Kevin Sorbo on Hollywood and Culture

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00:03

Well, folks, as many of you know, those are the regular listeners of my podcast, you know that I'm not one for pop culture.

00:10

You guys have heard me share many times before about how I have been able to meet people in airports or as I travel, share the gospel with people like Ray Leota, Tony Ramos, Keith Eliason, and had no idea who these people are.

00:26

So this is actually a treat for me because this is one of the few times that I've bumped into someone.

00:32

I've actually sat in an airplane next to, oh, now

00:37

I forgot his name, on Huckabee, Mike Huckabee, and didn't even recognize him until someone mentioned him.

00:44

So this is the first that I actually recognized somebody, and not for what he's most known for probably, but I was in an airport,

00:52

I ran into, I saw someone, I said, yes, really looks very familiar, pulled my wife aside,

00:58

I said, honey, I pulled up the IMDb, he said, doesn't this look like him? She's like, yeah, and I knew you from God Is Not Dead, but you're most known for your role as Hercules.

01:11

Welcome to the show, Kevin Sorbo. It's good to be here. Yeah, yeah, Hercules, pardon the scent of pride here, but by a seven -year rundown in New Zealand, and we were in 176 countries, and by season three, we became the most -watched show in the world.

01:24

So I had to throw it out there, because how many people can actually say they've been part of a show that was the most -watched show in the world? And then

01:29

I followed it up with Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. I'm a big Star Trek fan, so my character, Captain Dylan Hunt, was the first Captain ever created by Gene Roddenberry back in 1969, when the original

01:39

Star Trek series got canceled. But I gotta tell you, I travel a lot, and go through hotels, and restaurants, and airports, like where I'm flying all the time.

01:52

80 % of the time now, people come up to me, and they say, hey, please make more movies like What If, God's Not Dead, Soul Surfer, Let There Be Light.

01:59

It's not Hercules anymore. People want to see more movies like this that have a positive message, and boy, do we need that in today's world.

02:06

You know, one of the people that was there, that I guess she came up and took a photo with you, and she actually was on my flight, it became a gospel conversation, which

02:15

I tried to all of them into that. But the neat thing was, she was like, yeah, she didn't even remember your name. She's like,

02:20

I got a picture with Hercules. You know, you should check out some of the other movies he's done. So I was able to name some of the other movies you've done to try to get her to see

02:29

God's Not Dead, or some of the others. And you and I have some mutual friends with Ray Comfort, and some other actor, another actor that, you know,

02:37

Kirk Cameron, who used to live up your, where you used to live. Yeah, he was just down the road from me. Yeah, his kids and my kids run same track team together and all that.

02:44

So it was, I've known Kirk a long time. So let me start with that, because one of the things

02:50

I thought interesting with your background, you met your wife on set the way Kirk did, at least on set, you even both met.

02:57

How did you, and because folks that listen to the Christian podcast community, your wife has been on one of our other podcasts, the

03:05

Schoolhouse Rocked. And she's been, I think, three or four times, she's been a guest on there.

03:11

So how did you and your wife meet? It was, it was on Hercules. You know,

03:17

I joke about it with her, she probably doesn't like it, but she lets me say it. Every episode, they sent out a pretty girl for me to work with.

03:25

So it was a great dating service for me. And then she came down there at the end of season four.

03:32

And we just hit it off right away. I mean, and I'm an incredible flirt. And I, the very first night of filming was the last scene of the episode, where we have to say this tearful goodbye to each other.

03:46

And there's a kiss, and I walk away and, you know, the hero walking into the sunset, you know, and so I walk up to her,

03:52

I said, Sam, what about this kiss? Maybe we should practice it. She looks at me. And then

03:58

I then I asked her, I said, How are we gonna make this work? My gosh, and she's talking about like, well, I'm in New Zealand, you're in LA, we got we got this water hazard called the

04:05

Pacific Ocean between us. I don't know how we're gonna make this work. She laughs. She goes, Kevin, I don't date actors. I certainly don't date guys with long hair, because my hair was really long back in that series.

04:14

I said, Well, right now I'm making a pretty good living with a long hair. But I wore her down. And I finally got a date with her the following weekend.

04:21

And I picked her up at the hotel. We also put the actors in. And she gets in my car. And I had a country music station on she goes country music.

04:28

And I said, Well, it's the only I said, I like all kinds of music. But it's the only country music station all of New Zealand if you want to change it.

04:34

She goes, No, no, I love country music. We go out and we're talking and talking. And then I said something. And she said, Wait a minute.

