Actor Wes Bentley is best known for a minor role in “American Beauty” where as a would-be director he spent time filming a bag blowing in the wind. Now it seems he has finally landed a role that will surely bring further fame as he plays one of the leads in the newly released “There Be Dragons,” which is based on the life of Spanish St. Josemaria Escriva, who founded the controversial Catholic order Opus Dei during the Spanish Civil War.
While Bentley will have been hoping the role would bring him further recognition as an actor, little did he realise that it would also reconnect him to his childhood faith and help him in facing his personal “dragons."
Bentley was raised as a pastor’s child, but said this brought him more questions than answers.
“Yes, both my parents were preachers (Methodist), including my brother. I think when you are raised in a church and literally raised in a church building you are surrounded by spirituality and also religion, leaving a kid with a lot of challenges and questions,” he said in an interview with The Christian Post.
The actor said that the danger of growing up in an intensely spiritual environment led him to incorrectly assume he had his own faith, when he actually had not worked deeply enough through some of life’s tougher issues.
“I always assumed I had a relationship with God, I always assumed I had that wrapped up so I didn’t have to consider that that might not be the case and might also be what made my life more difficult.”
Bentley believes these assumptions left him unable to cope with the struggles of Hollywood and his rise to fame.
“In the assumption I just pushed it away and I had to really consider where I was spiritually. I feel like I inherited the faith. And I think a lot of PKs go through that.”
This resulted in long years of drug and alcohol addiction that took a huge toll on him personally, but in his role as Manolo in “There Be Dragons” the actor found his life turned around once more.
“I was getting dressed up and getting make-up for older Manolo. When I was preparing for the scene where I am telling my son all the terrible things I had done and asking him to pray for me and forgive me and I looked at the mirror and I had a really powerful moment and realized, I don’t want to be in my deathbed doing this and I needed to make amends to people in my life that loved me and loved them,” he admitted.
“I had things to tell them, things that were embarrassing that made me feel like not like a human being, and in that moment I realized, I want to do this, I want to do this now while I’m young. “
After going through this process, Bentley found that he had somehow reconnected with God, “I was so excited to realize what was wrong, to admit to that because it just solved all these problems for me immediately.”
Bentley also hopes that in sharing his own dark truths, he might remind other strugglers that there is a way of out from “living in such a dark place.”
“I don’t feel ashamed to tell others. I thought that by talking about it, it would help others who might’ve been where I was a little while before me. It also helped remind [me] of that and also keep away from it.”
“There Be Dragons,” tells the true story of two friends - Manolo and Josemaría (Charlie Cox) - whose relationship was deeply affected by the Spanish Civil War. While Manolo became a fascist spy, Josemaría chose a different path and decided to become a priest. The war brought out the worst in people (and the friends) and bred anger, death, betrayal and jealousy, yet even in the midst of this darkness it also developed faith, love, compassion and forgiveness.