Kevin Sorbo Talks Being A Conservative Christian in Hollywood
This is The Babylon Bee Interview Show. Be sure to check out The Babylon Bee YouTube Channel for more podcasts, podcast shorts, animation, and more. In this episode, Kyle and Ethan talk to Kevin Sorbo. An outspoken actor, producer, and director, Kevin is perhaps best known for playing Hercules and, in Christian circles, for playing the angry atheist professor in God's Not Dead. Kevin and his wife Sam have a new book together called True Faith: Embracing Adversity to Live in God's Light. Kyle and Ethan talk to Kevin about how he found true strength after suffering a stroke, married the Golden Hind, and now works to make movies that aren't just for Christian audiences, but for everyone. Topics Discussed Golfing with Donald Trump and Jesse Ventura Hercules being the top show on television Having a stroke and going from Hercules to mere mortal Kull The Conqueror Don't go to Dr. Die or Dr. Slaughter Writing True Strength and becoming a speaker Kissing stunt doubles Conservative, Christian heterosexual and looking for work in Hollywood Protect the sea turtle eggs, abort the fetuses? Kevin is working on a new show The World According To Billy Potwin Making movies that aren't just for one audience Sorbo's other recent work: Let There Be Light, What If…, God's Not Dead, Miracle In East Texas Mask politics ANTIFA Marrying the Golden Hind Disappointed! Hercules crew working on LOTR Bad TV props True Faith Subscriber Portion Kevin Sorbo gives more juicy Hollywood stories What not to call your wife when she's pregnant Before The Wrath Kyle and Ethan pitch Kevin Sorbo on some Christian movies that must be made Walking Tall: Lone Justice and Walking Tall: The Payback Hollywood regrets and frustrations The Ten Questions To watch or listen to the full podcast, become a subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans.
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
Hard-hitting questions.
What do you think about feminism?
Do you like it?
Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
Yeah, well, Last Jedi is one of the worst movies ever made, and it was very clear that Brian Johnson doesn't like Star Wars.
Kyle pulls no punches.
I want to ask how you're able to sleep at night.
Ethan brings bone-shattering common sense from the top rope.
If I may, how double dare you?
This is the Babylon B interview show.
All right, everyone.
Welcome to the Babylon B interview show.
I'm Kyle.
Ethan, but most importantly.
Kevin Sorbo.
Kevin Sorbo, he's here.
He's not just on Skype.
I was waiting for a big introduction, but I know this helps.
Yeah, so yeah, he has that booming voice.
I'm listening to your audiobook right now, and you sound like Batman.
They should have made me Batman.
Bruce Wayne, like from the animated series.
It's like, I want to do an animated thing with Kevin Sorbo.
It's like a Batman character.
Yeah.
Go from Kevin Conroy to Kevin Sorbo.
There you go.
I did a, I was on the Tonight Show one time with David Letterman back during the Hercules years.
And it was Kevin Klein, myself, and Kevin Moore somewhere.
He's another comedian.
And when he was introducing all of us at the top of the show when he was doing his monologue, he said, in case one of the Kevins can't fulfill their obligations, they cut to Kevin's space inside a glass casing with a guy ready to break it open.
They say they need another Kevin to fill it for Kevin.
I thought it was pretty funny.
That's funny.
I'm in that part in the book right now.
I heard that this morning.
Oh, there are way to work.
Yeah.
Very cool.
Yeah.
It's a good book.
Thank you.
I didn't know.
I mean, I didn't watch Hercules.
I have to admit.
This is True Strength, the book.
True Strength.
Your first one.
Yeah.
Yep.
And I'm like, well, what better way to do research for an interview than just listen to the audiobook?
You didn't watch Hercules?
I'm sorry.
You still can't.
Do you really lie?
You lie about that?
That's a lie.
You got to realize we did.
I got to break a little bit.
We became the most watched TV show in the world.
I know.
I remember seeing a constant like that.
176 countries.
I wasn't allowed to watch it.
Why?
I grew up Christian, you know, and we didn't allow to watch anything.
Well, because it was mythology.
But it still had good messages, good moral values.
It was on.
What was it on?
UPN or something?
It was on like a main.
It was on one of the main channels.
I watch my cartoons and it's like Hercules comes on.
You got to turn it off.
Or maybe it was Xena that came on and I wasn't allowed.
It would have been Hercules.
Well, Xena, we affectionately called it our lesbian spin-off show because they pretty much promoted that.
But it's so funny because the Lezina people get mad at me for saying that.
And I go, once again, don't say the truth.
Don't bring that up.
That was our third year spin-off show.
We had a fifth-year spin-off show called Young Hercules.
It was me as a teenager, and the actor they booked was a 20-year-old guy by the name of Ryan Gosling.
So they did for two years, and it was before he became Ryan Gosling.
So, Ryan, if you're listening, Ryan, you got to put me in one of the movies.
Throw me a bone.
Come on, man.
Still, when he was just a little big fan, you're just a little gosling.
All right.
Well, you got to do the elderly.
The elder, not elderly.
Elderly.
Well, you know, I'm getting cheers.
I'm not the young guy.
I used to be.
If they bring it back, they should make me Zeus.
You know, age me up a little bit.
Give me a big beard.
And the first movie we did, we did five two-hour movies before it was a series.
And Anthony Quinn played Zeus.
I got a whole year with Anthony Quinn.
That was pretty cool.
I mean, you know.
I kind of like the idea of Boomer Hercules.
Boomer?
Boomer Hercules, like getting mad at everybody and sitting on the porch and shouting at millennial Hercules or whatever.
That'd be fun.
I like that.
I don't know.
I do.
Give me a beer in a rocking chair.