04:41

Are you conservative? I go, Yeah, I'm pretty conservative. I'm my politics. I definitely lean to the right. Talk a little more.

04:47

And I said something else. Hold on. Hold on. Are you a Christian? I said, Yeah, I've been a Christian my whole life. She says, Wait a second.

04:53

Christian conservative country music, the three C's Kevin, I think I'm in love with you. And that's how the relationship started.

05:01

We got engaged within six months and married a year after that. Wow. Yeah. 23 years and three kids.

05:07

Here we are. Yeah. Now you have if you've talked to Kirk, you know the story of how he his first kiss with his wife?

05:14

No, I don't know that part. Oh, yeah, I know. They were on the show together. Yeah, we're on the show. He was so nervous. He put on.

05:20

I forget the name of the stuff that you put for teething kids for when their teeth are teething. And he numbed his lips.

05:27

And he numbed his lips so bad when he gave the kiss. It numbed her lips and they had to redo the scene. And I said,

05:34

Kurt, you were just trying to get another kiss out of the deal. What does the numbing the lips supposed to do? I don't get it.

05:40

He was just so nervous about kissing her because this was the first kiss he was gonna gonna do.

05:45

She's actually his, you know, the first girl he was with. Yeah, that's funny.

05:52

Yeah, he's got a lot of funny stories. But we did we did the kissing scene. And then

05:58

I looked at the director and I said, could you do that one more time? I think I didn't do it quite right. Tilt my head the other way a little.

06:04

I said, I really got I think I need to try it one more time. How many takes of the kissing scene? Did you do?

06:10

I think we just like to I mean, you know, it was the show was and we shot like 10 day episodes. And there were, you know, long days, there were 12 to 14 hour days.

06:18

And I was lifting weights two hours a day. And it was typical for me to be about 16 to 17 hours door to door on that show.

06:25

But I loved it. And New Zealand's beautiful. And I worked with an amazing crew that all of them went on to work on Lord of the Rings.

06:30

And half of them ended up winning Academy Awards for Lord of the Rings. But it was it was a great chapter in my life. And I'll tell you one thing

06:36

I liked about what they did, even though it's myth, you know, mythology, the writers always put in really good moral, moral messages in there.

06:43

And I got that through the fan mail coming in, which was great. So I always appreciated that because I thought, you know, it was such a show that if we don't, if we take ourselves seriously, number one, people are gonna laugh at us, we want to make sure people laugh with us.

06:57

That's why we had goofy fight scenes. And you know, we also had a lot of humor in there. But they also had good messages in there as well.

07:03

And I really appreciated that. And I think that sort of is what I wanted to do anyway.

07:08

And I think sort of set the groundwork for what I did later in life. Yeah, I mean, one of the things I just want to ask is when you're known as being

07:15

Hercules, now later in life, do you still work out so that you can, you know, still look like you're you got that same body that you had?

07:23

Oh, man, I've got that same body. I mean, you know, the show finished 21 years ago, I shot that series all through my 30s.

07:29

So you can figure out my age now. But I still work out every day. I just got done working out here about an hour ago. And I still

07:34

I love to work out. But it's hard. I could not do probably 60 70 % of the stunts I used to do on Hercules.

07:40

But I'm still I still love to stay in shape. You're known for being a hard, having a good hard work ethic.

07:48

I mean, you have is interesting when I went on to IMDb to see some of what your your work is, you have 147 credits there on different things you've worked on.

07:59

And I was like, that is an amazing list. And I mean, like, there's several for every year.

08:06

So how do you even keep that kind of schedule? I gotta tell you, um, I shot

08:12

Hercules and Andromeda 12 straight years from 1993 2005. And then I started doing movies and independent movies.

08:18

For the most part, I started questioning people on the set. Because I got tired of the hypocrisy and the attacks on conservatives on the attacks on Christians and all that.

08:28

So I just got tired of saying, okay, I'm not gonna sit in the corner. Let's talk about this without being, you know, confrontational.

08:33

I said, Well, why do you feel that way, you know, and it got out, and it became more and more me posting things on Twitter and Facebook.

08:42

My wife said, it's gonna hurt you. And sure enough, my agent called me in about 10 years ago and said, we can't work with anymore.

08:47

I went, Why? Well, it's because you're conservative and Christian. That's tough in this business. People don't want to work with you. And I went,

08:52

Wow, I'm in an industry, as you know, and you've heard this yourself, you don't have to be in it. They're the ones who scream for tolerance all the time.

