film, 'this is what Christmas is about'.

The Scripture we are given is only Matthew 1 and 2 and there's not that much detail there. We don't know what Mary said to her parents when she told them she was pregnant. We know Joseph said he was going to end the engagement. But why did he come back? We know it was partly Gabriel. But that's an interesting love story that nobody has talked about.

In a family movie, you need a love story, you need a villain, and you need comic relief. And it was all right there. You need to allow me to take some license, but then lots of great artists in history have depicted the nativity scene, frankly, in an unbiblical way - but it's okay because it's beautiful. It's excellent. It's symbolic. And it's inspired, I believe, by God. When you look at the Sistine Chapel, you can’t help a believe there's a God, that one person could be given that much talent to paint that. The Wise men weren't actually there when Jesus was born, but we've accepted that as an image. So I thought I could take some creative license too, to frame the story in a way that it'll reach as many people as possible, and those people will start asking about their faith, and maybe go to the actual Bible and read for themselves what it's all about.

en (Rebecca): Is that evangelistic element why it was so important to you that the overall film follow the story as told in the Bible so closely?

Adam: Absolutely, those are my tentpoles, the beats in the story. On top of that I started living in the in-betweens, and I had to play with the timeline a little bit to make it work well as a family musical. I can't have the Wise Men showing up three years after the movie is over! Then, there's the historical character of Herod’s son, Antipater, who's played by Joel Smallbone - he isn't in the Biblical account, but he was killed by his father Herod, the same year Jesus was born for trying to overthrow him because he was unfit to rule. That's the historical fact. What if he came into contact with the True King? What if he met Jesus? And what if he was changed by that, and he stood up to his father?

These days are such heightened times and everybody wants to be offended by everything and triggered but I want people try to laugh, have fun, enjoy this story. You can put your kids in front of this and not worry about it. It's for them. It is a a wonderful way to spend Christmas together and to be reminded of what it's about. 

en (Rebecca): What a great character Antipater is! Who was the most difficult character to cast?

Adam: Mary. Mary was very hard. I went through hundreds of potential Mary's but we were a couple weeks from starting rehearsals, and I didn't have anyone cast. It was really stressful. The studio was yelling at me to cast people that I knew weren’t right. I just knew I had to wait for the right person. I'm trying to depict a strong Mary, who knows there is something stirring. She's meant for something more, but she's humble. How do you depict strength and humility at the same time? How do you go through this story where she's pretty much upset for the whole story, but still be lovable so she is somebody you cheer for and root for? We also needed also somebody who could sing and dance and who could look the part. And then, at three in the morning in Madrid, a couple weeks of weeks before we were due to start rehearsals, I couldn’t sleep because I'm panicking about this and I get an email from LA casting with a long list audition video, and I just kept watching it over and over again. And I'm like, 'Oh, my gosh, I found her.' I sent an email right then, in the middle of the night, we had found Mary, and I woke up to an approval email from LA. So we cast her without even a callback. Then all the remaining characters began to fall into place. 

en (Rebecca): What is your hope for this movie as it as it goes into cinemas?

Adam: I want people to be reminded of what Christmas is about - that families will be reminded about what they're celebrating and be set in the right place at the beginning of the holidays. Hopefully they will then go through the holidays inspired, and with joy and a sense of hope that comes from this story in a tough time. This a dark time in the world, but light needs darkness to shine. I feel like this movie, this story shines brightly right now. I want people to walk away from the movie with that sense of peace and joy and hope and feeling better than they did before. I really think it'd be hard to watch this movie and not leave with a smile on your face.

The Journey to Bethlehem is available to watch in cinemas in the UK and Ireland from 17 November.