I remember when I fought the Hydra.
Kids these days see a hydra.
I got a panic attack.
Exactly.
I need someplace safe.
I'm triggered.
So Kevin, do you have any good stories?
Do I have good stories?
Well, I'm looking behind me in a painting there right there.
But isn't that Pat Robertson over there too?
Yeah.
I just did his audiobook.
Oh, did you, Pat?
He had me be his voice for his last autobiographical book.
I just did.
I just finished it about two months ago.
So I think it's coming out soon.
So let's say you're him perfect.
No, no, no.
I introduced myself as myself.
But I've been on the show a number of times and they've been very good fans and it's been good.
You have a soothing voice.
Oh, thank you.
I'm here to put you to sleep.
Welcome.
K C A L M Call.
They had a nice little Dan Folklbert music for you now.
But when you got in here, you said that you golfed Trump three times.
Well, it was a three-day event.
It's the American Century Golf Tournament.
It's a big one.
Mostly athletes playing it.
It's up in Lake Tahoe.
And I've done it about four or five times.
And my pairing was with Trump, President Trump, and Jesse Ventura, who at the time was the governor of Minnesota, the state I'm from.
So you're destined for politics.
Oh, it was interesting.
It was interesting.
Well, it was kind of funny with President Trump because afterwards, we're sitting there.
This is back in 2005, maybe.
It was one of the first years, the first year of Apprentice had been on the air.
Not celebrity apprentices, but the first year with Apprentice.
And he asked me, he goes, Kevin, you're an actor.
What do you think?
I mean, my show's number one.
So do you think they want to do another season?
Do you think I need to do season two as well?
Of course, he does, but he wants to hear it.
And because he wrote, because the reality is, people like that last five minutes when he says, you're fired.
So I said, you'll have to do it.
And he goes, oh, I figured that was the case.
But I thought it was just kind of funny that he just was, you know, but he was very gracious and he's a decent golfer.
I'm a golf nut, so I love to golf.
And it was fun for me.
And Jesse had met before because I was back home at Christmas time and I went to the Capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I got to hang out with him, talk and they gave me a little tour and stuff.
So it was fun.
I hadn't done that since like when I was 11 or something when field trip, you know.
So he wasn't governor then, though.
It was Governor Mondale, I believe.
So they both, did you have any idea that you're in the presence of two future political giants?
Oh, sure.
I mean, I knew that.
But at that time, they loved them on both sides of the aisle.
I mean, once he makes a commitment to something and they're going, oh, of course, you know, the liberals, you're going to get that no matter what you do anyway.
I mean, I mean, quietly and behind closed doors, I'm sure some things Trump has done.
They're like, oh, well, that's pretty cool.
But don't say that in public.
Yeah, you can't say he's good.
Yeah.
It's just amazing.
He did the right thing, but he's Trump.
Yeah.
So it's the wrong thing.
That's the wrong thing.
Yeah.
How do we segue into like actual questions from cool stories?
I don't know.
Segue.
See what happens.
We hit the peak already.
I hope not.
We already heard about who else?
Trump golfing.
Have you met Gary Busey?
I have met Gary, but I had no story there.
No, no, no story about Gary.
I met his son and no story.
You didn't bite your face.
No, no.
Or Gary.
It strikes me.
Ever since the motorcycle accidents, he's never been the same.
So what are you going to do?
Are we just going to rattle off celebrities and ask if he's going to be?
Yeah, have your mana.
Yeah.
So, okay, well, let's just fill people in because I don't think I didn't know a lot of this before I was going to interview you that you went through a few strokes and had some stuff happen to you.
And this was at the height of Hercules.
It was the last three months of season five.
It's a big deal if you've got five seasons or something.
People don't realize most shows don't make it past the first season.
Right.
I think I read years ago that 3% of TV shows make it to a fifth year or beyond.
And it was the end of season four.
I'd shot my first big budget movie.
It's called Cull the Conqueror.
Cull, we shot in Croatia and Slovakia.
And Cull was the father of Conan in the books and also in the comic books.
So even though Arnold Schwarzenegger is older than me, I'm his father.
So at the end of season five, last three months, I was having all kinds of problems with my left arm, my shoulders.
It's killing me.
I couldn't quite figure out what's going on with it.
But I was like, you know, doing most of my own stunts because my ego said that I could do them.
So I get back to LA to do promotion on Cull, plus to get ready for another movie.
that I was going to do.
And a doctor, I was in New York, then I went to Boston to do more radio and TV up there.
A doctor came to my office.
I mean, came to the hotel I was in because my arm was just killing me.
This guy, I told the studio, I said, told Universal, my arm's on fire, guys.
I don't know what's going on.
This guy shows up and he says, his name was Dr. Dye.
Okay.
So I told him.
I told him, take your mother's maiden name.
I mean, come on.
Going to professional.
I don't care if it's D-Y-E.
Your name is still not a good name for a doctor.
My maiden name is slaughter.
There you go.
Exactly.
It didn't work any better.
So he kind of hit it.
He said, I think it's cardiovascular.
When you get back to LA, have your doctor check it out.
Well, I found a lump way up here, my left subclavicle.
And he thought at the time it was cancer.
He thought it was Hodgkins or something.
But I went in to see my chiropractor and I'm laying on the table.
And I heard a voice inside my head, don't let him crack your neck.
And it was weird because he's never cracked my neck.
I've been going to the guy for eight years and I don't like my neck cracked.
I knew that years before I even started seeing this guy.
The first time I went into his office, I was introduced to him through an old girlfriend and I liked him.
He was a good guy.
And I just said, don't, the voice came again, don't let him crack your neck over and over again.
