Sandra Bullock gives faith a chance in The Blind Side
Sandra Bullock, who plays Leigh Anne Touhy in The Blind Side, says she was inspired by Touhy’s selfless generosity.
LOS ANGELES—When Sandra Bullock read the script for The Blind Side, she liked almost everything about it. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to work too closely with the woman whose life is portrayed in the film. Leigh Anne Touhy, a wealthy Memphis white woman whose family adopted an impoverished African-American teenager and turned his life around, is a Republican and a devout Christian. Bullock, a Democrat, says she brought to the project a lifelong suspicion of people who boast about their devotion to the church.
Watch the trailer for The Blind Side.
“People use it [Christianity] as a banner, and then they don’t do the right thing,” she says in a Los Angeles hotel room. “They go, ”˜I am a good Christian and I go to church, and this is the way you should live your life.’ I said to Leigh Anne when I met her, ”˜One of my biggest concerns stepping into this is this whole banner thing.’ I told her it scared me because I have had a lot of experiences that haven’t been that great. But she was so honest and forthright. I feel I have finally met someone who practises but doesn’t preach. I now have faith in those who say they represent a faith, whereas before I would say, ”˜Do not give me a lecture, because I think I am a pretty good human being. I may not go to church all the time, but I try to do the right thing. You are going to church and sleeping with someone else’s wife, so how are you better than me?’ I finally met someone who walks the walk, and that made me happy.”
In the movie, Touhy and her husband, Sean, offer their couch to a homeless teen named Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), who is attending their children’s private school. He is at the school because a coach thinks he can use his size to advantage in basketball. However, he is 17 and alone. He has never met his father and can’t find his drug-addicted mother. The Touhys eventually adopt him and turn him toward their own favourite sport, football. (The movie opens on November 20.)
Bullock says that the key to her decision to make the film was that the Touhys didn’t get involved in Oher’s life for any benefits that might come to them. She says she felt the film would promote a genuine selflessness. “They didn’t do it because someone was writing an article or a book or making a movie. They did it because their instinct was to give love and to reach out a hand. Everyone questioned their motives, of course, because we don’t trust anyone who does anything nice. That is the sad world we live in. But they kept going, so it makes you feel that you need to step up your game. I felt it was an inspirational story that says we are more capable than we think we are, even though we don’t really live in a world that supports the good that we can do.”
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By Elizabeth Tenety
Leigh Anne Tuohy is a Christian woman who wears designer clothes. (It does seem God loves contradictions -virgin birth, anyone?) But in between applying her flawless makeup, running an interior design business and raising two well-behaved children, Leigh Anne Tuohy also managed to do something remarkably un-diva like: She and her husband Sean opened their home to a stranger and welcomed him into their family.
In their act of charity, the Toueys did the right thing, and, according to their evangelical faith, the Christian thing. But often Christianity ends up in the news because of bad press: a pastor's scandal or a priest's phoniness. Most acts of kindness occur without recognition. Does Christianity have a public relations problem?
Sandra Bullock portrayed Leigh Anne Touey in the movie, 'The Blind Side,' a role for which Bullock has recently been nominated for a Golden Globe.
The Blind Side is based on the true story of the then-homeless black teenager Michael Oher and the Tuohys, the wealthy, white evangelical Tennessee family that adopted him. As football fans know, during his time with the Tuohys, Oher developed not only into a confident young man but also into a football sensation. Heavily recruited to play in college, Oher attended Ole Miss and currently plays offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens.
Oher's adoptive mom Leigh Anne Tuohy, with her expensive car, dolled-up appearance and don't-mess-with-me attitude may seem more southern belle than follower of Christ, but Sandra Bullock thinks Tuohy is the real deal. In an interview with Vancouver's Straight.com, Bullock revealed that at first she was reluctant to play the Christian woman.
"People use it [Christianity] as a banner, and then they don't do the right thing," she said in the interview. "I said to Leigh Anne when I met her, 'One of my biggest concerns stepping into this is this whole banner thing,'" Bullock recounted. "I told her it scared me because I have had a lot of experiences that haven't been that great. But she was so honest and forthright. I feel I have finally met someone who practices but doesn't preach. I now have faith in those who say they represent a faith."
Bullock is right that there are far too many religious hypocrites to mention. But there are also countless acts of Christian charity that go unnoticed. That's because Christianity faces a dilemma when it comes to tooting its own charitable horn.
Jesus said in the Gospel of John: "By your love for one another they will know you are my disciples," a call to open displays of Christian love.
He also said in Matthew to not be showy about your charity: "What you do in secret, your father who sees in secret will reward you," a call to Christian humility.
When Leigh Anne Tuohy pulled Michael Oher out of the cold and into her home, she could not have known that that one act would transform her from singular Samaritan to model Christian. And despite the private nature of the Tuohy's act of compassion, Hollywood eventually noticed.
The true story of Michael Oher and his relationship with the Tuohys gives us a rare chance to publicly celebrate Christian charity well lived.
Tuohy gave Sandra Bullock faith in the faithful: "I finally met someone who walks the walk," Bullock said.
Does Christianity have a PR problem? Are people who perform good works too quiet about their charity? Or is Bullock right that too many religious people talk the talk but don't walk the walk?
You do know that to have any beliefs that you live by makes you religous, don't you. This is a dumb remark I hear from many Christians. It's a dumb statement.
Mike,
Works of the law do nothing for your salvation, but works as in Christian charity do. You think that you don't have to do anything. You have to forgive. Or did you forget the parable of Jesus?
You're right, as followers of Jesus we are called to forgive others, but that is often times a VERY difficult thing to do. However, at the end of the day we aren't validated before God because we forgive. In fact, we could never be validated before God until we place our trust and faith in Jesus Christ. He was the perfect sacrifice for our sins, not our good works.