Exclusive Interview: Will Beinbrink Chats The Exorcism of God, How He Prepared to Tackle His Character’s Journey, & More

Will Beinbrink is one of Hollywood’s most exciting leading men. He’s brought dynamic characters to life in projects including Revolution, Dark, and It Chapter Two. Currently, he can be seen in the must-see new horror film The Exorcism of God.

The Exorcism of God follows Father Peter Williams, an American exorcist, who hides a shocking secret: possessed by a demon he was trying to expel, he committed a terrible sacrilege. To atone for this sin, Peter devotes his life to charity work in a small town in Mexico. Eighteen years later, his deeply buried secret comes to light when the demon from his past returns, possessing a girl and unleashing a deadly disease. Now Peter must choose between saving his own soul and saving the people he loves most in one final, epic battle against the evil within.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Will about The Exorcism of God, how the film differentiates itself from other exorcism films, and how he prepared to tackle his character’s journey.

PC: Could you introduce us to The Exorcism of God and your character in the film?
Will: My character is a gentleman named Father Peter Williams. He’s a Catholic priest. The backstory that I made was that he was an orphan as well—that’s why he partly runs this orphanage—and Father Michael took him under his wing. Because of Father Michael’s tutelage and his love, Peter became a priest himself. He is now in Mexico. He has fallen in love with these people since he’s been here since his early twenties. He’s seen how this country has been a really challenging and difficult place for people to live. He feels like he can give more and be of more service to the people there than he can be in the United States. He’s committed his life to helping these people. Along the way, he encounters some who are possessed with demons that need to have exorcisms performed on them.

Some of them go well and some of them don’t. I don’t want to give away spoilers to the film because I feel like there are a lot of really good twists and turns within the movie that I want people to experience for the first time. But it’s about a man who’s committed himself to God and who wants to do the best he can with his time on this planet—to make the most change for the people that are dear to him. At the same time, he’s also dealing with some significant things that he did in the past that are haunting him and making him question how much he can be of service to people and how effective he can be as a priest, knowing that he’s, in a certain way, rotten to the core because he hasn’t dealt with the sin in the proper Catholic way.

He’s a man who’s carrying around this cross on his shoulder and this sin at the same time. While he’s weighted down with his own trauma and resentment and anger at himself, he’s trying to send and give as much love to the people and to the community as he can so that he can lift them up. Hopefully, at the same time as he’s lifting them up, the weight of this sin can be taken off himself. But unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. He has to go through the trials by fire.

PC: You’ve done it all throughout your career. What was it about this particular project and character that stood out to you?
Will: I feel like there aren’t many opportunities for people to play a role like this. The role starts as a man who is in his mid-twenties and leads to the present day when he’s in his early forties. It was that range and the range of going from pure to impure back to pure again. The shifting of that and the scope of that was very challenging and very exciting for me as an actor. Not only that, but some of the scenes are just crazy. These scenes are bananas. I got to do these scenes in Spanish, Latin, and English. We have scenes where there are a hundred extras. This is not a huge-budget horror movie.

There are universal themes about being pure in the heart, being a human of God, what it means to be a human being, and doing the best you can. Then there are themes dealing with corruption. They are all immersed within this one story. You have things that are very small. It’s a small town. You have things that are very personal. You’re dealing with children and an orphanage. You have these massive themes of Catholicism, Christianity, and right or wrong.

It’s an epic film wrapped within a small world that continually expands and expands until the end. I feel like so many horror movies are like six people in a cabin and there’s one dude out there, a crazy redneck who’s trying to kill them all, and it’s a girls-only birthday. This movie not only honors exorcism movies by including scenes that are in homage to The Exorcist but there are shots that are literally remakes of shots from that film. There are tropes of exorcism movies. There are things we’ve seen before, and then there are things that we’ve never seen before in exorcism movies. I feel like those are the reasons why this movie has done so well.

PC: Throughout the film, we see your character come to terms with his past and his actions. You do such a brilliant job displaying that. How did you create the space for yourself to dive into the wide range of emotions that your character undergoes throughout the film?
Will: That’s a good question. This is more like a real, true actor’s answer. First, what a lot of people do is they look for things in their life that they can connect to. They personalize it. My character has a lot of shame. There were moments where I felt deeply shamed in my life, so I would use those as jumping off points. Then if I wanted to try and expand that—so that it wasn’t just a memory from when I was twelve—and have it feel more resonant. I would imagine myself being in those circumstances and imagine what I would feel. Then I would connect that back to the film. If I had done that to someone I knew, how would that make me feel?

Part of my process as an actor is not straightforward. I have ADD, so it’s made certain things more challenging. Like when certain teachers teach you one way. Those don’t always work for me. I’ve had to learn a lot by butting my head against the wall and slowly finding ways that work and help me connect to something. I wish it was like, “Download. Got it. I’m here. Let’s go.” But that’s not the way that it has been for me. What I’ve really come to realize more and more is that the imagination work is what helps me, but it’s also really hard work. It’s not easy to do. It takes an incredible amount of focus and concentration, and for someone who has ADD, it’s not the easiest thing in the world. But that’s also part of the great challenge. Because once someone with ADD locks in, they lock in a really deep way.