And while I'm arguing, he cracks my neck from left to right.
And that lump ended up being an aneurysm that had been spitting up blood clots over the months and shutting off the blood flow in these fingers and this hand.
That's why I was getting cold and numb and causing all this pain.
And since it was so close to the artery feeding of the brain, that snap to the right sent four clots into my brain.
But the one rushing to the hospital dissolved because it was no speech balance.
And I knew I'd suffer the stroke.
Here I was, 6'3, 230 pounds, like 7% body fat.
I wasn't ripped up, but it was the best, better shape in my 30s than I was in my 20s.
And I've always been in pretty good shape.
And it was weird.
I'm going into the hospital.
My fiancé at the time, Sam, who's now my wife, taken me into Cedar's emergency room there.
And I looked up at this beautiful blue sky, same day that Princess Dye died.
And I thought to myself, I'm going to die today.
I didn't say it out loud.
And it was weird.
It was a weird feeling.
And it was weird that I was so calm about it.
I was like, but this sucks.
I've always wanted to have kids and they'd be getting married and all that.
And it took me, it took, it was four months of heavy-duty therapy to learn how to walk again and get balance again because two went to my balance, one into my vision.
I still have a 10% loss in both eyes and the upper right quadrant of the eye.
And it took three years to fully recover.
If you want to say fully recover, I still know there's limitations of what people wouldn't be able to tell.
But I fought, you know, the doctors told me after nine months, what you're living with, you got to live with the rest of your life.
And I was like, screw that.
I mean, I've always been a strong-willed guy.
So I just plugged through and I did 10 times more than what they told me to do.
It would wipe me out, but I knew I had to wipe myself out, like the no pain, no gain thing, right?
I knew I had to push myself and push myself.
So I got through it, but it wasn't fun.
I'll say I wouldn't wish it on anybody.
And I go, well, the Taliban, they can have it.
Spread it out among them.
Maybe some of the Antifa punks, too.
But they'll come knocking on my head.
They don't have chiropractors previously.
No, probably.
I don't think any of them have jobs.
That's a whole nother thing.
So George Soros, employment agency.
I don't know.
So how did that affect things like your job?
Work.
You know, I'm grateful.
The Universal Studios kept the show going.
I don't think they did it out of the goodness of their heart.
They did it because the show was making a lot of money for them.
But it gave me a light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel.
When I went back to New Zealand four months later, I went from basically a 12 to 14 hour shooting day on set to one hour day.
They made a crutch for me.
They called the butt crutch.
So I'd go from 6'3 to 6'2.
It was just something to give me a little balance.
Yeah.
And I would just deliver lines and they would cut to other things.
We brought in stunt casting, other actors that are well known.
But they would just do enough to keep me in about 15 scenes or something like that, you know, in each episode.
They made one episode called Porcules where I could turn into a pig.
So I only had two scenes.
I was going to ask if you had ever thought about doing like a body positive Hercules.
I was body positive.
Yeah.
Like an obese Hercules or the body positive.
It's called Body Positive.
Big and big and proud.
This is another one I've never heard of.
Yeah, you're in this conservative bubble.
You don't even know.
I know.
I know.
I need to, I need to, I remember a story of Richard Nixon when he was president.
He went into Walmart and he came up and goes, they got everything in there.
They couldn't believe so much stuff.
So both sides of the bubble, people.
I mean, both sides of the aisle are kind of, you know, in their own little world.
It's true, man.
How do that?
Anyway, but it was a long road.
I mean, it was, it sucked.
I mean, it was, it was, the first two years were just brutal.
I started getting some, after 18 months, I started getting some really positive things.
I'd have a week where I felt, okay, and then stuff would come back because I suffered a lot of vertigo where it didn't matter if I was laying down in bed, standing, sleeping, whatever.
I was falling backwards.
It's just this sensation of falling backwards.
It just sucked.
But a lot of that had to do with my faith.
I also had faith in my life, but I never needed it until this happened to me.
I really never did.
Not that I let some charmed life, but I mean, I had very strong parents.
I grew up in a very, you know, little town of Minnesota.
My mom was a nurse, but became a full-time mom with five kids.
I'm the fourth of five kids.
My dad was a school teacher, but we had a really good community of people supporting it.
And I was a big sports guy.
And we just had a really good safety net that little town.
So I never really had something like that.
And the book, True Strength, was born out of that.
And I didn't want to write that book, but Sam bugged me to write that book.
Sam and I weren't married at that time.
We got married four months later.
I was still pretty much off it.
We got married.
I was like walking like a drunk down the aisle.
But she, every time I got down, because she's a New York, Pittsburgh, tough gal, she just said, it happened.
What are you going to do about it?
She wouldn't let me feel sorry for myself.
And she gave me a mantra that worked for me.
And then she said, look in the mirror every morning, wake up and say, I'm getting stronger.
I'm getting better.
I'm getting stronger.
I'm getting better.
And just keep saying it.
And it's been amazing.
And a book I didn't want to write because I wrote it years later.
It came out 1997, September.
So the book came out in 2012.
So I waited a long time because I didn't want to show the male ego, right?
I didn't want to show how weak I'd become playing this big stud Hercules guy.
But she said, you're going to change a lot of lives.
And I'll tell you, the minute that book came out in the bookstores I went to, I had people of all ages coming up to me saying, thank God for your book.
Your book made me stop feeling sorry for myself.
There's humor in it.
There's just other chapters written by other people as well.
It's just a good mix of stuff with short anecdotal stories.
And it's been a blessing.
And something I didn't think it would do, it all said had me do all these speaking events.
And, you know, started mostly with medical communities.
I remember I spoke in front of a 1,600 neurologist in San Diego.
