Dennis Quaid’s life as an actor isn’t a bad one, but he admits there are some drawbacks, especially as a parent.
Dennis Quaid attends the “The Substance” Red Carpet at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 19, 2024 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
“You do it whenever you can. There’s always a trade off,” he told PauseRewind. “When you’re away, that’s [when] it gets me. When you’re young and stuff like that, and you’re single, it’s like, of course, [this is an] adventure. But you don’t even realize you’re trading it off. Sometimes it gets to be a way of life or whatever, but you have to do what you can.”
“I mean, I’ve come back from England several weekends in a row during my life, just to be there and you know, the kids want to go play with their friends!” he added with a laugh.
Quaid also felt one of the messages of his latest film, “I Can Only Imagine 2,” was important to share with fans.
In the film, MercyMe, led by Bart Millard (played by John Michael Finley), is struggling to find their next hit after their breakout single, “I Can Only Imagine.”
Dennis Quaid as Arthur in I Can Only Imagine 2. Photo Credit: Jake Giles Netter
The struggle to keep a career going after initial success is something Quaid identified with.
“Everything gets tied up into a nice success type of package that people might mistake for real life. That’s never really the case,” he said. If you know, success brings along another. Life goes on, and you still trip and fall and yeah, you can’t be so smug as to think that, ‘Well, now I got it,’ that’s for sure, especially when it comes to parenthood.”
The real Bart Millard also spoke with PauseRewind, sharing that he never expected a second film about him and MercyMe to be made.
“I don’t know if I ever thought ahead of time, like what the message would be,” he said of the sequel. “I trusted those that were making the movie. When the idea came up about telling the story, I trusted who was making it, and then [I was] just trying to be as honest and as accurate as I can remember, as far as cramming several years my life in the two hours. That was the story being told, it’s not just, ‘Hey, this would look good on film,’ but in our real lives, like we went through this, and it’s been redeemed, and it’s been hard, but we were getting through it.”
Director Andrew Erwin and Dennis Quaid as Arthur in I Can Only Imagine 2. Photo Credit: Jake Giles Netter
He continued, “There are some true stories that are told because there are amazing stories to tell, then there are some that are told because people can relate to it and it represents them. And I think that’s what this movie does, is that everybody goes through hurt and pain and the last thing you want to feel is that you’re alone in this. And so if this allows someone to go, oh, wait, it happens to them too and that there’s redemption in that, that would be an amazing thing to walk away with.”
“I Can Only Imagine 2” is in theaters now.
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