Catholic actor David Henrie has teamed up with EWTN Studios to create a new travel docuseries, Seeking Beauty, coming to EWTN+ this December. 

In the first interview regarding this exciting new project, Henrie joined Montse Alvarado, president and COO of EWTN News, to discuss the new series, what the network's new platform, EWTN+, offers him in the pursuit of creating virtuous content, his own faith journey, and the joy of creating high-quality content that also elevates the family. Henrie also shares why “beauty is ultimately the language of the divine and a reflection of God.”
 

Now, David, this is a really exciting time for you in your career. You’ve got the reboot of your famous show where you’re playing a wholesome dad, not a deadbeat dad. And you’ve also been nominated for a couple of awards. Talk to us about that. How do you feel in this moment?

Yeah, it was an honor to be nominated for the Television Critics Association Awards. It’s a really tough one to get for outstanding achievement in family programming. My whole ethos and brand behind my company, which is Novo Inspire, means “new” in Latin. Our goal is to make entertaining and elevating content for the whole family. ... If you have a bowl of soup and there’s one fly in it, it ruins the whole thing, right? So we’re trying to make delicious bowls of soup, that is, content with no “flies” in it. To see that recognized from a huge secular organization is a massive, massive honor. I had this thesis that families are being underserved. They just want beautiful content that has no agenda; it’s safe; it is unitive and beautiful. And it’s nice to see that that’s working out. Thanks be to God. So I’m really happy.

When you talk about the “flies” and the content, can there also be flies in the characters that you’re asked to play?

Of course. Yeah, of course. I mean, I’ve had to be very selective. I’m married, I have three kids, and I want them to see things that I’ll be proud of one day, that they’ll look back and go: “My dad made decisions that I respect and that I like.” Now, there’s nothing wrong with flawed characters. We’re all flawed people, so you should tell powerful stories about flawed characters, but nothing that would offend the eyes of good people who are just wanting to have a good time and aren’t looking to cover their kids’ eyes in the middle of programming.

Let’s talk about EWTN (EWTN is part of your legacy) — and media, watching it, growing up, understanding how it’s shifting and changing with the changing times in the media landscape.

I’m really excited. I think we’re at an interesting time in our culture. I think we’re seeing families and faith communities have this huge demand for content. They’re not being fed very much, but you have shows like The Chosen and House of David, wildly successful, really proving that there’s an audience there that wants good stuff. It all goes back to distribution though. If you don’t have a distribution platform — if you think of me like a content creator, if I make something, if it’s not being shown somewhere, then it’s all for naught. So EWTN embracing the future and embracing the shifting landscape, especially where distribution is headed, is like music to my ears. ... So the quality bar that I’m used to is at a certain level. And [for] a lot of people who are making faith content, the quality bar was very low. Christian content was almost associated with poor quality. And that’s changing now. And that’s exciting for someone like me because now I can do what I know I can do, and I can have a home like EWTN+ [that] is going to make it at a content-quality bar that I’m used to and that, quite frankly, the subject matter deserves.

Art used to be controlled by the Church, paid for by the Church, and the most beautiful stuff that exists, it still is there to this day. Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Carracci, Fra Angelico: Their works are still there, and they’re unbelievable. They’re so beautiful, and they last to this day.

They’re recognized by secular and religious alike as quality, as top-notch, the best that you have to offer.

It fights on its own. It stands the test of time.

That’s certainly the pursuit of what Mother Angelica wanted to give to the world, this idea that we would be a platform that serves up content that you can trust, content that you can have confidence in. Let’s talk about that content, things and endeavors that you have brewing with EWTN. One of them is Seeking Beauty, right? Tell us about that.

I love travel shows. I’m Italian, so I love the Stanley Tucci travel show, which is him eating food all over Italy. Anthony Bourdain might come to mind. There’s a lot of great travel shows out there. I was just like, “Man, I would love to do a travel show, but one where you flip the script, where it starts with what you don’t expect.” What you expect on an EWTN+ travel show is maybe an expert who’s telling you all about the aesthetics and beauty and the history and how everything works. ... We want an experience, right? So we put the format on its head. We have someone who’s not an expert, which is me, inviting the audience to go on a journey with me and have fun. So we go all over Italy, and we meet with the experts, and I’m sitting down asking questions that maybe you at home would want to ask if you were sitting in front of this person. And as I’m blown away, hopefully you’ll be blown away, too, because we had some beautiful experiences. And the common theme was always that beauty has a capital B, that beauty is ultimately the language of the divine and a reflection of God.

If you look at all the things that he’s made, it’s like you see a beauty there. I look at my wife off-screen right now who just got off a plane. I see the beauty there. It’s a reflection of God. So it was a great experience.

