Actor, producer and director, Kevin Sorbo, best known for his starring roles in two television series — Hercules in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and Captain Dylan Hunt in Andromeda.
At 6 foot 3 inches, and extremely muscular, Kevin was a natural for the title role in what would become his signature series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Kevin became internationally famous, and he learned the craft of film-making well enough to direct and co-write some of the episodes.
The talented actor also starred as High Guard Captain Dylan Hunt in Andromeda. The hit series premiered on October 2, 2000, and ended on May 13, 2005.
Role after role followed for Sorbo, but now it’s all change for him. I learned more about his herculean change of career to Christian projects when I spoke with him, and his beautiful wife, Sam, on the red carpet at the Movieguide®’s Annual Faith & Values Awards Gala held on Friday, February 10th, at the Universal Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
Kevin Sorbo at the 24th Annual Movieguide Awards with Renee Olstead
Sorbo began by revealing that he had just returned from Oxford, England, where he was shooting a documentary on John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics (emeritus) at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College, Oxford. In addition, Lennox is an Adjunct Lecturer at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University, and at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, as well as being a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum.
“We have actually been doing quite a bit of work on the documentary over the last two years, but I went over to Oxford to do the finishing touches on it,” he said. “I was the on camera interviewer with him as he walked me through all the universities and colleges over there in Oxford and it’s it was beautiful. It was amazing to see these buildings. I believe that it is the first university in the world, is it not?”
“He’s a great tour guide as well,” laughed Sorbo.
He went onto say that Lennox is a top apologist for Christianity, and believes that atheists are missing the target, and has debated some of the top atheists, including the late Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins, a prominent British critic of religion.
Kevin Sorbo also said that he has now finished work on the Breathe Bible, Audio New Testament, which is a remarkably vivid listening experience that transports you into the world of the Bible.
“I voiced God, which was very interesting for me,” he smiled. “I got to produce it as well. It’s the dramatic reading of the New Testament. You can order it online right now – the physical product itself will be coming out in March, but right now you can get it and download it to whatever device you want use.
“My wife and I have also just finished doing a movie together in Birmingham, Alabama, called Let There Be Light. Sam wrote it [along with Dan Gordon], and I directed it. We both acted in it. It’ll be out in November. It’s a Christmas movie.”
I then asked Sam how she had first met Kevin and she replied, “I was cast to play a princes on Hercules, which was set in New Zealand, and they flew me there and that’s how we met. It was kind of love at first sight.”
Kevin then cut in and said, “We’ve been married for 19 years which is a Golden Anniversary in Hollywood — and we have three kids.”
Kevin has also starred in the God’s Not Dead movie and I wondered how he first got involved.
Kevin Sorbo played in the hit film, “God’s Not Dead”, courtesy of Pure Flix Entertainment.
Dallas Jenkins [son of Jerry B. Jenkins of Left Behind fame] approached me about six years ago to do a movie called What If? and the Pureflix guys were the ones behind it. I read the script Dallas just wanted me to give some notes on it. I read it and I asked him, ‘Who’s playing Pastor Ben?’ and he replied, ‘Well I don’t know yet and then he started naming some actors. I said, ‘No, I want to play it’ and he responds, ‘Kevin, this is like a $500,000 budget — it’s a low budget. I told him that I didn’t care, as I thought the movie was awesome and so we shot it and it’s a wonderful, wonderful movie, and that’s how I sort of got introduced to Pureflix and they’re the ones who got a hold of me to do God’s Not Dead, in which I played an atheist professor.
“Now we see a little $2,000,000 movie that has made $70,000,000 at the box office in the US alone. So it did pretty well. It was a wonderful experience.”
Would he ever consider playing Hercules again?
“Oh, no,” he laughed. “That’s done. I’m too old to play that now so let the younger kids get their opportunity. I did that and we shot that show from 1993 to 2,000. It’s now in the history books, but you know it’s on Netflix and it’s got a whole new run. It’s still in like 50 countries around the world, so I can’t complain.”
What does he think of the current rash of Christian movies and their quality?
Sorbo cited the amazing success of The Passion of the Christ, and he felt that it was then that Hollywood began to take notice of faith films.
“These films are growing because Hollywood is realizing that there’s money to be made with movies that cater to an audience that wants good uplifting morally-based movies,” said Kevin. “And they’re only going to get better and stronger. We’ve got a whole list of movies that we hope to be doing through our new production company called Wild Fire Films. So we’ll see what happens. In fact Let There Be Light is our first movie project and will also be my 50th movie.”
With that Hercules and his princess were off for another interview, and I wished them God’s speed as they have now launched into their exciting new careers.
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