And I said, I said, I told him what the doctors told me.
They had a neurology at Cedars, had a neurology at USC.
And I said, you know, they put limitations on my recovery.
And I said, I really found out quite quickly why they call what you guys do a practice because you guys do.
I mean, they saved my life, but they don't know everything.
And a lot of it comes down to you want to push through it.
And I think my faith had a lot to do with my upbringing, my parents had a lot to do with.
And certainly Sam being a part of my foundation of my life had something to do with it.
Was Sam disappointed when she found out that you were not actually an immortal half-gun?
We'll get to that story later.
It was pretty funny.
She had to turn down a commercial for ice cream, which is her favorite thing.
So she had to walk away from that because I told her, I said, don't go.
It was hard for me to admit I needed someone because I was the type of guy that my four siblings all got married in their 20s.
I didn't get married until I was 38.
There's a reason for that because every two weeks in Hercules, they sent on a hot babe for me to work with.
So it was a great dating service for me.
And that's how I met Sam.
So she hates when I tell that story.
Have any weird stories where you had to kiss some?
Any weird kissing stories?
I assume you had to kiss them.
You know, it's funny.
I'm going to bring up Tia's name because she's a good friend.
Tia Carrera from awkwardness has to happen when you're doing it.
Awkward does happen.
Well, you know, because you don't want to be a jerk.
I mean, I'm pretty, I'm a pro on the set.
I like to have fun.
Yeah.
And I like to have a good time with it, but I always don't quietly I'll tell the actual.
Do you have a kissing stunt double?
Like old Kirky Cameron up there?
No.
Do you have a kissing stunt double?
He'll like kiss his wife.
He has a stunt double in away and then he'll kiss her.
But he has one swear words too.
I get it.
I get it.
Swear stunty.
Come in here.
But Kirk's a good guy.
Kirk's good guy.
But I would always say, I remember with Tia Carrera.
I said, we did call together and I said, said, how do you want to do this?
He goes, well, Kevin, no tongue wing.
I said, it's fine.
It's fine.
So on the first take, she sticks her tongue so far down my throat the first day.
And I go, what was that?
She goes, I couldn't help myself.
She said, so I looked at the director and I said, can we do another one?
I don't think I did that right.
But, you know, I am a flaming heterosexual.
So it's hard for me to, you know.
Impassioned heterosexual activists.
But it is weird in front of a bunch of people.
Right.
It is.
It's not like, it's not like, you know, you're in love or luster or something.
It's a semi-uncomfortable situation.
Right.
You know, but I don't know.
Apparently, porn stars don't feel offended by it.
Yeah, I'm assuming.
I assume there's some whole different ball of wax.
There's some like tearing off of the societal mores.
I think so.
Yeah.
Yep.
At some point, you got to work your way, I guess.
You've come in as like conservative, Christian, heterosexual.
Are you ever going to get any work again?
I know.
Well, you know, it's interesting.
I'll be honest.
You know, Hollywood doesn't owe me anything.
I came under here.
I worked my butt off.
I got the jobs I got by working hard, not expect.
I'm a 13-year overnight success, I tell people.
But yeah, my agent left me and my manager left me.
Really?
Really?
Over this?
Over your views?
Yeah.
You saw what Hollywood's like.
I mean, come on.
And it's amazing to me that they're like the bell ringers for tolerance, and yet they have zero tolerance freedom of speech, but only if you agree with what they say.
And it's strange.
It's sad to me.
It's like, guys, I honestly don't care.
People have different opinions than I do.
I don't get angry about it.
The people on the left get so angry.
I mean, I got to do is look at one of the photos you got here of a riot going on.
I'm sorry, a peaceful demonstration going on.
But it's sad to me that they say one thing, but they do the totally opposite.
And it's just, it's just, it's, to my find, it's just infantile that this is going on.
But thank God for independent movies.
It wasn't for indie movies these last 10 years of my life.
I would never care at all.
I just wouldn't.
Yeah, was there a moment where you, I mean, have you just always been this way?
Or was there a moment you're like, you know what?
I got to be more outspoken.
This is driving me crazy.
I'm too quiet.
Yeah.
I think, I think I was never quiet on purpose.
It's just gotten more crazy over the last 15 years, as you guys know.
It's just accelerated each year.
But by about 2009, 2010, I just said, what is going on?
This is ridiculous.
I mean, I never noticed that on the set on Hercules or Andromeda.
I didn't.
There were a couple of times.
I remember some of the actors I worked with on Andromeda.
I remember one day, they found out, I mean, because I said something, go, oh, my God.
Flower bed.
He's a Republican.
Oh, my gosh.
He's against education.
I said, what?
Who's against education?
How well is America's public education system going?
I mean, run by Democrats for crying out loud.
I mean, it just was unbelievable to me.
So being sort of the smart asset I am, because I'm one of four brothers, I set them up one day.
Oh, they brought up the abortion issue too.
You and your, no man can tell me you can do with my body.
And I said, well, for starters, if it was your body, you'd be dead.
So one day I brought in this magazine article and they sit on either side of me in the morning.
We're getting the hair and makeup and stuff.
And I went, oh, these other actors are the other, yeah, two, two females.
Okay.
And they said, and I said, this is ridiculous.
And I said, what?
This guy in Hawaii just got like seven years in prison for eating a sea turtle egg.
And one of them says, you should have got life.
And I go, it's an egg.
She goes, Kevin, that egg would have become a sea turtle.
So I just looked at it and I said, what was the egg in your stomach going to become?
She got up and walked out the door and turned around.
You're wrong.
And just left.
That is a liberal argument every time.
You're wrong.
You're racist.
You're a homophobe.