In making that content, content is supposed to obviously transform the audience, but it’s also supposed to transform you. You’ve been on this journey of seeking God, finding God, seeking him again, finding him again as you develop content. How did Seeking Beauty create an experience for you personally that brought you closer to Christ?

That’s a great question. As artists, we acknowledge that we stand on the shoulders of giants; to go, actually get close, to the giants that started it all: the artists of the Renaissance, the architects, and even those before them in Byzantine traditions. That was so touching to me. There was one moment where we got to visit people who restore these old paintings because ... there’s a layer that develops on the outside of old paintings. To restore them back to their former beauty, someone’s got to go in with a cotton tip. Some of these things are bigger than this whole studio setup. They’ve got to go in with a little cotton tip and special solutions and gently rub away what’s developed on top of the painting. So I got to see these Old Master-work paintings and the people who restore them. I got to look closely at the paint brushes of a Caravaggio, little strokes and things. They’d show me, “Hey, you can see a mistake right here. You can see where he tried something, and he did something else.” It was a humanizing thing because when you think of great artists before you, they’re almost so high [in talent] that it’s unreachable.

You’ll never get there. To get to see their works up close with a restorer was so cool to go, “Oh, this person was human. He completely painted over what he did. There was something he tried that didn’t work at all.” That was really cool to me, to learn how human these artists were and that they were struggling with the same things that I struggle with, just in a different medium.

 

Your relationship with Christ obviously comes through very easily. You are on fire about the faith. You talk about it with great, genuine interest in furthering your walk. What sustains that? Is there something particular, a devotion, your prayer life? Obviously, your marriage. You can’t say your marriage because that’s what’s going to get you to heaven.

That’s the foundation. ... I always had a desire for excellence and for greatness. Before I was Catholic, though, it just didn’t have a path. It didn’t have direction. It was just a spread, and things would fizzle out, and my end was very material. 

Once I became Catholic, suddenly, there’s direction. 

It’s going to be hard. You might fall, you can get back up, but suddenly there’s direction. So these desires that I naturally had to want to be excellent in my life suddenly had a way to articulate and had a path. That excitement is what keeps me going. 

It comes with structure, like daily meditation, daily Rosary. If you can get to daily Mass, great. It’s a lot harder when you have three little rug rats running around. But my wife’s great about taking the kids. But the Church is ... because I consider myself a convert, I just fell in love with all the elements the Church has to feed us. There are so many elements to feed us: all the sacraments, the different forms of grace. We have so many [spiritual] “weapons” at our disposal that, to me, I’m just like, if I’m not doing stuff every day, I’m not sharpening my soul, and I’m not growing. 

The Church is like an elevator. You’re either going up or down. It’s exciting to me, and it’s a wonderful challenge to be headed on this path.

Is there a particular spirituality that resonates with you? I’m big on Elijah. I’m all about that Carmelite understanding, the consuming fire.

To me, the Carmelite spirituality I absolutely love. My daily meditation for many years has been Divine Intimacy, which is a wonderful book of Carmelite spirituality and Carmelite saints that goes along with the liturgical year. I love that. When I first converted, St. Teresa of Avila was one of the first books that I read, Way of Perfection; Interior Castle. I love her way of looking at things, and, obviously, St. John of the Cross. Carmelite spirituality is most on my heart.

I feel like it’s very artistic … a little bit there, in terms of its thinking and its feeling. Yes. Would you say that your conversion was intellectual or a conversion of the heart?

It was purely intellectual. I had exhausted the emotions. I came from the crazy Hollywood world, living a crazy life, whole other story for another time. But I was just exhausted. I was like, “Nothing’s doing it for me. Nothing’s doing it for me.” I had this desire for something. My heart was restless, and nothing was doing it for me. I needed someone to speak to my soul. I consider that intellectual. Someone needed to speak into my soul to give me direction. It was through philosophical debate with a friend that I admitted there’s a God and that God has a relation with humanity and that he cares — then understood the doctrine of the Fall and the need for a Savior. So it was an exercise, intellectual exercise, but that was the food that my soul needed to help me get to where I needed to go.

What would you say to those who are seeking God who can’t accept that he loves them, which seems to be the ill of society. How did you finally accept that God wanted to be yours, and in your heart and intimate with you?

A lot of times people that don’t accept God — and I certainly related to this — there’s a problem in how you were raised or in the dynamic of the household. Do you associate one of your parents’ bad attributes with God? I think once you realize that God is the best in your parents and none of the worst, and he’s the best times a thousand, that he’s his own being who has that relationship with you, that can jump those barriers that you have that might prevent that love. It just takes a surrender. It takes a complete surrender. I mean, I changed my life when that happened. 

How many years have you and your wife been married?

Eight years, 10 together.

Well, congratulations on that decade of walking together. Thank you very much. I wish you many, many more. Thank you so much. Thank you.

This is a great interview. Thank you very much. Of course. Thank you.