08:59

Yeah, you got to be tolerant of this, of that, of everything, freedom of speech. It's all a one way street with these guys.

09:05

I and I told him that. And I said, Well, it's sad, guys, because I don't harbor that kind of anger and hate that you guys have towards people like me.

09:11

I mean, Christianity and conservatism in Hollywood is like being a double leper. So this is what

09:16

I got to deal with. And I formed my own company, and I just started doing my own movies. And people started calling me independent movies.

09:23

And it just sort of fed on itself. And so I've been shooting about four movies a year on average.

09:29

The last three or four years, I've really gotten into documentaries, which I love doing as well. Just finished another one,

09:35

I did one called before the wrath, it's on the book of revelation, I highly recommend it to people. It's a wonderful, educational look at the rapture.

09:43

And the same guys came to me now, and they just finished filming, I'll be narrating very soon. That one as well.

09:48

It's called eating with the enemy. I love that title. It deals with the last supper. So that's going to come out around Christmas time.

09:55

So I mean, Easter. So I'm staying busy with that kind of stuff. And I'm prepping right now just last night reading the script, making notes on my on the next left behind movie, we're filming that up in Canada.

10:05

And I'll be directing and acting in that one. So I hope people will be looking for that sometime next year. Yeah. And when we met, you also said you were doing a documentary in Israel, you're going to be on Israel.

10:17

Yeah, I got moved around because the craziness of COVID, you know, it's like fear is such an amazing weapon. And they're using it at every level against us to, you know, make sure that people can't have a life anymore.

10:26

But so now we're shooting, I think it's going to be mid or late January, because they've just discovered an archaeological dig the oldest temple they've ever found.

10:34

So we're going to be in Jordan for that in a little bit in Israel. And I've got another one that I shot there a couple years ago called against the tide with john

10:41

Lennox. So I highly recommend against the tide, go to against the tide .movie. And the other ones before the wrath .com.

10:47

So check those out. But against the tides with john Lennox. He's an apologist, retired math professor. So you know who he is.

10:53

He's a great guy. And we spent three weeks in Oxford, England, two weeks in Israel. And I play.

10:59

I play the guy that, you know, questions that a Christian would ask an agnostic and an atheist would ask.

11:04

So I mean, he just takes over from there. You know, I just throw these questions at him as we're walking, following in the footsteps of Jesus.

11:10

And it was a really good documentaries about proving God in a world of science. And once again, it's called against the tide.

11:17

Yeah, he's he's really good. As an apology, great guy. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned in Hollywood, I mean, this is the thing

11:24

I'm assuming talking with Kirk about is, you know, what's it like being in Hollywood?

11:31

That's worse than being conservative, having the Christian label. You know, it's amazing to me,

11:38

Hollywood used to be pretty conservative place. And if you remember, they did like up until the 60s.

11:44

And the 50s, they were shooting what Ben Hur and 10 Commandments and Samson Delilah, they were doing all these kinds of things.

11:50

You know, the Warner Brothers, they were they were conservative guys. The 60s changed everything with the Vietnam War, the free love, the rock and roll the band abroad.

11:58

I mean, you know, all kinds of, you know, the racial injustice, all that stuff kind of kicked in.

12:04

And all of a sudden, we started doing movies that we made the the anti hero, the hero, we glorify that look,

12:10

I love Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid to Robert Redford, Paul Newman are probably, you know, the reason I want to be an actor. But the real

12:16

Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid didn't look like those guys. And they didn't quip like those guys. And they weren't nice guys.

12:21

They were bad guys. But the movie, they make them charming, fun, and just like, you know, great little, you know, bad guy rascals, you know, and that's what we've done.

12:30

And Walt Disney said back in the 1950s, that movies and television will influence our youth. Well, look where we are right now, look at the stuff coming out, cable movies, everything deals with anger and hate and divisiveness.

12:41

And, you know, I do movies that, you know, I've done 67 movies and counting. There's about a dozen,

12:48

I wish I didn't do, okay, they sucked, but I didn't know they're gonna suck when I did them. But you know, I try to do movies that have hope, love, laughter, redemption, faith, things that are positive.

12:57

The reason I want to be an actor was looking at old movies, because my mom used to watch all these old black and white movies with Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy and Catherine Hepburn and all that.

13:05

And I love those movies. And they had stories that you kind of go, Oh, man, you know, I can relate to that guy, or I know somebody like that guy.

