MercyMe’s Bart Millard and Tim Timmons Talk Meeting Paul McCartney, Befriending Milo Ventimiglia and Bringing the Story of ‘Even If’ to the Big Screen in ‘I Can Only Imagine 2’
Following the success of 2018’s blockbuster movie, “I Can Only Imagine,” MercyMe’s story continues with “I Can Only Imagine 2,” in theaters Feb. 20, 2026. While the first film detailed the relationship between lead singer Bart Millard and his dad, the sequel explores the relationship between Millard and his son, who has Type 1 diabetes, and his perspective-shifting friendship with singer-songwriter Tim Timmons, which led to the pair writing GRAMMY®-nominated hit “Even If.” John Michael Finley resumes his role as the beloved frontman. Meanwhile, “This Is Us” star Milo Ventimiglia joins the cast as Timmons. On the heels of a trip to London, where they recorded a special version of “Even If” and even ran into Beatles royalty, Millard and Timmons joined KLOVE.com for some witty banter and a conversation about how they brought the story behind “Even If” to life on the big screen.
KLOVE.com: “I Can Only Imagine 2” tells the story behind MercyMe’s hit song, “Even If.” How did the sequel come about?
Bart Millard: It was funny how it happened. A friend of mine, one of the producers named Cindy Bond, was the reason the first movie got off the ground to begin with. She saw the vision for it. As soon as the first movie was done, she loved “Even If” so much that she wanted to create something using the song. I was like, “I don’t know what that something is.” I said “no” for a few years, and she finally convinced me to meet with a writer. So I met with Brent McCorkle, who co-wrote the first [movie]… We were just getting together so we could tell her we did. In trying to figure out a good idea, Brent was like, “Well, how’d the song come about?” And so I told him about how my son had diabetes and about Tim; and he’s in tears. He’s like, “That’s the movie; that’s the story.” I wish I could say we were really smart and planned ahead and had it all timed out like George Lucas writing “Star Wars.” But that’s not how it worked out.
At first, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of a sequel. And I think it was my daughter who said, “Well, I guess for a songwriter, the sequel’s just the next song.” And that was when I was able to wrap my head around it. Fortunately, the story around “Even If” was intriguing enough that they thought we had more to say. I never thought we’d do another one of these; and then Brent got excited about it, and he convinced me when I started reading the initial script. He did a really good job. My life’s way more interesting when he writes it.
RELATED CONTENT: Tickets for MercyMe's "The Wonder & Awe Tour" Available Now
KLOVE.com: Tim, how did you and Bart originally meet?
Tim Timmons: The first time Bart and I met was on a tour called “The Rock and Worship Roadshow” back in 2012. I had a friend that I’d stay with when I was in Nashville every few months. He just loved Bart, and he was like, “Dude, you guys are going to be best friends.” And so we went on tour together, and we became BFFs; and the rest is history.
KLOVE.com: How did the idea behind “Even If” originate?
Tim Timmons: It’s a pretty interesting story, because I had written this song — a song, called “My God Is Able” — with Crystal Lewis, who’s a crazy great artist and singer from old. We had started this song for her, and I remember writing this chorus going, “Uh-oh… This is a song I want to sing.” I remember going to my record label [at the time] saying, “You guys, this is really good.” And they’re like, “It’s not that good. You’ve got better songs.” I’m like, “I don’t think I do.” Later, I had this weird sense that this song was for Bart, but I would never go to Bart. Everybody goes to Bart wanting something from Bart. I just want to be his friend. I don’t want that stuff to get in the way. And so I just prayed, “Jesus, if this is You, great. If it’s just me, then don’t let it happen.” And a few months later, I’m sitting in this room with Bart, and he’s talking about this terrible doctor’s appointment he had just had with Sam, his son, and almost said the words of the chorus verbatim. He had never heard the song before. And I just thought, “Man, that’s too cool.” I ended up sending it to him, and we ended up then rewriting the song together. And next thing we know, we’re sitting at the GRAMMYs® going, “How cool is God that He would open these doors?” And now we’ve got this movie. Pretty beautiful.
Bart Millard: How cool was it that your label said it wasn’t good enough?