They love their labels.
They never have things to back them up with.
But they love their labels.
It makes them feel so strong.
And, you know, they care so much more about the rest of us.
They have so many more feelings.
And Kevin never worked in Hollywood again.
Yep.
But it was totally worth it.
Seriously.
It was totally worth it.
Yeah.
You know, it's just, it's frustrating because there are a lot of movies I wish I could go up for.
I see all the stuff coming out everywhere and I'm going, I would have been perfect, at least read for the role.
I don't begrudge another actor as getting role.
I mean, I realize the competitiveness of that whole thing.
But yeah, it kind of sucks, you know, when your agent calls up, they made a lot of money off you on the two series and your manager and says, well, we can't rep you anymore.
We can't get you through a door.
Oh, okay.
And it's it, and they run the culture, right?
Yeah.
Politics downstream of culture.
Who owns a culture?
Hollywood does.
And they get to do whatever the heck they want to do and promote the values they want to do.
And it's just weird.
You look at it.
There's 80 million households out there that either are Christian or they want family-friendly value in their movies and TV shows.
And I have a lot of those scripts and I have a lot of those projects.
And it's so hard to raise money for them.
And I find that so weird to me because I meet a lot of people when I walk through airports stop me and they say, love what you're doing.
We know Hollywood hates you now, but keep doing what you're doing.
Well, then support these things when they come out.
Support them.
There's 80 million households out there.
Why wouldn't Hollywood, they don't have to go back and do Touch by an Angel again, but because they'll never go back to that again.
But do shows like that that have a little more edge to them or something, because why wouldn't you laugh all the way to the bank by putting out stuff with a G or PG rating?
Why not?
What does it hurt?
I mean, it's called show business.
It's not show show.
You know, they can scream that they're against this.
Oh, we're socialists.
No, you're not.
Disney wants to make money.
That makes them a capitalist business.
They're capitalism.
That's what it's all about.
But it's hypocrisy rules, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, you see some success with stuff like Less Man Standing.
You know, that's not, I don't even think it's a conservative show.
It just kind of makes fun of everything.
That's the show I'm doing right now.
Oh, yeah.
It's called, it's called The Potwins.
I play Nate Potwin.
I'm the dad.
I'm the very much Tim Allen type of character.
He's a conservative guy.
I got the conservative son, and then I've got the really hardcore, you know, left-wing liberal, you know, socialist daughters in college.
And I got the hippie father who's a far left as well, played by Barry Bostwick.
Remember, I'm from Spin City by Michael J. Fox.
And it's been great.
We're wrapping up.
Actually, we're wrapping up the last episode right now of season one.
So look forward next year at the Potwins.
We'll see what happens with it.
But it's nice to have something like that.
And Tim Allen, certainly that show had that with his character.
You know, they weren't afraid.
And that's what we're doing.
Making fun of both sides, because both sides are flawed in so many ways.
It's crazy.
Yeah, there's a lot of good comedy space there that they don't explore.
Yeah um, they just want to push certain agendas and they just keep pushing them over and over and over again.
Or they don't want to normalize certain things.
That's a platforming idea.
We don't want to normalize normal people.
Ain't that a fact?
They want to normalize common sense.
Where's my water, guys?
Don't we have water running?
Oh yeah, you want it Matt, can we get a water?
You guys got beverages?
I mean, come on yeah, we're back.
We should have got you something.
It was at Liberty University.
I spoke there not too long ago.
I was seeing another painting right there of the.
Did you see the uh, giant stained glass window of Donald Trump there that the Babylonia Chapel reported on?
Yeah, I didn't.
I didn't see that one.
I'll have to look for that one.
We did an article, I did a photoshop I do a lot of these photoshops with Night and uh, we did a photoshop of a giant stained glass Trump window and it fooled a lot of people.
Oh, of course they.
They're like, look at this.
Well, I think i've sent things that you guys post to friends of mine and a couple right back.
That can't be true, is that true?
Oh guys, are you kidding me?
Come and go online and look again, read it again, you know.
But factual no true yes yes, there you go.
Morally, what is it morally morally true?
Yeah, factually inaccurate.
There you go.
So what uh, how did you get into the role of annoying atheist?
Annoying.
And God's not dead.
Or let there be light?
Because I let there be light wasn't seen.
Super, you haven't seen.
Let there be light no, I haven't.
I'm sorry.
Shame on you.
He hasn't watched archives.
Everybody out there better see let there be light, because I directed that one.
Okay um, God's Not Dead.
It came about.
Um, the first movie I did with the same writers that wrote God's Not Dead was a movie called What If, which personally I think is a better movie and, as Pureflicks did both those movies, they just didn't do a good job or they just didn't have the money to do a good job.
Promoting that movie um, What If?
Is sort of like a reverse Hits A Wonderful Life.
I highly recommend it for people to check it out.
It's uh, John Ratzenberger plays uh, an angel comes down from heaven.
He's kind of a curmudgeon, smart ass angel to tell me that uh, i've screwed up my life and the road i'm on is not the road God intended.
He wants me to be this road.
So I have no choice but to go to that road because I just don't.
I don't have a choice.
So I got to at least go there and see what uh, I missed out on.
And um, it's a wonderful movie and that was directed by Dallas Jenkins, who's doing the chosen now.
Jerry Jenkins is his father uh, who put everything together financially.
And Dallas showed me the script and he just wanted my opinion on the script and I said, who's playing pastor Ben?
He goes.
I know.
He said, give me a couple names.
I said well, I want that role.
He goes.
Oh dude, we can't afford you because the budget was low.
It was low, everybody worked for I think we worked for a pair of sunglasses from these ones right, Maui gym, um.
