Neal McDonough Considered Politics Before Acting Career
By Movieguide® Contributor
At one point, THE SHIFT actor Neal McDonough thought about pursuing a career in politics but soon realized that wasn’t where God was leading him.
“When I was 16 years old and ever since then I’ve always had this really great relationship with God,” he said on Mike Rowe’s podcast. “The kind of thing that always stuck in my head was that we’re all God’s kids, and if we’re all God’s kids, that makes us all brothers and sisters, and if we’re all brothers and sisters, shouldn’t we be rooting for each other a lot more than taking each other down?”
“It was that seismic shift in the way I thought about things when I was 16 years old that kind of catapulted me into, ‘Oh, I can go on stage and act on stage and really enjoy this.’ People are listening to what I have to say,” he continued.
McDonough pursued politics when he was in high school, serving as his class president. “I thought maybe I go to the career politics,” he recalled, but God had other plans.
“It all just kind of funneled in from baseball, hockey and theater,” McDonough said. “Then theater just overtook it, and then all of a sudden, movies came.”
McDonough has starred in several major movies and TV shows including YELLOWSTONE, SUITS, THE SHIFT, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, BAND OF BROTHERS and more.
In the upcoming movie HOMESTEAD, he plays the “affluent homesteader, Ian Ross.
Per Daily Wire, “McDonough famously plays villains on the big and small screen, most notably in the hit Paramount+ series YELLOWSTONE. But in this thriller he takes on the ‘good guy’ role of Ross who’s described as a ‘homesteader living in the Rockies who believes he’s prepared for every eventuality — that is until he comes face-to-face with the moral dilemmas presented by civil unrest at his own doorstop.'”
“To me, Ian is all of us,” McDonough said about his role. “Just a man trying to do right by his conscience — the commitments he’s made to his wife and family, to his God, and to his fellow man.”
He added: “He doesn’t always get it right. And really none of us do, but for the grace of God.”
Movieguide® previously reported on McDonough’s faith:
The actor also talked about his long and successful career in Hollywood, as well as all the happiness he has found in his life.
“God has given me so much and has blessed me with so much that it’s nice to play characters like this that take me out of me for a moment and [I] realize, ‘Holy cow. I’m so fortunate to be the person that I am,’” McDonough shared. “And surrounded by the people that God has surrounded me with.”
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