Chris Samuels (Brett Granstaff) has a touching moment with his daughter Carrie (T.J. McGibbon) before fighting crime as a masked vigilante.
Professional wrestling is, among other things, a morality play pitting good against evil inside the squared circle. On one side are the heroes who encourage you to say your prayers, take your vitamins and otherwise be good people. On the other side are the rule-breaking villains willing to employ the most unscrupulous tactics to get what they want. This struggle between right and wrong is central to The Masked Saint, a film about a masked wrestler-turned-pastor-turned-vigilante based on the novel of the same name by wrestler-turned-pastor Chris Whaley. Inspired by some of Whaley’s actual life experiences, The Masked Saint stars Brett Granstaff, who also co-wrote the script and produced the film through Ridgerock Faith, a subsidiary of his Ridgerock Entertainment Group.
“The book is told in vignettes, so it’s spread out over Pastor Chris’ whole career as a pastor,” says Granstaff. “I liked the idea and story but I wanted to tell more of a traditional narrative and shorten the timeline of everything. My script is very different than the original script. Everything that happens in the movie did happen to Pastor Chris. He didn’t put on a mask when he fought, but he did stop a robbery, he did help a woman who was being beaten up. We just kind of dramatized it with the mask during those alley scenes.”
The Reaper (James Preston Rogers) suplexes The Masked Saint (Brett Granstaff).
Growing up a wrestling fan, Granstaff took a crash course in wrestling with former WWE developmental talent James Preston Rogers, who plays Granstaff’s imposing adversary The Reaper in the film. Over the course of eight two-hour training sessions, Granstaff learned enough to be able to perform all of his own wrestling scenes in the movie.
“One of my favorite memories is when I was 7 years old and my mom took me to the War Memorial Coliseum in Nashville,” recalls Granstaff. “There was Hulk [Hogan], Andre the Giant, Roddy [Piper], Brutus ‘The Barber’ Beefcake, Junkyard Dog – it was the height of mid ’80s WWF. As I got older I kind of got into other sports. When this book and script came my way, my 5-year-old inner fanboy came out and I was like, ‘Yes! I get to learn how to wrestle? Let’s do this.’ I wanted it to be real and authentic, so with me doing my own wrestling it gives it that much more true authenticity.”
The film, which won best picture in last year’s International Christian Film Festival, is further validated by the presence of one of Granstaff’s childhood heroes “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, posthumously making his final film appearance as devious wrestling promoter Nicky Stone.
“We really didn’t know what to expect when we hired him,” Granstaff says of working with the WWE Hall of Famer. “In terms of acting, he had chops. He did his job and was great. The thing that really blew me away was how humble he was. There’s a lot of down time in filming and a lot of people go back to their trailers and sit around and wait. He never went back to his trailer. He stayed on set the whole time and talked with every crew member, talked with every fan and signed every autograph. We had a lot of indie wrestlers on the set and he met with every single one of them, took them to dinner, talked to them about how to cut a better promo, talked about what life was like on the road – he just wanted these guys to be the best wrestlers they could be. He loved his fans and loved wrestling. It was mind blowing how generous he was, especially since he’s a Hall of Fame wrestler. He was amazing and it was the greatest honor working with him.”
Chris and his wife Michelle (Lara Jean Chorostecki), who is unaware of her husband’s crime-fighting persona.
After Piper’s shocking demise last July, Granstaff appeared at Global Force Wrestling’s television tapings last August to promote the film. Mysteriously, The Masked Saint also showed up to compete on the GFW ring against Joey Ryan (who had not yet displayed the power of his penis, as he recently did for Japan’s Dramatic Dream Team promotion). Granstaff will once again be appearing with GFW’s Jeff Jarrett at WrestleCon in Dallas during WrestleMania weekend. Could wrestling be in the actor/prodcuer’s future?
“Jeff thinks I definitely have the skill set, but thinks I’m a little too smart for it,” Granstaff jokes. “If it comes up and the opportunity presents itself, I’d love to get back in the ring. I just don’t know how many of those opportunities I’m going to get since I stay so busy with my films. Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to do one or two more matches, maybe as The Masked Saint.”