13:12

And I want to, you know, I like a roller coaster ride, like Avengers two, but it's all visual effects, right? I want to do a movie that make people think a little bit more instead of walking out and going great visual effects.

13:20

I mean, that's what all these movies are now. So this is the road I'm on. I think the toughest thing we have is trying to raise money for, you know, we do movies in the three to 4 million range.

13:30

That's catering budget on Pirates of the Caribbean. Those are $300 million movies. I'm trying to do you know, it's like pulling teeth to raise money on these great little movies that have a positive impact on people.

13:42

And I meet so many people that want these movies, people of wealth, but they'd rather spend millions on politicians that don't get elected.

13:48

I'm going guys, we have to fight the culture that Hollywood's putting out there. And the only way to do that is keep doing movies like like I'm doing.

13:55

Yeah, we have to do use the same means of what they use to try to take the color and what a lot of people don't know in the 50s.

14:01

And before there actually was a pastoral board that used to review movies. And they got rid of that.

14:07

And that's that was really they got rid of that so they could do all the filth that that they've wanted to do. Well, all the movies back then were

14:13

G and PG for the most part. And there was always singing and dancing for whatever reason in every movie. And but the 60s brought in the rating system.

14:21

You know, it brought in the PG 13 ran the art and X brought all that stuff. So 60s changed quite a bit.

14:27

You know, we took God out of school. We passed the Social Welfare Reform Act that that ultimately is just made the black population prisoners in their own house.

14:37

And, you know, they went from they went from the least, the least divorced group of people to the most, most kids 80 % of kids in the black community are raised out of father now.

14:48

Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing our government don't want to address. They you know that we talk about social justice and things like this.

14:55

The one thing people don't want to address is what the root causes. You know, the root cause and this is irregardless of how much melanin you have in your skin.

15:05

It has to do with your upbringing. You raise a single single mother home, mostly single mothers are working two jobs just to try and make ends meet.

15:14

They don't have time for the children who's raising the children, the TV, gangs, you know.

15:21

So, you know, next week on or actually this week on Paul Jack's Live, my other podcast, we're going to have two guys that were in gangs that are now in full time ministry.

15:31

One of which you may know, because I know you know of Living Waters is Emile Zwayne from the from Living Waters, son -in -law.

15:39

And so but this is they don't have anyone to raise them. So the issue is not the oppression because everybody, everybody's oppressed.

15:49

Everyone can go to their background and look. I mean, I was raised Jewish in a very Catholic neighborhood.

15:55

And yeah, we would be targeted for things. I was always picked on because I was Jewish. You stand out in that.

16:02

And so, yeah, I can sit there and say I'm oppressed, but the difference is my, you know, I had a good had a good family upbringing.

16:08

And my father said, no, you know, don't just sit there and whine about it. Use that to improve, be better, you know, prove that everyone wrong then.

16:16

And that was always the thing. I don't hear that message. That's the message I do hear in your in your movies of good, you know, godly principles.

16:25

Yeah, I've been fortunate. You really started with what if people haven't seen what if I highly recommend it in my book.

16:32

It's in my top five easily. It's a better movie than God's Not Dead. Same writers came out about two and a half years earlier.

16:39

Pure Flix just didn't do that great a job promoting it. But it's difficult. I said independent movies don't have a hundred million dollar budget to get out there and promote it.

16:46

So you got to rely on word of mouth and God's Not Dead just exploded. That was an anomaly in the independent world.

16:52

But what if Dallas Jenkins directed it? Dallas is now doing a chosen right now. We've always been friends.

16:59

Our kids, kids are the same age as mine. And when we're still living in LA, he was there before he moved to Chicago. Now he's down and living in Dallas full time.

17:06

But he sent me a script. He said, what do you think after I read it? I said, dude, who's playing

17:11

Pastor Ben? He starts listing actresses. No, no, no, I'm playing. He goes, man, I can't afford you. This is such a low budget movie.

17:17

I said, no, no, no. I'm playing this role. This movie made me laugh, made me cry. I'm on an airplane reading this. The guy next to me is going, you okay?

17:24

I'm getting emotional, but I'm laughing at the same time. And I said, I've got to play this part.

17:29

And it's just a wonderful, wonderful movie. And that really, that was back in 2010. That really is what kicked me off wanting to do more movies.

17:37

I hate calling faith based movies. I want to do family friendly movies. I mean, what the

17:42

Kendrick Brothers do is great. But I find it just preaches to the choir, which is fine. They do great movies.

