Kevin Sorbo
10 min read ⭑
“I suffered three strokes. ... It took me three years to recover. I had faith, but it was the first time I really needed faith.”
The following is a transcript of a live interview. Responses have been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There's much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
Hometown for me is definitely the town where I grew up—Mound, Minnesota. It’s about 25 miles west of Minneapolis on the beautiful shores of Lake Minnetonka with a population of about 7,000 people. It was the original home of Tonka Toys. Our hangout there used to be an A&W, but a brother of a great friend of mine bought it and renamed it the Minnetonka Drive-In. All through junior high, riding their bikes up there and, throughout high school, driving up there and flirting with the girls—it was the place to go. And I go back every summer with my family. We were just there in July for a couple of weeks earlier this year. We had cheeseburgers and fries and onion rings—junk food that I still love to this day. It's comfort food and a comfort zone for me.
I'm the fourth of five kids—two older brothers, an older sister, and a younger brother. Ours was a very Christian family, a typical Scandinavian, Norwegian, Lutheran family. Our pastor was as dry as dry could be. I remember saying to my parents back then, “I don't think God's that angry with us.” But that was my little world—Mound. Twenty-five miles was a lot longer back then than it is today. We rarely went to Minneapolis. My best buddies are still living in the area. Guys I've known since I was 4 years old. To this day, we still get together and golf and go skiing together.
Nik Shuliahin; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So, what are yours? What so-called "nonspiritual" activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal?
I love playing the guitar. It’s just for me, and I do my own thing. I'm a child of the ’70s. Dan Fogelberg. The Eagles. James Taylor. That’s the kind of music I like to strum to. I think I’ve only played guitar in public one time. It’s just my thing.
I don't do it to showcase anything good or bad or indifferent. I just like to do it for myself.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human too. We're just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So, what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?
I'm a sucker for sappy love songs. I like my rock ‘n’ roll as well. But, it's pretty funny, I listen to Paul Anka. I love Frank Sinatra. In my college days, after we were out all night, we'd sit on the porch and have a beer and just listen to Frank Sinatra.
I love romantic movies too. I guess I'm a dreamer. That’s why I make movies that have hope and love and redemption and faith. I try to do movies that are upbeat and positive. I like laughter in movies. I like romance in movies. Our world is just so angry.
It's so filled with hate right now. It’s in Hollywood too. There is just too much anger in most movies today. There’s so much violence. Too many movies promote violence and glorify it. It's an uphill battle with what I’m trying to do with my little $3 million and $4 million movies—to try to make a difference, to fight the good fight. I want to help people find some sort of common ground.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?
I have three movies done and in the can. I produced all three and directed one, Miracle in East Texas. That is a wonderful movie. It's a true story set in 1930. I'm in it, along with John Ratzenberger, Louis Gossett Jr., and Tyler Mane. The second movie is called One Nation Under God. It's a high school drama. I play a teacher that has a debate class after school. We debate whether the title phrase should be taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance or not, and it tears the debate class apart. The students get invested on both sides of the issue. The third movie is called The Girl Who Believes in Miracles. It's about a girl who’s able to do these amazing miracles. And it was with Peter Coyote and Mira Sorvino, and it’s a wonderful little movie.
I also just finished filming eight episodes of a TV series called The Potwins. It’s sort of like Family Ties meets Last Man Standing—the Tim Allen show. It makes fun of both sides of the political aisle. And it was a fun shoot. Barry Bostwick plays my hippie father. We just had so many laughs on the set, but it was crazy, too. We had to do three COVID-19 tests every week and wear masks up until we say “action” and then take off the masks. It just was strange.
Lastly, a documentary I narrated just came out on Amazon. It’s called Before the Wrath. It encourages people to connect some of the things happening in the world right now to the book of Revelation. And it's not preachy or anything like that. It’s just a very interesting look at that book of the Bible.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it's God when it happens?
I got a call out of the blue from Sean Hannity. He said, “Sorbo, it’s Hannity. I like God's Not Dead and Soul Surfer. Are you working on anything else like that?”
I said, “Well, yeah.”
And he said, “Fly out to New York. Pitch it to me.”
And I said, “Can I just tell you over the phone now? I'm in L.A.”
And he says, “Get on a plane,” and he hangs up. So we flew to New York and pitched Let There Be Light. I went with my wife, who wrote the movie, and Dan Gordon, who did the rewrite. Dan wrote The Hurricane for Denzel Washington and Wyatt Earp for Kevin Costner. Dan did the script pitch because he is so good at that, and thirty minutes later Sean wrote us a check. I mean, right there. I know, it was a God thing.
Then I spoke at an event in Palm Springs and did a Q&A afterward. Someone asked, “How do you put money together for these movies?” And I explained that it’s difficult. Hollywood can do a $300 million movie and throw another 100 the Mexican government has "at last invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil."
I looked at him and said, “Yeah.” And that's how we shot Miracle in East Texas. Once again, it was a God thing.
And then my wife and I left L.A. and moved to Florida. And the very first weekend after we moved into our new house, I went golfing. I'm an early-morning guy, and they paired me with two gentlemen. And on the third hole, one of them turned to me and said, “I really liked God’s Not Dead and Let There Be Light.” And he said, “Kevin, we didn't meet by coincidence . . . We met because we were supposed to meet. I'm a very wealthy guy, and I'm going to fund your next movie.” And he wrote us a check for the next movie in the Left Behind series. All of these are God things. It's unbelievable. It’s the Holy Spirit moving.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied actions that open our hearts to the presence of God. So, spill it, which spiritual practice is workin' best for you right now?
