According to my religious belief, I'm sorry if you feel like I'm pushing this on you - my religious belief is that you behave the way God wants us to behave. And that's simply love God and love one another. If we did that, there would be no need for any of the other commandments. It would be great. But in the same vein, we would have obtained paradise by that point. And it's tougher to get to paradise by that point.
I realized that there is something else that is influencing people to behave like that, and that's the taking of the souls away from God. If you get people to sin, they get pushed further away from God and eventually God doesn't really own the soul anymore. The Devil owns the soul and that's where the danger comes in. Because in the end, there's no do-overs.
I've worked with the Warrens. For about 20 years. I was really good friends with Ed. Ed and Lorraine. We went our separate ways, there were a few differences. In their organization, being that they were from Connecticut, I started the New York City chapter of the organization and handled things in New York. But eventually I was out on my own. But I've been friends with them for a long time.
I saw a lot of that. It made me uncomfortable. He's been studying me. We don't just sit down and talk, he's actually studying me. It makes me a little uncomfortable being under that microscope. But I think Eric [Bana] immured himself wight he script and is doing what he needed to do
There's an element of realism to it. I immersed myself more in the subject as a young adult. Then I started to get involved with a lot of people that were involved in it, and they would just bring me along basically. And I learned and decided that my Christian charity, what I wanted to do to serve God's will, was to help people that were ensnared by the demonic.
And, for the record, I didn't murder anybody. I want to make that clear. It's entertainment and it brings about the message I believe Scott wants to portray in this movie. There are a few messages in the movie and I'm not going to tell you what they are, but Scott hits the nail on the head with him.
I feel that instead of putting myself out in that light, I'd rather be on this side of the camera just to make sure that the movie, from my perspective as far as police procedures, is done properly. I got my daughters in it, that's good enough for me. Scott's got a way of talking me into things, and I told him I don't like the way he can talk me into stuff.
I'd rather be on this side of the camera. I feel more comfortable. I'd rather keep myself centered and keep my ego as tepid as possible. Because you can get a big head walking around here.
There is a correlation between evil. There is a primary evil that comes directly from the Devil. Even though all evil stems from the Devil, the Devil sometimes interacts with people in the physical world and the spiritual world and sometimes there's just plain evil that people do to one another. And I've seen plenty of that over the course of 20 years.
They [NYPD] tell you how you can act and what you can do your whole entire life. But they always stayed out of it. I did a little here and there for the police department as far as a crime scene that might have occult overtones - they would call me and I'd look into it. But it was usually minor little things.
The NYPD never really had anything to do with it. This is stuff I did on my own time. It just so happened to be that I was a cop for my career. It was my religious belief. The NYPD very wisely stayed away from that. I was grateful that they let me do what I needed to do without getting involved because when you're a cop the NYPD controls you 24/7.
Somebody goes to a soup kitchen and serves the hungry, someone goes to a prison and tries to get people to turn their lives around - those are all Christian charities. This is just another charity the way I look at it. I don't look at it as being special or different.
Like I said, I always believed in the spirit realm. Whether or not I understood it or witnessed it or was involved in it. There wasn't an incident that made be believe it was real, like I said I had an interest in it and as I grew older I realized that there are some people that are doing this for real. That's when I realized this isn't just a Hollywood thing.
When I learned to build on my faith, the fear pretty much went away. I'm in a dark basement in a home that's demonically infested - that's not my idea of a fun evening, but again it boils down to your faith. That's your protection. That's the only protection we have.
From an early age I loved horror movies. I read books about horror, cops, firemen and military. Over the course of the years I started to see that there's a reality to this. The first movie I was really conscious of seeing was THE EXORCIST and I don't know if any of you have seen that but it scared the sh*t out of me. It really frightened me.
Well, actually I look at the book and the movie [Deliver Us From Evil] - the movie isn't about a cop or the Devil, it's about God. There's a spirituality. We have aspects of life we're involved in but we really have no idea about the spiritual battle that rages around us that we are the subject of. The whole matter is the Devil tries to take souls away from God, and God tries to keep them. And that's what this is all about.
Making it [police movie] as realistic as possible. I'm honored to be here because it doesn't happen that often from what I hear. They keep people like me away. "Come down and say 'Hello' and get out!"
I happened to write a book about the stuff I've been involved in over the years. It just so happened that my profession is that I was a cop in the New York City Police Department. I guess people thought it was pretty interesting to have these two things meshed together. My life is pretty boring, I don't know why they're doing this. It's fun.