17:48

I want to do movies like Blindside, movies like Green Book. The message is there, but it's not like you better believe in Jesus or you're going to hell because that turns off the people that we're trying to reach.

17:59

They sit there to me all the time and sit there and I meet agnostics, atheists. I've got friends in those categories too. And they go, trouble is the

18:06

Christians have a rep that they're so perfect. And we're not perfect. None of us are perfect in any way. So I sit there and go, okay, let's do movies that have a positive message out there without all the hate and anger, but reach out to people and sort of sneak up on them.

18:19

My latest movie, Miracle in East Texas is coming in theaters in February next year. And it's a wonderful true story set in 1930, about two con men played by myself and John Ratzenberger.

18:29

They would go through Oklahoma and Texas wooing widows out of their money on fake oil wells. True story, right in the heart of the depression, 1930.

18:36

They get to Kilgore, Texas, they strike oil, largest oil fund in history world. I'm not giving anything away. The title is

18:42

Miracle in East Texas. It's a wonderful it's we had 10 film festivals and won everything from best romantic comedy, the judges favorite, the best faith based film.

18:52

I love it that they couldn't pigeonhole it. It's that message is in there. But it's not like it's not like in your face, it sort of sneaks up on you as the movie goes along, but it's wonderful movie.

19:01

So people support that movie when it comes out in February. Maybe we should talk in February when it comes out. Yeah, I'd love that.

19:08

So now out of all the projects you've done, right, which which we've established our number, what would you say would be your favorite?

19:18

I love let there be light, I think because I because I also got really close to because I directed it as well.

19:24

My wife wrote the original draft and Dan Gordon and the rewrite Dan Gordon is amazing writer, he was nominated for an

19:29

Academy Award original screenplay. He wrote Hurricane, Denzel Washington's movie, who's also the showrunner on Highway to Heaven, he wrote 60 episodes of Michael Landon series.

19:41

He's Jewish, but he, he actually is the oldest active member in the Israeli army, he goes over and spends about two months a year on the front line.

19:50

Wow, believable. But he said Jesus is such a huge element to bring the world together.

19:56

And we need that, which I thought was pretty amazing. Because he practices in his faith, you know, so it's a wonderful script, let there be light was in theaters for about four months.

20:07

It's streaming on Amazon right now. And I play the world's greatest atheist and God's not dead.

20:12

I just played the typical college professor, where I when I say atheist college professor, I go, that's redundant.

20:17

I should just say college professor. This one's this one's like a

20:22

Hitchens or a Dawkins or a singer, you know, he's a big, well known. He's his latest book is called

20:28

Aborting God. He has a life changing event that challenges his worldview. And it's his growth from coming from somebody that was just like, a

20:37

Bill Maher type of guy. Maybe there's something going on here that I gotta I gotta look into, because it's the things that I'm looking at don't add up and make sense for me.

20:46

And it's a very funny, very touching movie. So I hope people check it out. I gotta tell you, I get people all the time coming to the fan site, by the way, it's sorbo studios .com,

20:57

go to sorbo studios .com. But I get people coming to me all the time, whether it's an airport and stuff like that. And the first time it happened was when

21:03

God's not dead came out. I was at the Salt Lake City Airport. And this woman walks up to me, she had a little beautiful seven year old daughter.

21:08

And she says, Are you Kevin Sorbo? And I could tell by her, you know, her look and her accent. She's somewhere in the Middle East. I said,

21:14

I am she goes, I'm from Iraq. I live in Arizona now. But I saw your movie, God's not dead. And because you're a movie,

21:20

I became a Christian. And my daughter and I just recently got baptized. She starts crying, I start crying, my wife starts crying.

21:26

We're standing up in the middle crying in the middle of the airport. My wife prays for her. And, you know, it's but this stuff,

21:32

I get stuff like this all the time, which is really cool. You seem to play the atheist in a lot of these movies.

21:39

Only two. How many times did Clint Eastwood play the same cowboy in all those

21:45

Westerns? As I tell people, you have to first place to say that I go, there are more than two atheists in the world.

21:53

No, I saw what if when it came out, I'll agree with you. I actually thought that was very, very well done.

21:59

That was great. John is great. That was the first thing I saw you in outside of her. I mean,

22:05

I remember watching Hercules when it was on TV. And I can actually tell you when I used to watch you is so my wife is is

22:11

Cantonese. So when I go visit her family, once a month, we go in New York, and her family, and they would all be talking in Cantonese.

22:18

And my Cantonese is not good enough that I'm getting in the conversation. So my mother in law had a TV and only had a couple of channels.