Tim Timmons: Isn’t that great? I get so disappointed about so many things in my life, and yet, what if there are bigger things at work, even in the hard things?
RELATED CONTENT: MercyMe Serves Up Surprises and Whimsy on ‘Wonder & Awe’
KLOVE.com: Tim’s song found you at a low point personally, Bart. Where were you mentally during that season when “Even If” came to be?
Bart Millard: Yeah, I had been in a weird depression. I mean, in real time from about 2004… A lot of things happened that year — not just my son being diagnosed with diabetes, but I lost a couple loved ones. There’s life before ’04, and there’s life after ’04. That depression was very real for a very, very long time, and it impacted my health in a lot of different ways. We didn’t write “Even If” until at least 2015, but I was still dealing with it.
That day, we went to this frustrating doctor’s appointment, where [we met a new doctor]. Right before we went in, [my wife] Shannon was talking to a dear friend about how hard it was managing Sam’s diabetes, and out of the blue the friend said, “Well, you know what? We’re just going to pray for healing.” And that ticked me off. When Shannon told me, I thought, “Oh yeah, that never crossed my mind to pray for healing for the last 10 years.” She meant well, but it was the wrong time for me to hear it. So I went into that doctor’s appointment pretty angry. And all of that led up to my writing session with Tim.
I left the doctor’s appointment, went to Tim, and said, “What are we going to write?” And it just ended up being me going off on everything. Everything that had built up for 10 years or more just unloaded that day. I remember saying a few things like, “Man, I’m tired of people assuming I’m this holier-than-thou person because I stand on stage for a living. I would love for a second to be like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace and truly, truly be able to believe it when I say, ‘I know God will deliver us. But even if He doesn’t, we’re still not going to bow.’ But I’m not that guy.” Rarely am I ever even close to that guy, but people think you’re something else because you do it for a living.
This whole time, Tim’s noodling on the piano. He’s probably trying to show me the song, but it sounds like he’s playing wrap-it-up music at an awards show, and it really ticked me off to where I was like, “We’re not writing today,” and I left. I hadn’t even gotten home yet, and he sent me a text with a voice memo, and it just said something like, “I tried to write this song five years ago,” and it was the chorus to “Even If.” It stopped me in my tracks. All of a sudden, I had to finish this song. But yeah, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back — just years and years of pent-up feelings.
KLOVE.com: The movie tells the story of two chronic illnesses — Sam’s diabetes and Tim’s cancer. Bart, what has witnessing Tim’s cancer journey in real life taught you?
Bart Millard: There’s a little bit of irony in it. Sam’s 23. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was two, and there’s been so many moments throughout life where either I’ve said it or other parents of diabetics have said, “This is hard, but it’s no cancer.” Almost like it could be worse, so to speak. So there was this weird satisfaction that the biggest ray of sunshine in this movie is the guy with cancer. It didn’t dawn on me until I started watching some of the first edits that it’s kind of funny that the guy with cancer is the happiest. The guy with cancer has the most joy and is the most optimistic.
RELATED CONTENT: MercyMe and Walker Hayes Open Up About Navigating Grief, Meeting Jesus and Their Song, ‘Oh Death’
KLOVE.com: What was the most rewarding aspect of filming this movie?
Tim Timmons: Part of the joy of doing this whole thing is being able to do it together. I mean, we’ve done life as families for a bunch of years, but now to have this as one of the next seasons is just so fun.
KLOVE.com: Tim, maybe the biggest question out of this whole movie is, what was it like having Milo Ventimiglia play you on screen?
Tim Timmons: Yeah, I mean, it’s weird when I look in the mirror; it’s like same, same. You know what I mean? No, it was so great. I told my daughters, and they started flipping out because they love “Gilmore Girls” and all these shows he’s done. But then, as we got to know each other, and he got to know my family really well and Bart’s family really well, he just became a really great friend. So to watch a really great friend then play you and kind of nail it, I feel so seen in this movie in a lot of ways.
You don’t always want to meet your heroes, but he’s a guy you want to meet. On set, he would be the guy who would know everybody’s name — all 200 people’s names on set — and something about them, just so he could serve people. He would take the lowest seat at the dinner table. Man, he represented Jesus in a really beautiful way that I want to emulate.
