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"  Michelle Monaghan is nothing if not Method. To prepare for the role of activist Sam Childers&amp;#039; wife Lynn in her film Machine Gun Preacher, the actress started living with Lynn and her family. &amp;quot;I got on the phone with Lynn and asked her a lot of questions and [then] had the privilege to stay with Sam and Lynn in Central City. She&amp;#039;s really complex, and she&amp;#039;s lived a really conflicted life,&amp;quot; Monaghan explains. In Machine Gun Preacher, Monaghan plays opposite Gerard Butler&amp;#039;s Sam as a stripper-turned-born-again Christian who helps turn her husband towards his faith. But it&amp;#039;s far from the typical thankless wife role; there was plenty of meat for Monaghan to dig into, including a scene in which Lynn confronts Sam about how his work in the Sudan has caused him to neglect his family. &amp;quot;Those scenes were difficult, because I wanted, as a person, to unleash and be upset,&amp;quot; Monaghan explains, though she decided to stay true to Lynn&amp;#039;s fundamentally calm nature. On the phone from Dallas for the film&amp;#039;s press tour, Monaghan adds that the film&amp;#039;s message has been getting through to viewers, many of whom have expressed interest in Childers&amp;#039; charity Angels of East Africa. &amp;quot;The audiences are being moved, and they&amp;#039;re asking such smart questions, and they&amp;#039;re really sincere about what they can do. We really hope that this movie gives people the opportunity to educate themselves.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s next for the star? She has several releases coming down the pipe, including the indie Gus and Better Living Through Chemistry with Olivia Wilde. She&amp;#039;s also excited about an as-yet-untitled action thriller that she&amp;#039;d produce and star in. &amp;quot;This has been a passion project of mine for the last few years,&amp;quot; Monaghan explains. While it&amp;#039;s hard to envision the waiflike star as a hard-bodied action heroine, she sounds very much up to the challenge. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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