22:25

And when we would go visit Hercules was on. So Hercules and was the other was the

22:32

Xena where you were on. That was our third year spinoff show. Yeah. And so those two are back to back.

22:38

And that's, that's what I would sit in there and watch. Because it was either that I'd be doing that and reading.

22:44

That's all I did. I know that I've got, I've got a tape from about 10 different countries with that language.

22:49

So I have a Hercules episode in Cantonese, where they dubbed my voice. Oh, really?

22:55

And I'm really fluent in it. I was shocked. And I got French and German and Italian.

23:00

And I mean, I've got all these Norwegian. I'm from I'm second generation Norwegian myself.

23:06

So now when you travel, people expect you to know those languages, because they saw you. They walk up to you and start speaking.

23:12

Oh, man. You know, Capisco and Polo Italiano. That's about it. Is there what, out of all the films you've done, all the projects you've worked on, you know, are there ones that you wish got more highlighted?

23:26

Yeah, what if definitely I wish got more highlighted. Abel's Field. I think Abel's Field is an amazing movie.

23:31

It's just, once again, it really comes down to how do you get enough money to promote it. Abel's Field is a modern day

23:36

Cain and Abel meets Friday Night Lights. It's a wonderful movie. We shot it north of Austin, Texas. And it's just a, it's a touching movie.

23:45

I play a guy that's pretty much just a wanderer. I mean, the credits have been a stranger, you never find out my name. And he becomes, he becomes a tender of a field.

23:56

He says his name is Abel, but it's really not Abel. That was his brother's name. And he's been just go all these decades later, he's just been traveling.

24:09

And he knows God has forgiven him, but he hasn't forgiven himself for the things he's done in his past. And what he did to his parents, his family and how he left.

24:17

And it's a very touching movie. So I hope people get a chance to check that out. I got another one that was in theaters recently called

24:24

The Girl Who Believes in Miracles. Wonderful little movie with Mira Sorvino and Peter Coyote. And it's about a little girl, nine year old girl that at church, her pastor says, if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain.

24:35

She takes it to heart and the faith of a child, right? So it's the things, things she prays for, not walking on water, but little things that happen around her little hometown.

24:44

People are going, what's going on. And it's just a wonderful, touching movie about, about faith and about finding that redemption.

24:51

Because I think right now I look at Antifa, I look at BLM. If you think those people out there riding, going on streets and destroying buildings and attacking people who own those, build businesses, if they had any biblical principles in their lives, would they be doing what they're doing?

25:04

Of course they wouldn't be. But you know, we're becoming more and more secular in this country. Went to Europe a couple of years ago before the whole shutdown.

25:11

And I had three speaking events. I had one in Zurich, one in Munich, one up in Brussels. And I looked at my wife.

25:16

I said, look, these are three different weekends. I got five days off each week. Let's take a month off with the kids.

25:22

So they, cause I lived in Europe for three and a half years. My wife was over there around the same time I was. Also at the same time, we never ran into each other.

25:27

We weren't even running the same circles. And all the churches now in Europe, they're just museums or they're discotheques.

25:36

Nobody's going to church anymore. And we're well on that road in this country. But over there, it's like, forget about it.

25:41

It's, it's just sad. And it's, it's disappearing very quickly. And we are, you can see what's playing out in the world right now and what's happening.

25:49

And here we, here we are with all these shutdowns and the fear being a weapon that's controlling everybody's lives.

25:56

Yeah. I mean, I, we look at Romans one and people always ask, are we going to bring on judgment?

26:02

No, we're not. It's happening right now. We're in God's judgment. Yeah. And I think that's, what is so phenomenal about some of the work you're doing is saying, okay, let's not,

26:10

I always appreciate people that don't sit there and go, Oh, what was us? We're, we're, you know, we're being oppressed.

26:16

We're being, you know, made fun of what, but you're, you're producing films to say, let's give a different message.

26:22

It's a needed message. I mean, it's, it's such in contrast to what we're seeing in our culture.

26:29

I mean, the last 18 months, if that hasn't convinced people that we're under God's judgment.

26:35

People need to wake up. People need to speak up. I find everybody, you know, I wear a serious tipping point right now.

26:42

And I really believe America still for the most part is more conservative than they are liberal. Oh yeah. Because of the press, because of movies, because of the politicians, the beating down over and over and over again, people are afraid, open up your bloody mouth.

