Helen Smallbone Shares How UNSUNG HERO Faithfully Tells Her Family’s Story

Published: May 1, 2024

Helen Smallbone Shares How UNSUNG HERO Faithfully Tells Her Family’s Story

By Movieguide® Contributor

Candace Cameron Bure and Helen Smallbone discussed how UNSUNG HERO points to God and what Helen did to instill a strong work ethic in her kids’ childhood.

“God led us on a pretty dramatic [journey]. I look back and think we were absolutely crazy,” Smallbone said. “I mean, I don’t even know why we did it. So God had to be sort of leading us a little bit, step by step on our journey because I look back and I think, I don’t know how we ever did it.”

The Smallbones moved from Australia to the United States after Helen’s husband, David’s, music business collapsed. Part of Movieguide®’s review reads:

UNSUNG HERO is a powerful, compelling story of faith and family, told with lots of sincerity and heart. The acting and writing is very good and convincing. UNSUNG HERO has a strong Christian, biblical worldview. The family’s Christian faith is not only clear from their repeated prayers to Jesus to guide and provide for them, but also from their infectious enthusiasm and spiritually uplifting song lyrics.

Reliance is at the heart of the Smallbones’ story and at the center of UNSUNG HERO, thanks, in part, to Helen’s insistence. After reading the script for the first time, she made sure Joel remembered to keep God at the core.

“My one comment back to Joel and the scriptwriter was to be careful you don’t take the miraculous out—and I don’t know if that was a comment of what I had read. I had felt like maybe reading it, I saw…man providing for us or caring for us in the fact that Jed and…Kay had surrounded us and supported us,” she recalled.

“I didn’t want it to come across that somebody was sponsoring us. And that couple, by sponsoring us, were providing us the things that we needed,” she continued. “If it was man who was providing for us, one, we wouldn’t have known that God was the one wanting us here and that He was looking after us. And then secondly, our life was so hard that we had to see God’s hand.”

Along with highlighting God’s calling for her family, UNSUNG HERO also stays true to how Helen taught kids to work to help make ends meet.

“Over the next couple of years, we were doing everything that I say Americans don’t like to do. Rebecca was babysitting, we were cleaning houses together—some of the houses were so big that Rebecca and I brought a boy to vacuum or to mop floors because it was just too big—we were raking lawns. Then someone gave us a mower, and then we started doing lawn care as well as gardening. So we were doing the jobs that were providing food for us on the table,” Smallbone said.

“We did everything together as a family…and I think some of that family togetherness is definitely a strong foundation of what the family’s been,” she added.

Smallbone believes that along with the togetherness, simply working hard is a lesson that has served her children well since they’ve launched their careers. She encourages other parents to trust their kids with more responsibility.

“I feel like there’s so many moms and dads today that underestimate their children’s ability. Little kids can do lots of things. Just give them the responsibility and give them the room for learning and failure but keep teaching,” she said. “They can do so much more than you might think that they’re capable of.”

Smallbone’s full story can be experienced through UNSUNG HERO, which is in theaters now.

It took the No. 2 spot at the box office during its opening weekend, earning $7.7 million. It’s garnered a 100% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Movieguide® previously reported:

The Smallbone brothers haven’t always gotten along like two peas in a pod. But after more than ten years of performing together, they’ve now found their “identity” as a musical duo.

The For King + Country lead singers shared their rocky path to success with Andy Erwin, one of the producers of their new movie, UNSUNG HERO.

“I mean, we’ve been doing this over a decade together now in music, and Joel and I didn’t get along, you know, growing up very well and when we started,” Luke Smallbone said on the April 23 episode of “The Storytellers” podcast.

“Luke is the younger brother, but he got taller than me, and he’s a better sport,” Joel Smallbone said.