Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind The Making Of “The Preacher’s Wife”

The Spirit

Several of the cast members have mentioned that the process of filming the movie and the film itself was and is very spiritual. In 1996, Courtney B. Vance told Jet Magazine: “This isn’t just a movie. It’s the Holy Spirit working.” In fact, before taking the role, Courtney B. Vance, said that he got baptized. “I’d been trying to find a spiritual outlet for a while. When I got this role, it was a wonderful excuse to do what I’ve always wanted to do. I didn’t have to get baptized to do this film, but I decided it was time.” Many of the scenes were filmed in the church and where Whitney is singing along with the Georgia Mass Choir. And in those moments, the spirit entered that church. See how Whitney and Penny Marshall described it in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

“There were moments when you were just walking around and everybody was joyous and praising and crying. . . . It was a spiritual event,” she said. “It revived my soul, my faith in God.” The defining moment, she recalls, occurred at Trinity United Methodist Church in Newark. Late one night, when Marshall was shooting the final take with Houston and the Georgia Mass Choir, “the Holy Ghost just came down and filled up the room,” Houston says. “Penny was yelling, `Cut!’, and then her mike went out and she kept saying, ‘Cut, cut!’ and nobody could hear her.” “Baby,” Houston says, her almond-shaped eyes widening, “we had church in that church that night! It was a fire in there and it was mighty.” “I just kept the cameras rolling like we were filming a documentary,” says Marshall, who left the full scene in the movie. “It was dizzying.”