So uh, I said I don't care, I want to do this role and I love it.
And that's led into the next one a couple years later, with God's Not Dead, and they said, uh, Pureflakes called me up and said, well, I don't know if you want to play his part.
You got to play an atheist.
I know guys like this, obviously College, College professors, you know, atheists.
When I say atheist college professors, I think I'm being redundant.
All you got to do is say college professors.
But, but loved it.
Loved the role.
They had no idea.
We had no idea.
We thought we had a good little movie.
They were hoping to make, they thought they'd make, they were estimating, I think, $11, $10 million or $11 million for its entire theatrical run for a small $2 million budget.
It's very, very good.
They made $11 million opening weekend.
Yeah, it's crazy.
This thing went on to make worldwide with everything.
DVDs, everything.
It made like 70-some million in theaters alone in America.
It made $140 million worldwide with everything.
Wow.
So it just exploded.
And in the history of Hollywood, it's in the top $5 for dollar return in the movie.
And people go, wait a minute, you know, they make $2 billion on Avengers.
I go, yeah, but they got $800 million to break even on Avenger movies.
So yeah, they made $1.2 billion, but they made, you know, one and a half times.
This movie got 70 times return on its money.
So yeah, then that just kind of opened the door for more.
And I wanted to do more movies like that anyway.
But I'm doing more movies now that are more in the blind side vein.
They're, you know, people of faith goes a nice movie.
Christian families, you know, the African-American kid.
And people have atheistic or agnostic viewpoints.
They'll go, yeah, it's a football movie.
What are you talking about?
Which is great because the message is still in there.
And my latest movie, Miracle in East Texas, which is supposed to come out in June, but obviously COVID shut down the world, is in that vein.
True story said in 1930, once again, with John Ratzenberger.
I'd cast John.
I directed it, started it.
Sam's in it.
My wife's in it.
Lou Gossi Jr. is in it.
Tyler Mayne, who's a WWF guy, he's also Saber Tooth and X-Men, is in it.
And it's a wonderful, I mean, we're kicking butt in the film festivals.
We want everything from Judge's favorite to best faith-based film and everything in between.
You know, best romantic comedy.
So I love the fact they can't pigeonhole it and say that's a faith-based movie.
I mean, the Kennock brothers, you know, unashamedly do just Christian movie.
I don't want to just preach to the choir.
They do great movies.
But I would do movies that reach outside the box because we're kind of called to harvest, right?
So hopefully this movie does get out there soon.
I don't know what the options are at this point other than the drive-in movie theaters, but here we are streaming.
And it's not the new normal.
Stop saying that.
Yeah.
This is not everything.
We cannot normalize it.
I don't normalize this.
Do you people want to wear a mask the rest of your lives?
I mean, give me a break.
Some people seem to really like their masks.
They feel very aesthetic.
They feel very uppity.
Oh, my God.
I'll play along.
Like, I put it on the store, but I refuse to buy like, you know, the mask that matches the outfit and all that.
I know.
It's just, there's something weird about it.
And it's just, and it's, I don't know.
There's plenty of proof that says it doesn't help either as much as people.
It's like climate change.
You got people saying it does climate change.
I mean, it goes back and forth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We talked to our doctor friend about all that recently.
It's kind of like it works if you're like a surgeon that doesn't touch your face.
Never touch your face, wash your hands.
And I go in and I'm like, rubbing my face and doing the whole thing.
So I don't know.
Yeah.
So is that kind of, is that what you see as kind of the future for Christians making movies?
It was not doing the faith-based like.
No, because I think there's a, there's a market for sure.
But I would like to do more movies that are family friendly.
I guess I get tired of the faith-based genre and stuff like that.
I mean, I want movies that will go and touch everybody in some way, make them think about stuff a little bit.
So we got, and I've got wonderful scripts.
So if anybody out there is burning a hole in their pocket, come on.
Seth, our CEO, Seth.
You know what?
We only do these, but you know, we do movies in that three to four million range.
And people go, that's a lot of money.
That's not.
Not making movies.
That's catering on Pirates of the Caribbean.
People don't realize they show those movies for $250,000, $300 million.
Then they spent another $100 million promoting them.
So we don't have that kind of promotion.
Is that my choice?
They're out of water.
Really?
Out of water.
What is the one there?
We got brisk iced tea.
Not an iced guy.
I'll have to stick with Coke, even though I'm not a Coke drinker.
Sorry.
It's all right.
We're actually moving any day now.
We're moving to a new place.
A bigger office.
We'll have a fridge.
We'll have all this stuff.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got to join us.
Where are you moving to?
Just a little ways away, but we're getting a full phone, like, little building.
Do you guys all live out in this area then?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
This is it.
But where are you from?
I'm from Oregon originally.
Oh, it's lovely up in Portland right now.
Oh, you should go for the waters.
It is.
I love the water.
Why do they let that go on?
Why are we letting these punks?
Don't you think they just feel like it makes I think they think that as long as everything's horrible feeling on the meeting on the news that that's bad for Trump?
I think they're wrong, but I think they think idiots.
But they don't want to letting be doing good right now.
What's amazing is we're letting people destroy people's businesses and attack people and hurt people and kill people, all this stuff, all to get rid of one guy, really?
I mean, it's just, it's weird.
But the Antifa punks, they've been doing this for a while up there now.
Oh, yeah.
So why do we let them do it?
Why?
What is wrong with our governments that they're not?
That's one thing is like, on one hand, I want to see the freaking SWAT team jump, come down from helicopters and just take them all out.
But then I'm like, all the cities this is happening in, the governments are super left-wing Democrat.
And it's like, I guess you kind of do the people living, the people who make those cities, are they possibly happening?
