Agents of SHIELD's Brett Dalton Plays Jesus in New Christian Movie

Brett Dalton's familiar with working with the supernatural. He's in his fourth season as a principal actor on Marvel's Agents of SHIELD. This Friday, his credits take a divine turn with the release of his new movie, The Resurrection of Gavin Stone.

At the suggestion of his manager's assistant, Dalton read the script (from the same writer who brought us Mom's Night Out) and right then and there decided to give Jesus a chance.

"It just hooked me from the very beginning," Dalton says of Andrea Gyertson Nasfell's screenplay. "It was just funnier than I imagined any faith-based film could be. I just fell in love with it. I just thought it was very funny, very real."

Not a churchgoer himself, Dalton appreciated how Nasfell's story explored life and faith, with humor.

"I didn't set out to do a faith-based film. I set out to do a good film," he says. "And this is a story where all of the characters are really fleshed out. The movie is not being used as a vehicle for Christian values. It is a real person going through a real journey, and it's funnier than you would expect; and I think more heartwarming than you would expect, as well. So, I really think that it's worth watching."

Dalton plays Gavin Stone, a washed-up childhood star whose wild ways land him in jail. Sentenced to community service at a church in his hometown, Gavin's forced to confront his past and move in with his estranged father (played by The Middle's Neil Flynn).

To get out of manual labor, Gavin cons his way into the role of Jesus for the church's Easter pageant. Not being a believer makes things quite interesting for him and the director of the play - the pastor's daughter.

"In all actuality, he shouldn't be playing Jesus. He's certainly not the most qualified. He hasn't lived his life that way in any way. But yeah, I'm playing somebody who's doing his best version of playing Jesus. But you know, pretty unlikely casting, I think."

The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, like Mom's Night Out, is a faith-filled, PG-rated comedy, but its potential appeal to diverse audiences isn't lost on Dalton.

"One's faith is very personal and it's different," he says. "One of the things that's so great about this film is that there are universal themes and morals in there that anyone can benefit from, and anyone can see, regardless of what they believe in."

"We live in a really hard time right now and it's nice to see people being decent to each other. That is what you see in the film from the beginning to the end," Dalton says. "It's really refreshing to see that in this day and age because it seems to be missing. It seems like every time we turn on the news there's just crazier and crazier things happening. It seems like this whole idea of the world can sometimes feel very pessimistic."

"This [movie], I think, offers a glimpse of hope, and it shows that people can still be decent and love and accept you just because you are another human being sharing this earth at the same time," Dalton says. "So I think it's very refreshing to see that in a very fundamental way. And it's funny, so you know, there you go."

The Resurrection of Gavin Stone releases nationwide on January 20, 2017.