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Dennis Quaid wasn’t “looking” for romance when he met wife Laura Savoie, but faith ultimately brought the pair together — and God has remained a crucial part of their marriage ever since.
“God is in our relationship. That [had] never even occurred to me before,” Quaid, 71, exclusively shared in the latest issue of Us Weekly while discussing his new film, I Can Only Imagine 2. “I thought, ‘Well, I have a relationship with God, so did she,’ but to have God be the third entity in the relationship is kind of a new idea. But that’s really the way it is.”
The Parent Trap star met Savoie, 32, in Las Vegas and proposed to her in October 2019, tying the knot the following year. Quaid, who was previously married three times before meeting Savoie, explained that the couple’s shared faith is a key part of what helps them maintain a healthy relationship.
“Otherwise you would wind up making the other person,” he explained. “You look to the other person to solve your problems, and we’re not equipped to do that. There’s a lot of things that we have, the baggage coming in [to a relationship], and it’s stuff that you need an expert [to deal with] — and that would be God.” (Quaid was married to P.J. Soles from 1978 to 1983, Meg Ryan from 1991 to 2001 and Kimberly Buffington from 2004 to 2018.)
While God existing within his marriage is new territory for Quaid, his faith has “always” been with him in both his personal life and professional career. He began his foray into faith-based content with 2011’s Soul Surfer before being cast in 2018’s I Can Only Imagine as Arthur Millard, the real-life abusive father of MercyMe frontman Bart Millard.
It’s a role that Quaid admits he was “uncomfortable” to play, particularly as a father himself. The actor shares son Jack Quaid, 33, with Ryan, 64, and twins Thomas and Zoe, 18, with Buffington, 53.
“The way [Bart’s] father was, no matter the era, even from back then, [was] very abusive, almost criminal,” Quaid explained. “And people who are like that, they were abused themselves as kids as well.”
I Can Only Imagine tells the true story of how Bart wrote the now-famous titular song and formed the Christian band MercyMe in the early 2000s after finding inspiration from his tumultuous and fragmented relationship with his father. Things changed for the pair, however, when Arthur revealed a terminally ill cancer diagnosis, and the twosome explored a path to forgiveness before Arthur’s death.
Quaid returns as Arthur in I Can Only Imagine 2, which hits theaters on Friday, February 20. The actor said it was important to him to “finish the story out the right way,” noting that the second film feels more like a “continuation” than a traditional sequel. The movie also gives audiences a chance to experience some of Bart and Arthur’s happier moments, as well as get a better look at Arthur’s redemption.
“The part of Arthur was very dear to me, and maybe the No. 1 movie that people come up to me in airports and whisper that they really love,” Quaid told Us while praising director Andrew Erwin. “And I just wanted to be a part of it in that sense.”
Quaid felt a certain protectiveness toward Arthur, who he feels was “genuine” in his attempt to repair his relationship with his estranged son. “Rarely do I find that people can actually really fundamentally change,” he explained. “It really takes a lot to do that. And I think that can only happen with God’s help.”
He continued, “It’s hard to ask for something you feel like you don’t deserve, but [Arthur] and Bart, not right away, they developed a relationship that turned out to be sweet in the end. It broke the chain of that abuse. That’s the gift that Arthur was able to give.”
Quaid noted that “the real” Bart was on set during the filming of the movies, an added challenge in having to portray some of the singer’s most traumatic childhood memories.
“You know, he’s watching all these scenes on the monitor in the next room of pretty horrific scenes,” Quaid said, adding that he was thankful to have the musician there. “He was very upfront and honest with me, which I really appreciated.”
Quaid, of course, is no newcomer to portraying real-life figures. He’s played the likes of astronaut Gordon Cooper, rock musician Jerry Lee Lewis and Ronald Reagan in his decades-long career, among many others.
“I actually have a kind of a preference to play real people, real stories. Real stories are pretty fantastic, because if they were fiction, you wouldn’t believe them,” Quaid told Us. “II feel like our responsibility to the person that I’m playing is to play them from their point of view. Nobody thinks of themselves as a villain or really as a hero. It’s just to try to get down to the essence of a person.”
“I know if somebody was playing me in a movie, I’d at least want to have it be my point of view of my life,” he added with a laugh.
I Can Only Imagine 2 hits theaters on Friday, February 20.
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