I'm sure they're not, but hopefully they'll change the way they vote at some point.
Yeah.
God.
What's happened twice now in Chicago when the mayors, when the rioters came towards her house, just like, oh, we got to shut this down.
I think it happened in Seattle too.
Yeah.
As soon as Chad started to come to her house, he's like, I don't know.
I know.
Hey, we should write a good script.
There's a good Antifa movie.
Yeah.
Would you star in our Antifa?
Wouldn't you like to?
Sure.
Wouldn't you like to find out?
I wish somebody could go in there and go to each one of these cities with these Antifa guys and get them to talk individually.
Okay, hey, do you have a job?
Seriously.
What do you do for what do you do?
What was your family life like?
No, seriously.
I'd love to find out what the average makeup is of these angry, angry people.
Elementary school teachers.
Yeah.
They're all kindergarten teachers.
It's just, it's bizarre.
It's just bizarre.
Or a lot of them probably work at like bubble tea shops.
I'm guessing.
I would look at those guys in bubble tea shops and look like the other guy's in Antifa for sure.
Now that I go in there a lot.
I'm a staunch heterosexual too.
Well, you know.
Congratulations.
That's crazy.
You married a centaur.
I did.
She came down.
Initially, she played a no, she played the golden hind, which is half deer.
I know.
She had a big hind.
No.
There was a guy that the stunt guy had to do that.
There was a guy to do that.
He had to be bent over a 90 degree angle.
So he's like in her butt the whole time.
But in mythology, she's half deer, half, half female.
The blood of the golden hind could kill a god.
So the gods feared the golden hind.
The blood of the golden hind.
We had lived a lot on Hercules.
Hemorrhoids of the gods.
And when this guy comes at the very beginning and talk about this creature, he goes, not really a creature.
It's like a deer.
And we went, a dope, a female deer.
So we threw that in there.
And every time Michael Hearst played a yellow, she'd crack up.
So we had to constantly do it over and over again.
But we came with a lot of ad-libs for that, the show, which is a lot of fun.
Can you yield disappointed for us?
Okay, here's the story about disappointment.
What's so funny about disappointed is, like I said, I had lived on the show a lot.
It was an episode.
I was playing the sovereign, who's the alter ego of Hercules from a bilateral universe.
And I ended up in Hercules' world and I look around and go, wait a minute, this isn't my world.
And I thought of Kevin Klein and A Fish Called Wanda.
If you've never seen that movie, another one you got to see.
Okay.
He says, yells disappointed three times.
John Cleese wrote it and directed it.
It's hilarious.
Jamie Lee Curtis is in it.
A fish called Wanda.
I highly recommend it.
A very fun action, comedy, comedy, comedy.
And he always yells disappointed.
So I thought of him and I said, I went, disappointed.
I just yelled it out and they kept it in there.
And it's got like 20 million hits on the internet.
Some people use it as a telephone.
Like wife's calling, disappointed.
So it's been kind of funny.
But, you know, that's what that who knows.
Who knew it would turn into something like that?
This is, you know, this is during the years of you've got mail.
So, you know, it wasn't big on Twitter or Facebook or anything.
Yeah, yeah.
That's funny.
Do you regret playing a toxically masculine character like Hercules?
Would you like to apologize?
No.
No apology.
I will not apologize.
I had a blast doing that show.
We had so much fun.
We had a great crew.
My crew went on to work.
Peter Jackson took almost all of them at that time during the 90s.
We shot from 93 to 2000.
He was right in Lord of the Rings.
And he took most of my crew.
They went into one Academy Awards, all the Weta guys that did all of our creatures.
And Nyla Dixon did our wardrobe and costume design.
And I used to say that.
I said, you know, it's so funny because we're not a network show.
We were a syndicated show.
I told the guys down in New Zealand, I said, they'll never ever look at this show.
It's fine.
They don't look at me as an actor.
I'm fine with that.
But they should have looked at them for cinematography.
They should have looked at them for wardrobe.
They should have looked at them for the stunts and stuff and all that visual effects.
And they never did.
And only because of that, it had that stigma.
And of course, I was proven right when they went on to do the movies and they all won the Academy Awards for the movie.
But, you know, that's Hollywood.
It's all political all the time.
It's all pushing this, pushing that.
And there's always money behind all the different people they want to put money behind at the time.
So I just got to play in the game.
Do you have any scenes with animals?
Scenes with fight a bear.
Sure.
No.
Never to fight a bear.
Never to fight a bear.
No, I didn't.
Hercules threw a lot of bears.
Didn't do it.
Maybe that was before The Legend continued.
When I fought stuff, it was usually fighting stuff that was CGI.
So he might have the head of the Hydra.
Okay.
Oh, yeah.
They might have the head of the Hydra.
Okay.
Then they would do the wide shot.
I could just do what I wanted to do.
There was like a kid out there just throwing punches and ducking and die.
They just let me do stuff.
And then they would put a CGI in on top of that.
Okay.
So it wasn't as difficult.
They would not.
In the fight scenes, we choreographed the fight scene, certainly.
The fight scenes were all choreographed.
And that was fun.
Every episode, the formulas have three fight scenes in every episode.
But, you know, it was exhausting, but it was fun.
People don't realize the pants I wore.
I had three layers of leather pants, three layers of leather to make these pants.
They weighed 12 pounds.
And I had to do these kicks and stuff like that.
But it was just, we had a blast, though.
And I like the fact that they put so much humor in the fights as well.
You know, I could throw a guy 100 meters on a wire rig and then I'd kick the sword up one guy's hand.
They'd do a shot of the sword going through the air.
And it's a guy's getting up after I just threw him 100 meters.
