Make ‘Em Laugh

(Jun 6, 2007) A ChristianityToday.com article by Mark Moring about Tom Shadyac, director of “Evan Almighty” who says laughter is theologically good medicine and making comedies is a high calling.  The full article can be read HERE.

(EXCERPT) Tom Shadyac loves to make people laugh—and even considers it a high calling.

Shadyac, director of such films as Bruce Almighty, Patch Adams, and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, was shorter than—and ignored by—many of his peers in elementary school, so he found another way to get their attention: Make ‘em laugh.

The class clown grew up to be a joke writer for Bob Hope before moving into the world of making movies. And he hopes his latest, Evan Almighty, opening this Friday, brings a few more laughs to movie audiences as well.

But more than that, Shadyac, a Christian, also hopes that this sequel to 2003’s Bruce Almightydelivers a message—that God not only loves us, but wants us to share that love with others and make a difference in the world.

That message comes across in Evan, in which Steve Carell plays a modern-day Noah—a U.S. Congressman who is asked by God (Morgan Freeman, reprising his role from Bruce) to build an ark. It is, like Bruce, both hilarious and thought provoking.