Star of Mother Teresa story 'The Letters' experienced something remarkable in India

During filming for a biopic about Mother Teresa's time working in Indian slums, actress Juliet Stevenson, playing the titular Mother Teresa, encountered what may be one of the strangest phenomena any actor has ever seen.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - While walking through the slums, locals dropped to the ground. They believed that Stevenson was Mother Teresa brought back to life to care for the poor.

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As she recounted during an interview with The Observer: "I was filming in her iconic white sari with the blue stripes. People would come up to me, drop and touch my hem," she said.

"In India she's still revered. She lifted tens of thousands of people off the streets and into her care."

"The Letters" is an upcoming film about the famous Noble Peace Prize winner and Catholic missionary, it explores her life through over 50 years worth of letters she wrote to Father Celeste van Exem, a longtime friend and spiritual adviser.

These letters were first published in 2007, and show a darker side of Mother Teresa's life, doubting her faith and feeling tormented that Jesus had abandoned her.

Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, an international religious order, in the slums of Calcutta. She dedicated her time to the poor, the handicapped and the dying. Before her death in 1997, the 87-year-old's order had more than 4,000 sisters who ran orphanages, charity centers and hospices in over 130 countries.

In 1979 she won the Noble Peace Prize for her dedication to the marginalized portions of society in developing worlds.

Though Stevenson says she is not religious, she called the honor of acting as Mother Teresa a "wonderful challenge."

"It was very daunting, because I'm so wrong for her. I'm five-foot-eight-inches, quite strongly built. I'm not in any way miniature.

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"I don't have a religious faith and she believed so ardently in God. I also couldn't differ from her more when it comes to her views on women's rights, birth control and abortion... but it was a wonderful challenge."

This film will be released later this year, hopefully coinciding with Mother Teresa's canonization.

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