NEW YORK, Feb. 22 (UPI) — This is Us and Gilmore Girls actor Milo Ventimiglia says he became close friends with Tim Timmons, the real-life Christian music star he plays in I Can Only Imagine 2.
“He’s giving to everybody without ever asking for anything in return and I think that’s just pure goodness,” Ventimiglia, 48, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“That is an inspiration to be around and seeing how Tim moves through life and knowing Tim even more intimately because of where we come from, the conversations we’d had, it just all kind of came out on screen,” the actor said.
“The best thing for me was just being around Tim, soaking up his entire essence. And then, just when Andy [Erwin] and Brent [McCorkle] would call, ‘Action!’ I’d be like, ‘OK, cool,’ because Movie Tim could go ahead and run wild and do the fun things,” he added. “To play a role like that, as an artist, is a gift. To know him and call him a friend and I’m going to know him for the rest of my life is just beyond [that].”
Co-starring John Michael Finley, Dennis Quaid, Trace Adkins, Sophie Skelton and Arielle Kebbel, the film came in at No. 3 at the North American box office this weekend.
It is the follow-up to 2018’s I Can Only Imagine, which was about how Finley’s Bart Millard, lead singer of the band MercyMe, used music to heal the wounds from his relationship with his late abusive father Arthur (Quaid).
The new chapter is set in 2013 and sees Tim, who is quietly battling a terminal cancer diagnosis, join MercyMe on the road as the band’s opening act.
The real Timmons said he was thrilled Ventimiglia agreed to play him on the big screen because he thinks they are kindred spirits in that they both try to be aware of people and what’s going on around them.
“I just kind of think I’m a bald dork with glasses walking around the world, so I don’t think I’m that special,” Timmons quipped.
“I don’t think I’m that awesome, but I get to wake up again today and to have a movie about me is pretty wild, and my wife and our story and our journey, I’m so thankful.”
The film also explores the strained relationship between Bart and his teen son Sam (Sammy Dell), who is a talented musician in his own right.
Bart loves his son, but doesn’t know how to parent him since he didn’t have a good role model himself growing up.
Complicating matters is the fact that Bart tends to be over-protective of Sam because he has diabetes and needs to monitor his medication and sugar intake, which is difficult to do when he is on the road with a bunch of musicians.
In the film, Bart learns how to loosen up a bit, trust his son and be more supportive by watching Tim and Sam develop a close bond.
“We just kind of have done life together for a bunch of years,” Timmons said about his and Bart’s families.
“I remember Sam in my studio, Sam and Bart, and we recorded the first time Sam ever recorded something and Sam wrote his first song with us,” Timmons recalled.
“This is what we do,” he added. “We just encourage each other’s kids and speak into each other’s kids, and that makes the world better.”
Ventimiglia said Timmons has a gift for effortlessly bringing people together.
“That’s just who Tim is and, so, to see a re-connection, of course, in the story, but in real life, to watch Tim with Bart’s kids and Bart with Tim’s kids, it’s just very real and honest and true the way the kind of extended family works and just operates through work and music, through faith.”
This job came shortly after Ventimiglia and his wife, model Jarah Mariano, lost their home to the wildfires in Malibu.
“It was great to see that example of community that I know we were so desperately wanting, losing our home and being on the road, kind of walking into this really tight-knit group and community,” the father of two young children said. “But to just be embraced the same as any of them was just wonderful.”
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