For actor Kellan Lutz, his faith is everything to him. He told Fox News Digital, “I don’t know how people who don’t believe in something can have hope in anything. When you lose your job, when COVID hit, when people die, when there’s no work to be found, it’s depressing.”
Lutz gave examples of not being able to visit his COVID-stricken grandfather in the hospital or dealing with the actor’s strike, as things out of his control when he focuses on getting through with his beliefs. “So it’s one of the things where my faith is everything. It’s the top,” he explained.
Lutz and his wife, Brittany Lutz, have been married for six years and, in 2020, faced the heartbreaking loss of their daughter six months into the pregnancy. The 38-year-old said the loss “was so confusing,” but with a support system and his faith, he and the family were able to grieve the stillbirth the best they could.
He said, “It still is hard when the dates come around, but I know in my heart that she’s up in heaven. We named her, and I can’t wait to see her. So that’s the hope. We’re here on Earth for a finite period of time. And up there, I’m going to be so joyful, and so down here, I can be joy-filled knowing that. And that’s what keeps us going.” He added, “I’m so grateful that my wife and I believe the same thing. We [know] a lot of other couples who don’t believe the same thing. And I’m like, ‘That’s tough,’ especially if someone doesn’t believe in something and the other person does, because how do you say, ‘Hey, it’s going to be OK’ when that person doesn’t believe it’s going to be OK?”
The couple welcomed two more children into their lives, daughter Ashtyn in 2021 and son Kasen last August. Fatherhood and feeling protective of his family played a crucial role in his latest film, “Due Justice.” In the movie, Lutz plays a Marine seeking retribution after his wife is murdered and a violent gang kidnaps his daughter.
Lutz joked he’s played a Marine in “quite a few projects,” but to prepare for the role, he turned to another protective onscreen dad: Liam Neeson’s character in “Taken.” He said, “This is pretty much my ‘Taken’ movie. And I love Liam Neeson. I love those movies. He is just an icon with [the] ‘Let’s go rescue the family after they’ve been taken, one, two, three, four, five, 10 million times’ [genre].” As a father, getting into the character was easy, but also a struggle to deal with the movie’s darker themes.
Lutz said, “It’s so disturbing. But this happens, and it happens to people, and it’s just so tragic. And, like, I have a daughter, right? And just getting there in character, when we shoot those emotional scenes, you can’t help but get that churning in your stomach of like, ‘What if this happened?’”
He continued, “And it helps you really, really get there. But then it’s also really kind of hard to come back to reality. You need to make sure you have an anchor and then get yourself out of it as soon as you can.” Still, for Lutz, that anchor is his family and his wife, with whom he does weekly check-ins.