Whenever the filming team ran into technical or legal issues, LaBeouf didn’t panic but turned to the saint’s famous motto: Pray, hope, and don’t worry.
“And things worked out. They just did. And I think we made a beautiful film as a result of following his teachings and really leaning into the pragmatic way in which he dealt with the world,” he said.
“It’s probably why I love Catholicism, because it is so nuts and bolts.”
LaBeouf said that he “experienced disordered freedom for so long, like an anarchist” and that the film changed his life.
At the end of the film, Padre Pio receives the stigmata while in prayer.
“It’s easy to think that because he was holy, that he received the stigma automatically. No,” Rodriguez said. The First World War and the social political turmoil in San Giovanni Rotondo were the context in which the saint received the stigmata, he said.
“Pio was looking at all of this and saying, ‘I want to take this all upon myself as a suffering servant to help them.’ He didn’t know that the stigmata will be the purpose to help these people out. But it ended up being just that. The stigmata didn’t just happen on its own, in other words,” he said.
Demonic harassment
Padre Pio is harassed by the devil several times in the film, once even physically. In one scene, the devil, in the appearance of a naked woman disrespecting an image of the Virgin Mary, is taunting and discouraging the saint.
Ferrara told CNA that the scene was taken out of Padre Pio’s private letters to his spiritual director. Rodriguez added that demons would appear in Pio’s room as naked women to harass him.
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“We’re taking it from his letters. I mean, we’re trying to embody when he’s talking about temptation in a real way,” Ferrara said.
“A lot of what you see in the movie is pretty accurate,” Rodriguez said, adding that he wrote the letters to his spiritual director in confidence and “would not have wanted the letter to be out.”
Rodriguez told CNA in 2022 that the film’s depiction of the saint is about 90% accurate and is largely based on the saint’s letters to his provincial and spiritual director from 1911–1918.
Rodriguez, who became close with LaBeouf during the actor’s preparation for the role of Padre Pio, said that “I know for a fact that God wanted this movie to be made.”
He noted how the film came together at a providential moment in LaBeouf’s life, which put the actor on the path to join the Catholic Church.
LaBeouf recently told ChurchPOP that he is currently in RCIA, taking weekly classes, and is on track to be confirmed in seven months.
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