PC: Alejandro [Hidalgo] has such a distinct voice and vision for this film. What was it like collaborating with him as you brought this project to life?
Will: I love him. He’s brutal. [laughs] He’s brutal in the best way possible. I don’t listen to many interviews with actors, but I did hear Willem Dafoe say that he loves working with auteurs. I feel the same way because they have a much stronger drive and won’t accept mediocrity. They are not like, “Hey, this is good enough. Let’s do it. This is good enough.” They want something that’s going to stand the test of time, that’s going to last for people twenty years from now. They want something where people are going to be like, “Hey man, did you ever see this film that came out in 2022? It’s called The Exorcism of God. It’s 2050 now. It’s a really amazing film.”

People like that interest me. They’re people who are hungry, driven, crazy, and brutal in the best way possible. Alejandro has a great vision. He’s a great writer, and he has great attention to detail. We would be doing takes, and there would literally be like 30 things that he would tell me he wants me to do. He’d be like, “You want your head here. I need your hand here. Not here, but here. I need the water going here.” This is all while someone is screaming at me and throwing things at me. There was a tremendous amount of rigor and intensity involved in capturing these images.

I love that. That is a lot of fun. I either want total freedom or I want perfectionism. That felt like a way that we really got along. It felt like we were teammates in this war to make this movie that hopefully people are going to love. It seems like people are loving it. We talked about working together again, and we really enjoy each other’s company—not only in front of the camera but off set, and now we’ve become good friends too. I feel really fortunate to have someone like that who I can call not only a friend but a really good friend.

PC: Like you were saying earlier, this is such a refreshing take on a genre that we know and love. Is there a scene that you’re really excited for audiences to see?
Will: I love the first exorcism scene. That’s incredible. You don’t even know the movie yet and you have that scene. You’re like, “What?” Then the title comes and you’re like, “Whoa! This is crazy.” Because often that kind of scene would be the ending scene. You’re like, “Dude, this is just the beginning. What the F?” Then the scene at the end between myself and some of the possessed people is an incredible scene as well. There are a lot of scenes. There are scenes that were cut that are also good. They’ll be in the deleted scenes on the Blu-ray.

There are a lot of deleted scenes that are great. They didn’t make the cut for various reasons. I’m excited to see what people think of those scenes. There’s a lot of other material, including behind-the-scenes moments. Alejandro says, “You see the front and you’re like, ‘This is a big-budget movie.’ Then you see behind the camera and you’re like, ‘Whoa, this looks like a low-budget movie.’” It’s really cool to see that because not only does it impress on you how good of filmmakers Alejandro and the DP (who’s also Venezuelan) are, but how everyone works so well together to create something that has a big-budget look and value but wasn’t.

PC: You’re no stranger to the horror genre. What is it about this genre that excites you as a creative?
Will: I feel like it’s the life-and-death stakes of a story. I feel like it’s immediate. It’s dynamic. It’s highly charged. For someone like me who wants and craves things of high danger, it fits me. I surf. It’s something that is therapeutic to me because one, it’s the ocean, and two, it’s also scary and exciting. I feel like horror films have that. In a way, they are almost like classical theater. They’re Shakespearean. They have elements of life and death. If they’re done well, like this film, they don’t come off cheesy. They don’t come off like, I hate to say, like stupid movies where you’re like, “This was just scares and dumb stuff. This is stupid.”

I feel like this is a real meal that people can enjoy, rewatch, and get more out of later. Because there is a lot of interweaving of characters, such as Camila and Magali and the relationships between them from the past to the present. The more people watch the movie, the more they’ll gather the pieces from it. I feel like that’s something you see in good films. You watch it the second time and you watch the third time, and you’re like, “Cool.” You’re gaining more from it because now you’re not shocked by it or not carried away by these scenes as much as you were the first time. It gives you the ability to see other things. It’s a great film, and I’m really proud of it.

PC: That’s a perfect segue to this last question for you. The film does such a brilliant job balancing these supernatural elements and what you expect from an exorcism film with this more grounded drama. How were you all able to maintain that throughout the film?
Will: First of all, he cast really well on this. He cast Joseph Marcell, who is a classical theater actor. He’s part of the Globe Theatre company with Mark Rylance. He’s continually doing classical work. This film requires someone with a real classical training to do the prayers. It’s almost like we’re magicians or wizards in Lord of the Rings. We’re casting spells. We’re holding these demons back. I feel like that was a great choice.

María Gabriela was a really great choice for her role because she’s such a great actor. She came so prepared. She was there from day one, just 100% committed. I feel like the three of us and Irán Castillo were really well cast. Irán and I had great chemistry together. We met and instantly felt very safe with each other. It felt like we had a long bond. Sometimes, it’s luck of the draw. You want to say, “They were a genius in casting these people.” You can say that. You could say that Alejandro has really good instincts in putting together people who have good chemistry without knowing each other. I feel like Joseph and I have good chemistry. It feels like we’ve known each other for a long time.

When we meet each other again, it feels genuine. Magali and I have what feels like an unrequited relationship, and that’s true. These are all things that I feel are due to Alejandro’s taste. It’s because the actors were open enough and lucky enough to have connections that were unspoken before we started the film.

We did exercises before we filmed for a few days to strengthen those relationships. I think you see that on screen. I feel like that makes a difference. It’s those aspects where you take one plus two and it doesn’t equal three—it actually equals four. It’s the unspoken things that I feel are the reason why this movie is resonating with people, besides these amazing scenes that you’ve never seen before. You’re like, “What the heck is going on in the scene?” There are so many elements working for it, and Alejando’s a freaking genius.

To keep up with Will, follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Watch The Exorcism of God in theaters and wherever you stream movies.

Photo Credit: Kevin Scanlon