Should you ever find yourself with the opportunity to meet documentarian Morgan Spurlock, I highly recommend you take it. The West Virginia native has become well known after becoming known for vomiting up a McDonald's meal out of his car window and jacking up his liver in his Academy Award-nominated documentary on fast food, Super Size Me, yet he seems almost entirely untouched by the success.

I met with Spurlock recently to discuss What Would Jesus Buy?, his first effort as a producer. The documentary, directed by Rob VanAlkemade, follows the Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir on their national tour to get out the word against the 'Shopocalypse' (i.e., thoughtless consumerism and the commercialization of Christmas). "I've known of Reverend Billy for a long time. If you live in New York City, you just do," says Spurlock. "He's an East Village staple: Bill Talen and the Church of Stop Shopping. They have a show every month at St. Mark's Church. They have a huge loyal congregation that comes to every single one of their revivals."

Spurlock is as enthused, intelligent, compelling, engaged, and well, personable, in person as he seems on camera. And trust me, no matter how I tried to bore him with personal anecdotes (dog/husband/where to eat in Ames, Iowa, etc.) or lame jokes ("My friend told me to offer you fries!"--God help me), he was delightful. I can only imagine that he must really believe in the movie's message. 

Spurlock got involved with What Would Jesus Buy? when producer friend, who had been filming Reverend Billy for about a year, called him for some advice. After watching the footage, Spurlock wanted to meet the charismatic preacher in person. "I said,' Is this real? Or is this all shtick?'" he recounts. But after meeting Bill and his wife, Savitri, and finding out what they were all about and what motivated them, Spurlock was sold. "I looked at Billy in a lot of the ways I looked at myself," he explains. "Here's somebody who uses humor and uses levity to get to really hard subjects to swallow. We had a really great kinsmanship in that aspect, so I said, 'Sign me up. I'm in. We could do something really special here.'"

The national tour aspect of the documentary evolved after Spurlock signed onto the project. "We went back and forth on developing what could a film about Billy be: Is it Billy fighting corporations? Is it Billy going on this mission to take down corporate America?" he tells me. "At the heart of this message of 'stop shopping' is a Christmas movie because that's when the king of all consumption happens in America. Billy came up with the idea of going on a cross-country mission to save America from the 'Shopacalypse.' And I said, 'Oh my gosh, we'll follow that. That's what it is. You guys go on tour, go on your mission, we'll come along.' And it just worked out. It was incredible."

The thing that may be most intriguing about What Would Jesus Buy? is how its message defies conventional categorization. Here we have a religious evangelist type--the very image of right-wing conservativism, but he has bleached-blond hair and is preaching a rather liberal-sounding message. "For me, that's why I got involved," Spurlock says. "I think we've been sold this whole idea of a right/left, red/blue, liberal/conservative divide for years. And I think it's a crock. I don't buy it. I don't buy into it. I buy that we're sold it much more than it's true, you know? I think that we have a lot more in common with one another than we don't."

As for his own directing projects, Spurlock has a lot of irons in the fire. He has shelved plans to make a documentary version of Chris Mooney's book, The Republican War on Science. "For me, there's a better film to be made just about education in general," he explains. "We optioned Chris Mooney's book, and since we got involved with this movie and then I started making my next film, and by then the Congress got replaced, and by then we let the option give up. If somebody else wants to do something with it, it'll be great."

But his documentary on the hunt for Osama bin Laden and another season of 30 Days are on the way. He is in the process of finising up the documentary, and is hoping to debut it at Sundance this year. As for 30 Days, it was supposed to start airing after Thanksgiving, but got pushed until the spring because of the writers' strike. "I worked in a coal mine for 30 days," he says of one of the episodes. "I was in there at the same time all that stuff was happening in Utah. Exact same time. It was pretty intense and makes you really appreciate everything that you get to go home to."

What Would Jesus Buy? is in limited release in theaters now.

Check out ReelzChannel.com's What Would Jesus Buy? page for clips from the movie and more!