Madeline Carroll stars as as Shannon in the highly-anticipated new movie I Can Only Imagine. The movie, out in theaters now, follows MercyMe lead singer Bart Millard, who wrote the ultimate uplifting song in just minutes. Madeline is the younger version of Shannon, the women who eventually becomes Bart’s wife. The movie also stars J. Michael Finley, Dennis Quaid, Cloris Leachman, Trace Adkins, and more. I Can Only Imagine is a gripping and touching story of forgiveness and the power of love.
Madeline talked to HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY about the exciting role. The 21-year-old revealed that she was ready to give up acting for good right before she was cast as Shannon. Like millions of people around the world, Madeline had listened to the song “I Can Only Imagine” countless times over the years, but didn’t realize what the song really meant until now. Check out our Q&A with Madeline below:
What stood out to you about this story and made you want to be a part of it?
Madeline Carroll: What originally stood out to me was… I don’t know if you know the story about how I found out about the movie, but I was actually at a commercial audition. The woman who got paired up with me just happened to ask me, “Oh, are you Madeline Carroll?” And she said, “Have you heard about that new movie, I Can Only Imagine?” And I was like, “What? The song?” She was like, “Yeah!” I was so excited because I literally had listened to that song my whole entire life. It had been something that really meant a lot to me. I used to listen to it all the time in the car with my mom, so I knew what it was immediately, but I had no idea the story that was behind it. I just thought it was a song that the band wrote, and it was amazing. I had no idea that it had meant to much to Bart Millard. I got a meeting with the directors and producers at the casting office and just went in and talked with them. I didn’t audition or read or anything. I just literally had an hour long conversation talking about the story, how it came to be, and everything. It was really enlightening and I said to my mom, “I don’t care if I don’t get this part.” I was just so happy and relieved to know there were other people in Hollywood that were trying to make a difference and trying to do something different and show people something different, something heartwarming that everyone see together. No matter who you are or what walk of life you come from, we had so many people at the screenings just watch this film and get something from it. It’s different each time, but it just shows you so many different issues and different heartaches that you can have. One of the biggest things that it deals with is forgiveness. It’s such an important thing and something we really haven’t seen play out, if not in a while, on screen. It’s just so moving and precious and just really blessed my life, because it came to me at a time that I was ready to quit acting. I was just done and heartbroken on my own journey. I was ready to give up on a dream that I had had since I was three years old, and I had just been so depressed. There was no good material. There was nothing good ahead of time coming my way and a lot of Hollywood is very dark. Girls my age, I find a lot of them that I have literally grown up and auditioned with take these different paths that break their hearts, but they felt like they had to do it in order to get where they want to go. It’s just so hard on their spirit. I was just ready to walk away. Then I literally got this part. For me, the film revitalized my dream and brought it back to life and gave me a breath of fresh air. I know now this is where I’m meant to be. This is what I’ve been called to do.
Did you get the opportunity to talk to Shannon?
Madeline Carroll: She was doing other things while we were filming, but I actually listened to hours of interviews that the director Andy [Andrew Erwin] had sent me about her. I got a sense of how she talked and where her heart was and how she would share her heart. They actually cast me because they felt my presentation of myself, my spirit, was very, very similar to hers and her heart. They just kept telling me to be myself.
Did you ever feel the pressure of playing a real person?
Madeline Carroll: Yes, I have to say that it’s very different because normally you’re just bringing what you bring to it and what you feel is best. So it’s definitely something you always keep in your mind. I did have that pressure for sure. I was so grateful that Andy gave me all that information because I really wouldn’t have known where to start. But I did get to meet Bart and the pressure was definitely on that day. It was the day we did the hospital scenes with Dennis Quaid. They all came and I was shaking when I met them.
What was it like working with Dennis Quaid?
Madeline Carroll: Working with Dennis Quaid was incredible. I literally have grown up watching him. The Parent Trap is one of my favorite movies. I was very nervous to meet him, but what a lovely person. He brought his kids to set and we would hang out at craft services. He just really wanted his family to be there to see the set and everything. He’s very talented at what he does. He’s a very intense actor. He just brings such a wonderful spirit to the movie. The movie is really about his journey and himself as a person, and he really shows people the way that they could be. He really shows that it is a possibility from wherever you are in your walk of life to achieve something better for yourself and be there for your family, no matter how bad things might have been. He did a beautiful job with that. He’s so friendly to everyone. Some actors that you work with keep to themselves, but he was just laughing and joking with everybody.
Were you familiar with the backstory behind the song?
Madeline Carroll: No. To be honest with you, I always thought the song was more about heaven. But I didn’t realize it wasn’t so much fantasizing about heaven as it was coming from this place of such hardship. When you hear the song, you don’t really think of that. You don’t think of the negative and the heartache. It’s a very happy, spiritual song, so I had no idea what had happened beforehand. What I really thought was so special was finding out that Amy Grant gave the song back to him. It was going to be her song, and she was going to sing it, even though he wrote it. That really spoke to me honestly more than anything that she was willing to hand that back, knowing that it was going to bless so many people, knowing that it would go as far as it has gone. I think that’s so special and speaks so much of her.