The team behind a new biopic about legendary actor Jimmy Stewart has announced a powerful initiative to provide tickets to the film to one million military veterans and first responders.
As CBN News previously reported, the “Jimmy” film, which hits theaters nationwide Nov. 6, tells the backstory behind the “It’s a Wonderful Life” star’s real-life military service.
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“The inspiring film will share the untold story of Stewart’s military service in World War II,” a press release reads. “As a thank you to those who serve and the loved ones who support them, Burns & Co. hopes, through corporate, charitable, and community donations, to provide one million donated tickets through Vet Tix for active duty military members, veterans, first responders, and their families to see ‘Jimmy’ in theaters.”
The kind effort to give back to veterans and first responders is being funded by Hien Papaian, founder of the Papaian Studios, a new media company “committed to developing and supporting projects that illuminate faith, inspire hope, and positively influence culture.”
Papaian, who also executive-produced “Jimmy,” founded the veteran effort in honor of her husband, Haig Papaian, Jr., who died in 2024. She provided the first 10,000 tickets for the campaign.
“The moment I finished reading the script for ‘Jimmy,’ I knew it was a story Papaian Studios had to
support,” she said in a statement. “Beyond the Hollywood glamour and the trials of war, what resonated most was its message of kindness — something our world desperately needs right now. ‘Jimmy’ reminds us to look beyond our own struggles, to embrace the suffering of others, and to choose grace.”
She continued, “That belief is the foundation of Papaian Studios and a reflection of my husband’s legacy, whose kindness was truly infectious.”
As previously reported, Stewart is known for an illustrious Hollywood career and for bringing beloved character George Bailey to life in the seminal classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Actor KJ Apa will portray Stewart in “Jimmy,” which is being produced and directed by Aaron Burns (Burns & Co. Productions).
“[The film] beautifully captures James Stewart’s transformative years in the 1940s,” a press release reads. “From Hollywood’s award-winning leading man (and most eligible bachelor) to enlisting in the
U.S. Army Air Corps. From World War II commanding officer to love-struck GI. From war hero to a broken man, Jimmy Stewart came home lost. Until It’s A Wonderful Life found him.”
With that in mind, the movie will offer a powerful lens into Stewart’s personal story of heroism, faith, and navigating Hollywood.
Others cast in the project include “Seinfeld” star Jason Alexander (Louis B. Mayer), “The Sopranos” actor Max Casella (Frank Capra), “Grey’s Anatomy” alum Sarah Drew (Hedda Hopper), and “Days of Our Lives” performer Jen Lilley (Gloria Stewart).
Burns told CBN News in a 2024 interview about his motivation for bringing the project to fruition.
He said he, like so many other Americans, has long known Stewart as an actor, but his perspective was widened a few years ago when he stumbled upon an article detailing the performer’s back story — a decision to fight in World War II that took Stewart out of Hollywood and onto the battlefield.
“The storyteller in me just was so intrigued by this,” he said.
The filmmaker recapped some of Stewart’s origin story, explaining the actor grew up in a small town and had a faithful father who was a deacon in the Presbyterian church.
“[His dad] just prayed for his son, raised him, invested [in] him,” he said. “And, all of a sudden, Jimmy winds up making it as an actor, heading off to Hollywood, and rising through the ranks to become a huge star.”
Stewart, of course, went on to win an Oscar and was nominated four additional times, yet the actor felt somewhat of a “hollowness,” Burns said. He simply wasn’t sure if he was a “fake movie star” or a “real hero.” At that time in the early 1940s, the world’s instability was coming to a head, with “war clouds on the horizon.”
That’s when Stewart made a stunning decision.
“[Stewart] says, ‘I want to be something more than just a Tinseltown hero. I wanted to serve my country, serve my fellow Americans.'”
Burns said Stewart had been a private pilot, but he decided to enlist in the Army Air Corps, where he became a squadron commander — a job that involved leading thousands of men in bombing runs during the war.
“[It was] just an incredible story that you’d never imagined for Jimmy Stewart,” he said.
One of the touching stories Burns shared involved a letter Stewart’s father gave him before he shipped off the war — a note he slipped into his uniform pocket that included a copy of Psalm 91.
“It’s about the Lord’s comfort and Lord being with you,” Burns said. “And his dad said, ‘I have confidence and I will be praying for you the whole time you’re away that God will be with you. You’ll make it home safely,’ and [Stewart] kept that with him in his uniform every mission that he went on.”
The actor did make it back home, though he suffered from PTSD after seeing hundreds of his men shot down and killed. By the time Stewart left the battlefield, he was far from the Hollywood leading man he was before fighting on the frontlines.
“He asked … himself, ‘Can I make it back in Hollywood?'” Burns said. ‘And … his contract is expired, nobody wants him. So, he had one offer to make a movie and that was ‘Jimmy’s War,’ where he could be a bomber pilot and bomb Nazis on camera. He’s like, ‘Sorry, I can’t do that.'”
But Stewart got a call from an old friend named Frank Capra, a Hollywood director who also served in World War II. Capra told Stewart he had the “perfect role” for him.
“Capra… says, ‘I’ve got the perfect part for you. Jimmy, I was struggling, too. I was in the war; nobody wants me, but maybe together we could do this project,'” Burns recounted. “It’s a great story.”
Stewart ended up taking the part of George Bailey — and the rest is history.
“‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ became a transformative movie for Jimmy, even as it became a transformative and inspirational movie for all Americans,” Burns said, noting he’s excited to tell the story behind the story.
He continued, “I want my kids to be able to know the hero that Jimmy Stewart was and to see what he went through, the sacrifice he made for us, and to see what the powerful prayers and love of a father for their son — the impact that that can make, so that’s a story that we’re helping to tell.”
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