“It’s based on a true story,” said Father Bart Tolleson, a priest of the Diocese of Helena and a longtime friend of Father Stu. “It certainly will take liberties with the story, but it will get interest in his life, and that alone is a good thing. It’s a great story.”
Father Stu attended Carroll College, a Catholic university, but wasn’t Catholic at the time. He remembers being required to attend Mass as part of football game preparation, according to an interview with The Montana Catholic in 2010. In the same interview, he shared that he would often argue with the teachers, interrupt class, and ask ignorant questions that didn’t relate to the content.
“His conversion is phenomenal, from being an agnostic trouble maker to having a mystical encounter with God,” Father Tolleson said. “Then, he decided to become a priest.”
An avid athlete, Father Stu played football for Carroll College, and later, pursued boxing, winning the Montana Golden Gloves championship in 1985. Faced with reconstructive jaw surgery after a fight, Father Stu gave up boxing and moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Though he had some success with commercials and work as an extra in the movies, it was not the career he imagined.
While acting, he worked at a nightclub that was a comedy club and a bar. Finished with acting, he traded in the nightlife to work for the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, where he eventually became the manager for seven years. He would ride his motorcycle, an artifact of his acting days, to and from the museum.
“One day, I was riding home after work, and I got hit by a car, and I smashed into a car in the next lane with my head,” Father Stu shared in the 2010 interview. “The witnesses told the sheriffs and reporters that I was rolling down the road and another car ran over the top of me. And here I am.”