If the fans of Grammy-winners Rebecca St. James and for KING & COUNTRY ever find themselves wondering where it all started for these beloved musical artists, Lionsgate has a new feature film hitting the masses April 26 that breaks it all down. Unsung Hero follows the Smallbone family from their humble beginnings in Australia to certain siblings’ rise to stardom in the U.S. The family patriarch, David, certainly had his work cut out for him, with no money or job to his name as he journeys with his pregnant wife Helen (Daisy Betts) and their seven kids across the globe.

And who better to play David than his own son, Joel Smallbone, aka one-half of the Christian pop duo for KING & COUNTRY — who also happens to be co-writer/director of Unsung Hero. It seems, then, that Smallbone also had his work cut out for him, bringing this personal story to life on the big screen. The end result is heart-wrenching and ultimately inspiring for anyone who dares to dream. We recently caught up with Smallbone to learn more about the creative process behind his new feature and what it was like playing his real-life dad.

‘Marvel Has Nothing on the Smallbone Multiverse’
Unsung Hero Release Date April 26, 2024 Director Richard L. Ramsey , Joel Smallbone Writers Joel Smallbone , Richard L. Ramsey Studio Candy Rock Entertainment, Kingdom Story Company, Monarch Media

First off, one has to wonder if Smallbone ever envisioned playing his dad David in some sort of Hollywood project. “It wasn’t on my bucket list, we’ll put it that way,” he said. “At the same time, I will say it was a really magnificent experience, and I sort of wish everyone could either write their parents’ story or literally, in my case, hop into their shoes, or more specifically, hop into his jacket — because that was literally his jacket from 30 years ago that I wore most of the film. Because the empathy that it provokes in you, as a son or a daughter, in my experience, was very profound.”

In our interview, Smallbone was also quite comedic in trying to break down to us the mind-melting experience of portraying his real-life family on-camera:

“It’s trippy because you’re looking at Joel, your son, but you’re Joel [in real life], but you’re [playing] David. And this is your mum [in the film], but you’re kissing your mum, but it’s not your mum.
It just, like, the whole thing is very weird. Marvel has nothing on the Smallbone multiverse.
”

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Going From for KING & COUNTRY to the Music-Centric Unsung Hero

As mentioned earlier, Smallbone co-wrote and co-directed Unsung Hero, in addition to playing the lead character. “My day job is, I’m in a band with my brother. And in music, you have to be all things all the time: You’re the writer, you’re the performer, you’re the director, you’re the producer, you’re the marketing guy,” Smallbone told us. “So it actually gave me a very holistic approach.” He elaborated:

I didn’t set out to co-direct it. I didn’t really ever necessarily set out to co-screenwrite it. I just went, ‘I think I could help you.’ And so you just end up finding yourself in that situation.

And there’s another lovely perk to tackling a toe-tapper of a project like Unsung Hero. “It is so music-centric. And as a result, myself and Luke, for KING & COUNTRY, we got to create an inspired-by [album] and have more features and different genres represented on that inspired-by, from Lee Brice […] to Hillary Scott and Michael Smith to Lecrae and Amy Grant, to our sister Rebecca St. James,” Smallbone told us. “So that was really sort of poetry in the making, to be able to channel the movie in these songs and reimagine a lot of them. I’m excited for the world to hear that simultaneously to the film releasing.”

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Acting Opposite Lucas Black and Terry O’Quinn
Lionsgate

Besides Smallbone’s unforgettable turn as his real-life dad, another standout performance in Unsung Hero is none other than Lucas Black, who film buffs will remember from classics like Friday Night Lights and Sling Blade. “Kind man, family man, probably at risk of overextending himself to people sometimes in the name of doing the right thing,” said Smallbone in describing Black. “I have to say, as a much younger actor in experience, it always amazes me when actors show up and are very unselfish with their craft. He really left so much space for me. He didn’t try to show me up.”

Unsung Hero also features another recognizable face: veteran actor Terry O’Quinn. “I’m a big Lost fan, and so, as a result, I’m a big John Locke fan. One of the great characters of television,” Smallbone told MovieWeb. “And Terry O’Quinn, who plays my grandpa in the film — or plays David’s dad, depending on how you look at it — you just hope with your heroes, I felt a similar thing years ago when we had the chance to collaborate with Dolly Parton — you just hope with your heroes that they actually don’t let you down.” O’Quinn definitely did not:

“And I just felt like Terry’s not only such a consummate professional — he really learned the Australian accent awfully well, I think he drove his lady nuts because he was speaking in Australian for weeks leading up to the production. But then he just stepped down and he created such a steadiness, and he saw the little people.
That’s what I love about it. He saw the caterers, and he saw the people that are putting in the hardest work, really the ‘unsung heroes’ of the movie.
”

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for KING & COUNTRY Present a Civil War Christmas Musical

Looking ahead, Smallbone remains excited about a unique new project he’s got cooking: “For KING & COUNTRY, we’ve always been a very theatrical band,” explained Smallbone. “And so filmmaking actually feels like this beautiful marriage between music and movies. And so, for about the last six years, we’ve been developing a Civil War musical, a Christmas film that follows two brothers who end up on opposite sides of the battlefield, called Drummer Boy.” He added:

And we’ve written the whole script, we’ve written the music for it. And so I’m actually really intrigued. It’s a very different film, obviously, to what
Unsung Hero
is, but equal amounts of passion… that the best days of this country are ahead of us, not behind us.

In the meantime, from Lionsgate, Unsung Hero will be available in theaters nationwide on April 26. You can watch the trailer above and check out a clip with Terry O’Quinn and Smallbone from the movie below: