Carrie Underwood talks about her Christian faith, Soul Surfer
Carrie Underwood said recently that her being raised as a Christian and her faith played a big hand in her success.
The Grammy winning country singer said she had a typical Christian upbringing which included going to service on Sundays, bible study and summer camps with other children from her church, according to Fox News.
Underwood said, “I grew up in church and have a wonderful family that always supported that. I grew up going to church camp and reading my bible and having different faith books and movies in my life,” Fox News reported.
Soul Surfer
Her life has taken a huge curve after she won in American Idol. She is now 28-years-old, has a number of hit records, and has taken on her first acting role in the movie Soul Surfer, costarring with Dennis Quaid, Helen Hunt and AnnaSophia Robb who plays the lead character Bethany Hamilton in the film, Fox News said.
Soul Surfer is the true-to-life story of Bethany, a professional surfer who in 2003, at the age of 13, was attacked by a shark and lost her arm. The movie tells of Bethany’s journey back to the sport that she loves, where she continued to reap many more awards and became an inspiration for thousands of others, the Los Angeles Times said.
Underwood plays the role of Sarah Hill, a member of the church that the Hamiltons go to. Hill plays a pivotal role in helping Bethany recover from the emotional trauma of her accident. Through her guidance Bethany manages to cope with her life and gain new perspective from her tragic experience, NewsOK said.
The film largely stays true to the Christian faith that characterizes Bethany and her family. According to the LA Times, the Hamiltons said they would only give their support to the venture if their faith was not compromised.
Underwood told Fox News that she is hopeful that audiences will appreciate the role that faith can play in healing. “I hope that it is very clear that the faith in this movie is more than an undertone, and that the reason Bethany got through everything was because of her faith in God.”
Underwood told Fox News, “[T]his story is about having faith when the chips are down and how to deal with that. We can all learn something from Bethany’s story, even when the little things in our lives don’t go so well, we can take a lesson from her and realize how small that problem really is.”
Underwood said her acting debut was made easier by her experience in music videos, “but it’s a completely different thing being with other actors and trying to make a movie and try to make it good,” NewsOK reported.
Underwood was familiar with the story of Hamilton from the 2003 newspaper reports of the shark attack, but she never knew about the strength of their Christian faith until after reading the script, NewsOK said.
While admitting that acting was out of her comfort zone, she felt right about doing the film. She told NewsOK, “I always said if something came along and it was for the right reasons, we could fit it into an already busy schedule. And it just sounded like a wonderful idea.”
She was excited, she told NewsOK, about meeting with a youth group “and learn[ing] a lot about people that we could all be more like.” And of meeting the Hamilton family she said, “[T]he original is way cooler.”