Bart Millard: [The role] wasn’t a stretch for him. Milo is genuinely one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. And the weird irony is he and Tim grew up within a mile from each other. They didn’t know each other, but they grew up in the same area [in California]. He did a lot of studying, method acting; but I have a few lessons to learn from Milo for a guy who’s in the public eye, because he knows every name, everybody in the crew. He’s just a genuinely kind soul.
KLOVE.com: You recently flew to London, where you recorded orchestral versions of “Even If” and MercyMe’s new single, “Make It Well,” at the iconic Abbey Road Studios. What was that experience like?
Bart Millard: [MercyMe] had been to Abbey Road before this — 15 years ago — and it was a dream come true. We’ve always said, “Man, it’d be amazing to go one more time and bring our kids now that they’re older.” And so we decided to do this London Symphony Orchestra version of “Even If” just to celebrate a lot of things — more than just a movie. The song’s been a really, really important part of our ministry and our career, and it was a great time to do that. And so, it kept growing to where we had almost 57 people that came with us — friends and family, Tim’s family, my family. There are 67 musicians in the orchestra; we almost had them outnumbered. I mean, you can’t describe the first time you hear them play your song… It just sucks the air out of the room. I cried during every take. It’s very, very emotional to stand there and hear it.
Tim Timmons: We were crying messes. It was so beautiful, just stunning. Man, I was so grateful to be a part of that.
RELATED CONTENT: 25 Songs That Defined 2025
KLOVE.com: According to Instagram, you somehow ended up running into Paul McCartney at Abbey Road?
Bart Millard: Yeah, he was in another studio there, and he was returning from somewhere and walking down the hall to his studio and caught some of our kids. There’s not typically kids in the studio, and he was intrigued by that; so he talked to them for a little bit. My son called me. He goes, “Get upstairs right now,” and I wasn’t sure what it was. I went up, and he was just standing there. All of a sudden, we went from four to 25 really quickly; and he was super patient. He was more than willing to take a picture. It was quick, but it was awesome.
KLOVE.com: What do you hope people take away from “I Can Only Imagine 2”? Is it a different message than the one you were trying to communicate with the first movie, or is it a very similar message?
Bart Millard: I mean, I think it’s similar. It’s still a father-son relationship, so to speak. And I think there are a lot of dads and sons that probably don’t communicate too terribly well and don’t say the things that need to be said — me being one of them. And so there’s definitely that aspect. I don’t know if it’s a new message, but also just reminding people that we’re not supposed to go through life alone. Whether you’re singing on stage, or whatever you do in life, sadly, we all have hurt and pain in common. And so, if people watch this and realize, oh, I’m not alone in this, that’s a big message. Isolation’s a real struggle when you’re going through things; and if there’s any chance we can remind people that, hey, you’re not the only one going through this, then I think healing can happen.
KLOVE.com: Tim, from your perspective, what do you hope people exit the movie theater thinking about?
Tim Timmons: I think so much of the Christian life is tied up in bows. We think everything’s going to work out great, and life just doesn’t seem to work out like that. I love the fact that this movie feels kind of human. There’s a lot of humanity in it. Not everything’s perfect at the end. I still walk with cancer myself. I still have tumors on my liver wearing out my heart today, but I got up again. Life is really hard. We have to hold grief, but we can also hold gratitude at the same time. So my hope — for my part of this story — is that people would be grateful for another day, whatever they’re going through.
RELATED CONTENT: VIDEO: MercyMe Remembers ‘The Moment’ They Met Jesus
KLOVE.com: Will there be a third “Imagine” movie?
Tim Timmons: I think this is where Bart always says, “Yes, and it’ll be in space.” And I think that is so funny every time. So, yes, it’s going to be a space trilogy.
Bart Millard: That’s not the plan, let’s put it that way. I would’ve said there’s never going to be a second one, so I’m leaning toward, no, this is it. But I’ve learned to never close the door. You never know. Let’s see how it goes, man. If my music career ends, and I’ve got to work at Home Depot, then I might try to pitch another movie. It seems like all my stories are heartache. So if we can find a happy one, I’m in.