That sort of hit him in the head, knock him back in the cow pie again.
And I love that.
We had a lot of Gilligan's Island breaking the fourth wall stuff.
I love what they did with the show.
They had dramatic moments when they had good moral messages in there as well.
But it was, you know, it was Malibu Hercules, you know.
So it was fun.
I always wonder when, because there has to be certain costumes that maybe until they're on TV, they look cool, but they're a little ridiculous looking while you're on the set.
Is there everything like that?
And you're like trying to take them seriously.
You're just a professional student.
Well, the first thing I noticed when my second series was called Andromeda.
It's the first series Gene Rodberry created after Star Trek.
It wrote it back in 1969.
So when the first season of that show, we had a weapon called the Force Lance.
It was our phaser.
But it looked like a pterodactyl.
Cut it out.
It did.
It looked like a male, you know.
And we made jokes all the time.
And I said, I'm sure when they were drawing this up, it looked really cool.
But once they made it, you know.
And so one year's a joke, they gave me one that.
Hacksaw.
Oh, dear.
I know.
I worked on Veggie Tales, and they had a cookie cutter they thought was a great idea where they had Bob and Larry next to each other.
And it was just a silhouette of the two of them.
And it was the most suggestive cookie you could ever imagine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That would be.
Everybody had them hung by their desks.
Of course.
Of course.
So you're trying to act seriously and you're holding a big.
Yeah.
Well, what's weird about?
It's probably, you know, that long.
It had a holster for like a gun.
You pull it out, but it also had three different sizes on it so it could extend itself.
Turn into a fighting staff.
But, you know.
Hacksaw.
Pterodactyl.
I don't know.
It was kind of sick.
You're going to just beep it out.
I don't know.
Yeah.
We got stuff we do.
Keeping a nice, clean, Christian.
Very amazing show.
Are we getting close to subscriber portion?
How long have we been talking?
I don't know.
Time's fine.
50 minutes.
So let's do subscriber portion.
We're going to get more crazy stories.
But I wanted to mention you and your wife, Sam, have a new book called True Faith.
Yes.
Embracing Adversity to Living God's Light.
You want to talk about that?
Yeah.
You know, once again, Sam's idea, like True Strength, I didn't want to write that book in this one.
She said, let's write it together.
And, you know, more than anything, we always need hope and love and faith and redemption in life.
But more than ever, now we need it.
We see what's going on in the world.
So it's a book that just really deals with finding a place in your life that you can find happiness, find a place where your life you can find security.
And I know these are hard for people to do, but, you know, we got to find some place where it's just stop blaming everybody for your problems.
Everybody's pointing.
It's God's fault.
It's my wife's fault, my husband's fault.
It's everybody's fault.
You know, once again, look in the mirror.
You know, here we go, Michael Jackson, Q. Michael Jensen, Michael Jackson, man in the mirror.
There's your problem.
You know, do something about yourself.
As my wife always said to me, it happened.
What are you going to do about it?
And that's where true strength came from as well.
You're all going to hit a roadblock.
You just don't know when you're going to hit that roadblock.
And how do you react to that roadblock?
You just give up on life.
And a lot of people do.
I learned when I was in high school and college, I used to caddy at this private country club.
We didn't have money in my house.
My dad didn't make any money as a teacher and five kids.
But these people are wealthy people.
And I asked them all, I said, how did you become so wealthy?
And every single one of these guys for the three summers I worked out there said, oh, I failed.
And then I failed again.
And then I failed again.
And they made me learn that failure is a positive word.
And you can take positive things out of things that don't work out.
Because when I got in LA, forget it.
You're too young.
You're too old.
You're too tall.
You're too short.
Your doors are slammed all the time.
It's always some reason to get rid of you.
It's all about rejection.
And you got to find a way to fight back that.
And I got to a point where I said, you know, screw it.
They don't pick me.
It's their loss.
And that helped me a lot with my confidence.
And I was one of the lucky ones too, though.
When I got to L.A., I never had to work another job.
I worked very well, always getting gigs, doing a lot of commercial work.
So that was like a godsend that I could just focus on my craft and focus on taking acting classes instead of waiting tables or bartending or something.
So I was pretty fortunate that way.
But True Faith is really a book about getting past it all and fighting for it.
Then go to KevinSorbo.net.
That's a good place to go to get.
I got Hercules shots out there.
I got the disappointed one.
But I've got a lot of different things out there that people can get for gifts for whatever reasons.
And KevinSorbo.net's a good place to go and check that out.
You got a disappointed poster?
Is that what you're saying?
I got an 8x10.
It's an 8x10.
We'll get one for you.
We'll get one for you.
We're going to get it for the wall.
Cool.
Absolutely.
All right.
We're going to move into our subscriber portion, and Kevin's going to tell us some crazy stories.
Crazy, raunchy stories that you're saying.
You'll never hear.
And also, we're going to pitch him on some new Christian movies.
We're going to see if we can get him to sign on for our Babylon B movie.
Yeah.
Cool.
All right.
And then we're going to ask you more questions.
And whole 10 questions.
All right.
Until next time.
See you later, Freeloaders.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
And we danced, she gave me a number, and I just never called it.
You want us to pitch some Christian movies to you?
I should have seen this list.
So if there's any multi-millionaires out there, $3 million, we'll do a good movie.
Anyway, I do a lot of these when I go to Baptist church to speak.
And I say, look, I'm not Baptist, but if you feel a need to talk to me while I'm up here, give me an amen.
Who would you hang out with and have Herod?
Bring King Herod in.
Yeah.
Wow.
See what's up with that guy.
See where his mindset is.
The original Planned Parenthood.
Yeah, exactly.
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