After his near-fatal accident, John O’Leary qualified to spend his life playing the victim.
While experimenting with matches and gasoline in his St. Louis family garage, an accidental explosion left then-9-year-old O’Leary with burns covering 100% of his body — 85% of which were third-degree burns.
Doctors gave O’Leary a 1% chance of survival. His fingers, which suffered the most severe burns, required amputation. Following a five-month hospital stay, bolstered by family, nurses, prayers and a local baseball announcer, O’Leary was released to go home.
In the decade after his accident, O’Leary learned to adapt to life with a disability. As a college student, he thrived at his fraternity house, but O’Leary still lacked the confidence to ask out the girl he liked and kept his burn scars concealed, even from close friends.
O’Leary eventually — spoiler alert — mustered enough confidence in himself and his ability to triumph over his own tragedy to become a successful inspirational speaker, and shared his story in a 2016 memoir-meets-self-help book, “On Fire.”
The newly-released film adaptation of O’Leary’s memoir, “Soul on Fire,” from filmmaker Sean McNamara (“Soul Surfer,” “Reagan”), offers guidance on overcoming a victim mentality, the leading stars of the movie said.
“If you are stuck in a mundane or rut in your life, and you just are like, ‘What am I doing here on this earth?’ This film just will zap you out of that,” Masey McLain, who plays Beth O’Leary in the movie, told the Deseret News. She added, “It’ll set you ablaze in your purpose.”
For Joel Courtney, who plays O’Leary in the movie, “Soul on Fire” is a “conquering story. It’s an overcoming story.”
After months of listening to O’Leary’s book on repeat, watching countless clips of his speaking engagements and spending time with O’Leary on set of the film, Courtney embodied O’Leary down to the sound of his voice.
At one point during rehearsals, Courtney’s friend, who overheard some dialogue, couldn’t tell if Courtney or O’Leary was the person he’d heard speaking.
But O’Leary’s influence on Courtney and other cast members cut much deeper than character development.
Both Courtney and McLain said spending time with O’Leary changed their approaches to life, and believe audiences who experience his story on screen will feel the same way.
How ‘Soul on Fire’ touched its cast
While working together, O’Leary shared a story with Courtney that deeply affected him.
As Courtney recounted, after his devastating accident, O’Leary had a conversation with his father, Dennis O’Leary, that shifted his mentality.
His father told him, “You can be a victim, and no one would ever blame you, but what if you were a victor?” Courtney shared.
Dennis O’Leary then told his son, who was still in a wheelchair at the time, “What if you roll into every single room and people look at you and are encouraged by what you’ve overcome? You’ll walk into rooms and be a light and encouragement to others.”
“It’s so powerful,” Courtney added, in reference to O’Leary’s story. “It’s the conqueror. It’s the victor. It’s not by his own strength. It’s by the prayers surrounding him, by God’s hand on him, blessing him and healing him and pulling him out of darkness.”
McLain, who plays a young version of O’Leary’s wife, Beth O’Leary, said her role in the film taught her that, “There is no scar ... (or) space that the love of God can’t reach. The best thing we can do on this earth is show the love of God to people.”
She added that watching O’Leary on set “inspired” her to love others the same way she watched O’Leary love others. “When you’re around John (O’Leary), you want to be more like him.”
It can feel comfortable to wallow in negative emotions, “or to sit in the rubble of whatever has happened, whatever is blown up in your life,” McLain said, “I’ve been there. It’s hard. Sometimes it’s hard to choose to get out.”
But “Soul on Fire,” McLain says, is a reminder that everyone has the choice of being a victor in their own story.
“I want people to walk out of this theater knowing that they have a choice. No matter your circumstances, you have a choice. You have agency in your life,” McLain said. “John is the example of what it looks like when you take that agency and you make that choice.”