26:57

If you're going to worry about being, being oppressed, if you're worried about being, you know, taken off of Facebook and Twitter, they're going to take you down eventually anyway.

27:05

So you might as well start speaking up now and waking up to the fact that this, this country is, is becoming a totally different place than what the founding fathers made it up to be.

27:13

We were founded on Judeo Christian values. And now we're sitting at Ivy league schools that have been on for hundreds and hundreds of years.

27:19

There are students saying, we got to take this God stuff down on all the buildings now. I mean, it's just what erasing history does nothing.

27:25

Every country has good and bad history, every country. And to sit there and rip down statues and rip down.

27:31

I mean, this is why we're, we're going to be repeating history because we're trying to get rid of it. Yeah.

27:36

I mean, it's weird. They're living, you know, I mean, we're saying people, we need to wake up.

27:42

They talk about being woke. They're asleep. I mean, they're, they're, they're totally not realizing what's going on.

27:48

I grew up a generation after the Holocaust. I grew up going to Hebrew school three times a week.

27:53

And then on Sunday it was something where we were taught what the Holocaust was. We were taught so we could recognize the signs.

28:00

Cause you know, we're always being told by the rabbis and teachers, it's going to happen again. You got to know how to see the signs.

28:08

And I I've been saying this for, for two decades, the signs are here. It's just not going to be the Jewish people anymore. It's going to be the

28:13

Christians and we're seeing it. And the fact is we're seeing the same behavior that happened countless times before shutting down any speech.

28:24

You don't let me, they can take the president of the United States and remove him from Twitter. The president,

28:30

I know they will, he shouldn't be allowed to speak on, on the official white house channel, right?

28:38

Because they don't like his politics. That's, you know, then people are saying the people that sit there and say, well, this is good.

28:45

Well, you're going to say it's good until they silence you. They're just silencing the conservatives now, but the people who really suffer under it is those that, the, what

28:56

Stalin would refer to as the useful idiots, the mass that don't think about what they are and they're just being used for someone else's agenda.

29:07

Yeah. Well, let, Lennon even said back, you know, during the Bolshevik revolution years, back in 1915 through 25 and stuff, he's, he called them useful idiots, right?

29:15

I used to call them. And he said, the main thing, the best way to control people is through education.

29:21

Well, hello, what are we doing on our public education system right now? It's been going on for decades, but it's just accelerated the last 10 years.

29:28

And COVID really opened up to families, which I wish they'd wake up to see what are they doing? Why can't we put cameras in all the school rooms?

29:35

What is it that they're hiding? It's ridiculous that they can't have cameras in there. We got cameras in the white house.

29:41

We had cameras in cameras, cameras required for all the police. I don't know. Cameras are everywhere, but don't, don't have it in here.

29:46

We don't want people. We want to indoctrinate your kids and teach them about how giving, you know, having sex at nine years old.

29:53

I mean, it's crazy what we're doing in this country and we're allowing it to happen. People, please wake up because it's just, it's, it's stupid.

30:00

I mean, I'm getting talking about the cancel culture. I don't know who these punks are, but I mean, I've already been losing jobs left and right speaking events and appearances because maybe five people call in.

30:09

No, if you have that jerk there, we're going to do this. And they listened to them and they, and they cave in. These guys now have control of my life.

30:15

Why can't they know who I am? Why can't I meet these people face to face? Not looking for a fight. I would like to have a conversation.

30:22

I'd like to have a conversation. Why do you hate me? Why do you want to take me down? Why can't I have a voice, but you can have a voice.

30:28

Honestly, God, I think if you've been profiling these people, you're going to find them. They don't like themselves. They're unhappy with their lives.

30:33

They probably came from broken homes, broken relationships. Um, they just, they, they, they look in the mirror and there's nothing but disdain for themselves.

30:40

So, you know, misery loves company. That's why I want to drag all this down that hole with them. That's the only way that makes them feel better.

30:45

It's just feeling that anger and that fire, which was just sad to me. I mean, we should pray for these guys. And at the same time,

30:50

I'm like, what a bunch of bozos. And it's just, it's crazy. It's unfortunate. Well, that's, that's something

30:56

I wanted to ask you, Kevin, because you, you alluded to it earlier, the hypocrisy of Hollywood that should be tolerant and embrace all things, but yet they don't.

31:04

When it comes to the hostility against Christians, do you think that it is primarily driven by an atheistic worldview?

31:10

They just hate God and therefore they hate you? Or is it because you represent a certain sense of morality that they don't want to have to be faced with because they want to embrace their debauchery?

