THE CHOSEN Star Goes from Skeptic to Believer: ‘God Has Been There The Whole Time’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Elizabeth Tabish, one of the stars of THE CHOSEN, recently revealed how appearing on the hugely popular show about the life of Jesus changed her from a skeptic to a person of great faith.
Tabish plays the role of Mary Magdalene in the show, and her time on set shifted the way the actress viewed Christianity.
“I try to be very rational about things,” she started. “It’s been really hard to ignore that there’s something really special about this experience for me. I feel like I wasn’t able to — I wouldn’t have been able to connect with the Lilith portion of [Mary Magdalene] had I not gone through some painful things.
“Because of that, I’m realizing … God has been there the whole time,” Tabish continued. “There are these moments in the show where I’m actually saying that: ‘In the depths, in the heights, You are there.’ So there’s been these really sweet, sort of idiosyncratic things for me personally throughout this show that are constant reminders that God’s love is real. It’s a real thing and I’ve been slowly opening up to it.”
Tabish also spoke about the lessons she has learned while working on THE CHOSEN.
“You’re going to make mistakes,” the actress stated. “The beautiful thing about that, though, is you’re always still loved, no matter what. And the further you go into accepting that, the less painful those lessons have to be. So I feel like she’s constantly teaching me it’s about growth, it’s about continuing, it’s about being in a process instead of being perfect.”
“And what a relief that is,” Tabish concluded, “To just do your best. You don’t have to change the world, but you can change yourself.”
Movieguide® previously reported on the impact THE CHOSEN has had on its millions of viewers:
THE CHOSEN surpassed 300M views according to its online app and continues to impact people with the first-ever multi-season series about Jesus’ life and ministry.
THE CHOSEN began in December 2017, after creator and director Dallas Jenkins released a Christmas special called “The Shepherd.”
The project’s success led to a fully-funded Season 1, debuting on their app in April 2019. Since then, THE CHOSEN has reached millions of screens around the world with the message of Jesus.
After the success of Season 2 of THE CHOSEN, Dallas Jenkins and Executive Producer Derral Eves hope to continue to grow.
“We’re going to get it out to a billion people, and we won’t stop at anything until Jesus comes,” Eves told Christian Headlines. “That’s the only thing that will stop us – if Jesus comes.”
Despite its global scale, THE CHOSEN has also affected individuals with the Gospel message presented in the series.
Eves recently sat down with Movieguide® and discussed how the show’s incorporation of acting, music, and dialogue help convey God’s word to his own family.
“I think the biggest thing in life outside of Jesus Christ and God, is family for me,” Eves told Movieguide®. “And to have that stewardship over them and helping them discover who Jesus really is.”
“My wife and I have spent years reading the Scriptures with them and helping them to understand the stories,” he continued.
Eves shared that the show had a profound impact on two of his children.
“The first one was our 15 year old at the time, when he watched the show, he was just so touched, he goes, ‘Dad, I always just viewed Jesus as stoic and just distant and cold and he would come down hard on me if I sinned. But he’s just the opposite. He’s my friend. He’s one that’s gonna lift me up when I’m down,’” Eves recalled. “As we’re teaching, and as they have this misconception of who Jesus is, we get to see an authentic Jesus of how he interacts with the one. He’ll leave the 99 go to the one. And I think we hear that, but I don’t think we understand what that means.”
“[This is a] show that really showcased that, that he came and disrupted the way that the world was, and is, and forever will be, and really went and and this is what I love, more than anything else,” he added. “I love that they’re able to experience this, but it leads them back to the Bible, of really digging deep in what’s being done.”