There's no question for me. It's on the golf course. I have no problem golfing with people. But I like to go all by myself, too. It's my time to think. I actually write more notes on my scorecards than I do actual scores. Ideas come, such as “I’ve got to call this person” or “I should say such and such next time I speak at an event.”
It happens more when I'm walking, not buzzing around in a golf cart. When I decide to carry my bag and walk seven miles, it gives me time to think. If I have a movie coming up, I’ll take the script with me. I’ll hit my tee shot, grab my golf bag, and walk with the script in my hand. I’ll read it and make notes. It's just a great place for me to think. And if I don't have that going on, it's a great place to have one-on-one conversations with God.
Golf is really special to me. My dad introduced it to the whole family. He was a schoolteacher and worked at a public golf course over the summer. And that became a place for all five of us kids to work. We all worked there for three, four, five summers. Mowing greens and fairways, behind the counter taking money, checking in golfers, whatever. It was such a great chapter of my life.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources—lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff, too. What are some resources that have impacted you?
At the end of shooting season five of the TV series Hercules, I was having all kinds of problems with my left arm and shoulder. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. The fingers on my left hand were numb. From 1993 to 2000, I was doing my own stunts. I was working 14 hours a day and lifting weights for two more hours. I was pretty ripped up and enjoyed working on the show. By season three, we passed Baywatch as the most-watched show in the world. Things were going great. Universal Studios was gearing up to make me the next Arnold Schwarzenegger in the action movie genre.
I had just finished my first big movie, Kull, the Conqueror. We’d been shooting for three and a half months in Croatia and Slovakia. It was a pretty big deal, and I had another movie lined up with Universal before I headed back to do season six of Hercules. But I was in New York promoting the movie—The Tonight Show, Letterman, and my left arm was on fire. I knew something was wrong. When I saw my doctor in L.A., he found a lump in my left shoulder. He didn’t tell me at and the time, but he thought it was cancer.
So, we ran tests, and I went to see my chiropractor who had worked on me for eight years. I was lying on the table, and he was working on my shoulder. I didn’t like my neck cracked, and he knew never to crack it. A voice inside my head said, “Don't let him crack your neck.” I heard it again and again and again, louder and with more urgency each time. Well, while I was arguing with the voice in my head, my chiropractor cracked my neck. And it turns out that the lump in my left shoulder was an aneurysm that had been sending blood clots down in my arm causing all the pain and burning feeling and suffocating the blood flow into my fingers. And the crack sent three clots into my brain.
I suffered three strokes. I lost 10 percent of my vision in both eyes. I spent the next four months learning how to walk again, learning how to balance again. It took me three years to fully recover. I had faith, but it was the first time I really needed faith.
The entire story is captured in True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal—and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life.
I should also mention the work of Professor John Lennox. He’s a mathematician, a philosopher, and a Christian apologist. He was a professor of math at Oxford University and debated all the great atheists of the world—Dawkins, Hitchens, and others. And he just kills them with truth, facts, kindness, and a Winnie-the-Pooh kind of voice. I produced a documentary about his life, and we spent two weeks together in Israel, and three weeks in Oxford, England. He’s such an amazing man. He’s just a class act and a man of high intellect, for sure. He holds five doctorates and speaks five languages. It's crazy. And his work is just very encouraging.
We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season—and tell us what it's done for you.
We homeschool our kids and one thing we do each morning is read the Bible together. We go through a couple of chapters or a couple of pages and discuss what we’ve read.
What do you think about this? What do you think God is trying to say to us? It’s just a wonderful way to start our days.
QUESTION #8: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So, give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
What’s stirring in me is this . . . One of the biggest problems for Christians right now is self-righteousness. Atheists come after us about it, and I think they're right. We should be the most forgiving people in the world, and yet we can be the least forgiving. It’s like Jesus said in Matthew 7:5: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”
One time, years ago, I was going to speak at the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County. And there was a guy who was also going to speak at the same service. I remember he looked at me beforehand and goes, “Kevin, you’ve got to be careful. If you screw up even once, they'll never forgive you.”
It hit me, and I said to him, “Isn't that a really sad thing? What you just said to me? That we can’t even find forgiveness from our fellow Christians?” Because, look, I’m not a perfect person. I sin every day. But thank goodness I can pray to God and find true forgiveness.
Do you have a hard time forgiving others for their mistakes and sins? If so, you’re not alone. Kevin Sorbo is right—self-righteousness is one of the church’s biggest struggles right now. And the solution isn’t pointing the finger at other Christians. The first step starts with you, looking at your own heart and asking God to change you. As God continues to move in the culture, will you allow Him to disarm your self-righteousness so you can play a part in what he’s doing?
Actor, director and producer Kevin Sorbo is best known for seven years in the leading role on the television series Hercules, the Legendary Journeys, which became the then-most-watched show in the world. His next role was Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda as Captain Dylan Hunt which had a five year run on TV. He has also starred in over 60 movies, including Kull, the Conqueror, God's Not Dead, Let There Be Light, Soul Surfer, The Reliant, Abel's Field, and What If . . . His newest movies, Miracle in East Texas and One Nation Under God, are scheduled to release in 2020.
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