All the Pretty Horses

When we decided to make our movie, Seven Days in Utopia, one of my absolutes was to have an actor who could really play golf. We did not want to make another golf movie about a professional golfer that was not believable. By God’s grace and intervention I was introduced to an up and coming actor named Lucas Black. Lucas was the real deal—a scratch golfer who could really play the game. He actually had played in some professional golf events. And it gets better; he was just coming off a movie starring with Robert Duvall. Eventually the influence of Lucas was one of the deciding factors for Duvall signing on with our movie.

But here is the best part. Unbelievable actually. I finally watched the movie, All the Pretty Horses, recently.  It is a western that starred Lucas Black and Matt Damon. He was about 16 years old at the time he had a significant role in All the Pretty Horses. He was about 28 when he played in our movie that opened in theaters in the fall of 2011. He did a fantastic job for us and was in every scene.

So I am watching a scene from his older movie. Two older boys, one was Matt Damon, who were heading to Mexico for work confronted him.  They asked him in the movie, “Where are you from.” I sat in stunned silence when I heard the lines Lucas recited 12 or so years before he starred in my movie. He replied, “I’m from the Sabinal Valley in Uvalde County.” Our movie was filmed in Utopia, Texas. The location: the Sabinal Valley in Uvalde County! Utopia is the only town in the Sabinal Valley…

Lucas was a Godsend to our movie. He wasn’t afraid of the faith aspect and in fact embraced it. He is still a dear friend to this day. I love how God speaks to us in such intimate ways, interjecting what others might call a coincidence in life. I call it awe.