31:21

Or is it maybe a mix of both? They hate God. They hate the morality. I think it's, I think it's a combination of both those things easily, easily.

31:29

When Left Every Light came out, which I told you guys about, we opened up number two per screen average up against a $300 million

31:36

Thor Ragnarok movie. Okay. Here's a little 2 .3 million dollar movie that we're number two per screen average.

31:42

I got a call the Monday after opening weekend from Netflix. They called me and I had three meetings with them at their offices in Hollywood.

31:47

Okay. And they said, we want to work with you. We want to open inspirational division. I said, great. I got the product.

31:53

I got the scripts. I got TVC. I got everything. Sent them the stuff. They're going, I don't know if that's. And then my last meeting with them in person,

32:00

I just said, guys, get past your ideology. Why do you, you want, you, you, there's 80 million households out there.

32:06

There's 80 million households out there that want the kind of product that I put out. Why don't you just laugh all the way to the bank to a stupid

32:13

Christians? Okay. But why don't we, it's weird. It's like they're fighting. How, I mean, it's called show business, not show show.

32:21

It is a business. They can scream socialism all they want, but it's capitalism that made Zuckerberg a wealthy guy, right?

32:27

And Bezos a wealthy guy. But I love these billionaire socialists because they can live like socialists, but they don't, they live like capitalists.

32:36

So the pragmatism of profit only stops when it becomes Christian. You know, their goal right now is to destroy the middle -class and they're doing it.

32:44

They recommend, they said that 65 % of the businesses, small businesses will never come back now because of the

32:50

COVID shutdowns because Costco was, was something that we needed to have out there.

32:56

But like the mom and pop grocery store for 60 years and three generations of families, they had to close that down.

33:01

That wasn't essential, but target was essential. Come on guys. It's so blatantly obvious what they're doing here. And once again, people need to wake up.

33:08

They created many new billionaires with COVID. And you look at a guy like Bezos who he gets divorced, loses half of his, his wealth.

33:18

And within one year of COVID doubles. And by 18 months, he's, he's tripled what he was worth.

33:25

Yeah. Because everybody's going to Amazon, ordering online because they don't want to go in the store because they take stay home, stay home.

33:31

I think I just read that he bought 600 acres on the Island of Kauai. I was either him or Zuckerberg.

33:36

One of the, one of those two guys I'm going, Oh, okay. Well, you know, you have black lives matter who they, they say they're trained

33:41

Marxists and what have they have millions of dollars in homes, not home homes.

33:48

I printed out their manifesto and they took it down since then. They agreed to being Marxist. They said they want to get rid of God.

33:55

They want to break up a nuclear family. I mean, everything is there and people sit there, Coca -Cola and all these

34:00

Delta people, so millions of dollars at these guys, they don't want to be called a racist. So here's the thing. And we did several shows dealing with their principles and, and whatnot, but here's the thing they've raised two over $2 billion.

34:14

And yet their organization has supported $2 billion of insurable damage in the cities.

34:21

Yeah. And you know, the, they're being sued. The national group is being sued on the question of where's all the money going because the individual

34:29

States are not getting it. It's amazing to me. That's something that evil is able to raise kind of the money they're raising.

34:36

That's all it does is spread more evil and hate. And here I am begging to get $2 million to make a movie that has a positive thing.

34:44

It's, I'm not whining here, but it's just blows my mind how the culture has changed into such a satanic evil arena of hatred.

34:53

But anyway, I guess I got to wrap this up. We appreciate it. So how, how can folks find out more about you?

34:59

You mentioned the fan page. How can folks, you know, check out some of the stuff that you're doing, get more involved in some of the movies you're producing?

35:06

Sure. Well, there's Kevin Sorbo .net, but we've incorporated that into sorbostudios .com. So if you go to sorbostudios .com,

35:13

you'll see all of my stuff. So my wife's stuff, as you mentioned, she's a homeschool advocate. She has a lot of speaking on it. She's got books on it.

35:19

Her latest book is called words for warriors, which is a really wonderful book as I did a follow up to my book, true strength that we wrote together called true faith.

35:27

So people check those things out if they want to get an autographed copy, but more to come. I just finished the Reagan movie with Dennis Quaid. He plays the president.

35:33

I play as pastor and I mentioned the next left behind movie. So I'm staying busy and knock on wood guys, but God bless you guys.

35:40

And thanks for coming on. Maybe we'll have you back. Maybe we'll have you back in February for your next movie. Love it.