The Actor

Sometimes it may only take a few encounters with another person to get a working knowledge about them: casual initial get-togethers, frequent run-ins in intersecting social circles, and occasional (literal) face time in front of (or beside) each other.

In the last few months, our local church has had the privilege of personally getting acquainted with one of the country's more formidable and recognizable thespians. He has been in show business since his teens, has had a steady stream of acting gigs, and, by some twist of fate, has ended up on the shores of our island... and the doorstep of our congregation.

Although in the past we have had people from all walks of life with varying degrees of notoriety and controversy come into the four walls of our building and (somehow, over time) into the corners of our hearts, this man's entry into our spiritual family was a bit more dramatic, metaphorically speaking: his big reputation has obviously preceded him (being a famous person and all) and his frequent appearance on network news in the last few years for varying levels of bad behavior did little to assuage the public image and opinion the country has come to form about and expect from him.

His arrival in our church did not only stir up the star-struck, celebrity buffs from our ranks, but also -- and more importantly -- the sincerely sympathetic and genuinely concerned among us.

Over the course of four months of finally coming to terms with the fact that there was an "artista" (celebrity) in the midst of us, I grew more curious about this man whom I have heard very little about (most of the information I have garnered about him came from the news headlines bearing his name) and whose film and television career I knew very little of (I have never even seen any of his movies; I have, however, seen one of his shows on television from when he was still starting out in the industry).

I remember during his first Sunday in the church, back when we still had a brief welcome service for first timers and visitors, I had asked God for insights about this actor so that in the event that I end up being the one to pray over him and lay hands on him, I would then be prepared. I got excited about the thought of speaking to and praying for him that when it didn't actually happen, I felt mildly disappointed. So, I kept the prayer and the spiritual insight to myself.

In the ensuing months, when many of our church people have already mustered the courage to come up to him and ask for a photo opportunity, I kept fighting the urge to do the same. "I didn't want to treat him like a photo booth," was my frequent thought. Although, on the other hand, I also thought that having been a celebrity for most of his life, these selfie requests would have perhaps become sort of regular occurrences in his life, and that he'd probably gotten used to it by now.

Still, I held my horses down, feeling it would be inappropriate to go selfieing (coined it myself) with the actor because (a) we were in church, (b) it felt very impersonal to me, and (c) I believed that if I were meant to form a friendship with this thesp, God would open that door.

And open that door God did!

On his fifth month of having been integrated into our parcel of the body of Christ, it came to my attention that he was looking to submit himself for water baptism...and I'm the pastor in charge of water baptism! I just love how God works these things out: granting what your heart desires, no matter how cheesy or seemingly trivial they are.

So, the actor submits himself to be water baptized. On our way to the venue, we got to talk for a considerable amount of time. He briefly spoke about how he gradually became aware of how he was perceived by the general public, especially in light of his increased notoriety in recent years; how growing up in the entertainment industry opened up a lot of fantastic and horrific opportunities for him; how he desired to shed his pachydermal old self to trade it for a more sensitive and philanthropic persona.

I was moved with a deeper compassion for him.

The evening of that same day, I googled his name and found myself reading his general biography on Wikipedia. My curiosity about his life needed to be quelled. As I perused his personal and professional history, it wasn't his filmography that caught my attention -- as copious as it was. It wasn't even his accolades that captured my imagination -- though he has been recognized as one of the best actors of his generation. Nope. None of these gained special notice from me.

My heart broke and sank when I read the list of misdemeanors and misbehavior, felonies and foibles, altercations and allegations, delinquencies and dalliances, and the controversies and confessions that had plagued and weighed down his life and his career. This guy's been through a lot... to say the very least. What must it have been like for him going through all of this? I guess I'll never know. But for sure it didn't come without costs. It certainly didn't come without scars.

As if these weren't enough to get me to feel more sympathy for him, I also had to read about some of the things he had said on the record and on print: slurs against 'enemies'; taunts to those who would oppose him; and oodles of crassness in a book that seemed to have brought out the beast in him.

Upon my next meeting with the actor in church, I told him I had stalked him on the Internet and that I read about his life and career. I also told him what was on my mind after reading all of it: "Bro, you have been through a lot!" I said it to him in a non-condescending, non-judgmental way that hopefully conveyed concern and compassion for this fledgling follower of Jesus.

Over a month after this, he and I were able to sit down together for lunch, with his surrogate father and one of our other pastors from church. Here, another layer of the actor's life was peeled away as he and his 'dad' shared more of his previous personal and professional experiences, which had my ears glued to their words, and my eyes fixed on their faces.

I was eventually encouraged as I heard about how my thespian friend slowly found his way out of the carnage of his recent lifestyle, shed little by little the baggage of his slurred former self, and intentionally threw out the toxic garbage that had so heavily influenced him in the past, which also became the basis for the reputation that surrounded him, and fodder for people's perception about him.

Truly, there is more to a man than meets the eye -- or, in his case, more than his notoriety could ever communicate. Media frequently paints the actor as the bad boy (or at least one of the many) in the nation's entertainment industry, and rightly so. But if one took time to hear him out, listen to his life story, learn about the factors that led him to this point of his journey, then one would realize that underneath the bravado and the belligerence lies a man imbued by God with supernatural bravery, a veiled but present leadership capacity, a great potential to be a peacemaker instead of a peace breaker, and a person with a tender and grateful heart.

He has been an actor for most of his life, yes. But now I believe he has entered into a season where masks are no longer necessary; where pretending to be someone else is no longer a needed currency; where his target audience has been narrowed down to just One; where all of this guy's slurs have been rendered null and void by the power of his new Director and the intentionality of his new direction.