Actor Matthew Marsden, who played Stan in Prime Video’s Reacher series, explains how Christians are gatekept from Hollywood.
In an interview with comedian Chrissie Mayr on her YouTube channel, Marsden shared that when he began putting his Catholic faith central in his life, he started turning down certain roles.
He said, “I started putting that central in my life and that meant turning down certain roles and then you kinda start interrupting your trajectory. … If you’re not at the level where you don’t have to take those roles, right, then that’s fine. But if you are at the level that you’ve got to take the roles, you look at the kinda questionable roles that big actors have done to get-. Like full frontal nudity, nudity, sex scenes, things that are antithetical to your faith. So if you turn around and say, ‘I’m not doing those.’
“Then that might be a $25 to $50 million movie that you were going to be the lead in that you’re not in anymore. And that goes to somebody else. So they take your spot. So now they’re going to be in a bigger movie. Well, they’re already marketing that movie and you for your next job while it’s in the hopper. So you lose momentum,” he continued. “Then you lose momentum, but also you’re not going out. And then all of a sudden they go, ‘Hang on a second, you’ve got four kids, what’s wrong with you?’ Like literally, ‘What is going on?’”
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Marsden’s explanation is not isolated. Fellow Catholic actor Neal McDonough shared that he “lost basically everything” when he refused to compromise his faith.
He told Fox News back in 2020, “I won’t mention the Lord’s name in vain, and then I won’t kiss another woman. Sex scenes aren’t in it for me. And I think, gosh, there’s enough sex scenes out there and me being in my fifties I’m not sure if anyone wants to see me doing that stuff anyway, but it’s a comfort level.”
In an interview with Fox Business in 2023 he reiterated, “We all know that I kind of went through some troubles years back because everybody knows I won’t kiss another woman on screen. So I kind of got in trouble for that. At the time, it was incredibly painful. I didn’t work for two years. I lost everything: house, cars, this, that, you know. It was one of the most brutal times in my life for sure.”
What do you make of Marsden’s explanation?
Dude claims to be Christian but bends the knee to Amazon.