Kevin Sorbo - Hollywood’s Rebel: A Candid Journey of Faith and Film from Hercules to Reagan

Show Notes and Transcript

We are honoured to welcome Kevin Sorbo to Hearts of Oak. 
He is known for his roles in Hollywood, and he joins us to discuss two new, 'must see' Christian based films that are coming in August, Firing Squad and Reagan, and his career, highlighting his faith as a driving force. 
Kevin shares insights into overcoming challenges with faith and family support, his stance on conservative beliefs and his production company Sorbo Studios for family-friendly films are also discussed. He expresses criticism towards COVID-19 control measures and social media censorship. 
His dedication to faith-based films, such as 'God's Not Dead,' and advocacy for upholding beliefs in the industry are emphasized. 
The conversation also touches on societal and political topics like cancel culture, education, and climate change, promoting balanced perspectives. 
Kevin's future projects, interactions with figures like Donald Trump, and his endeavours in promoting authentic storytelling and historical accuracy are explored. 
This podcast encourages informed citizen participation in shaping the future and covers various personal anecdotes and societal issues.

REAGAN in theaters nationwide August 30   reaganmovie.com
Starring
Dennis Quaid, Kevin Sorbo, Jon Voight, Penelope Ann Miller, Mena Suvari and Lesley-Anne Down 

THE FIRING SQUAD In theaters nationwide August 2  firingsquadfilm.com
Starring 
James Barrington, Kevin Sorbo and Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Kevin David Sorbo was born in Mound, Minnesota, on September 24, 1958, At the end of 1986, he settled in Los Angeles. Kevin began to make guest appearances on such popular shows as Murder, She Wrote (1984). Kevin was a natural for the title role in what would become his signature series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995). Kevin became internationally famous, and he learned the craft of film-making well enough to direct and co-write some of the episodes. Kevin even studied martial arts in order to do many of his own stunts. In real life, Kevin’s heart is as big as Hercules’– he leads “A World Fit for Kids!” as the chair and spokesperson. Kevin devotes much of his time to “A World Fit For Kids!” which is a successful mentoring model that trains inner-city teens to use school, fitness, sports and positive role models for themselves, and then become the coaches and mentors for younger children. In 1998, Kevin married lovely actress Sam Sorbo, best known for her dual role on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995) as Serena/the Golden Hind

Connect with Kevin and Sorbo Films...
X/TWITTER             x.com/ksorbs
WEBSITE                 sorbostudios.com/
INSTAGRAM            instagram.com/ksorbo

Interview recorded  19.6.24

Connect with Hearts of Oak...
X/TWITTER        x.com/HeartsofOakUK
WEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/
PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/
SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/
SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/

*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.

Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X/Twitter x.com/TheBoschFawstin

TRANSCRIPT

(Hearts of Oak)

I'm delighted to have Kevin Sorbo with us today. Kevin, thank you so much for your time.

(Kevin Sorbo)

My pleasure.

Good to be here, sir.

Great to have you.

And obviously people can follow you @KSorbs on Twitter or X, whatever you want to call it.

And it's always fascinating looking into the background of guests.

And I had no idea you'd starred in over 150 commercials.

I kind of see you as in the movie sector, in Hollywood. but 150 commercials and then over 100 films and TV shows and a voiceover in obviously many video games.

And of course, you first shot the stardom back in the 90s in Hercules.

And more later, you've, I guess, become known as a Christian in Hollywood for your role in God's Not Dead.

And then we'll get on to the latest one, the latest two coming up, actually, Regan film where you play president Regan's pastor and the firing squad which I saw you discussing the firing squad and that intrigued me, but I actually never saw Hercules it wasn't something I actually saw when was younger.

It's more your faith your Christian faith and how that's engaged with with the whole Hollywood industry but I mean that happened as a break art rule.

You weren't a kid, you were a bit older.

I'm wondering how you were ready for that fame.

What was that like?

Fame with Faith-Based Movies or Hercules?

No, back in Hercules, because that was the breakout. So what was the fame like?

Yeah, you know, initially it was going to be five two-hour movies, and it was part of a thing called the Action Pack Wheel at Universal Studios.

And it was Hercules, it was Tech Wars, which Shatner was producing and directing on. It was Vanishing Sun, which is sort of a Kung Fu thing.

They had BJ and the Bear, which was a big movie or a TV series at one time.

They're going to make movies out of it.

And there was one other thing.

I can't remember what it was.

But anyway, that's what it's going to be, five two-hour movies down in New Zealand.

It was fantastic to be down there.

Anthony Quinn played Zeus.

So, I got a whole year working with, you know, Anthony Quinn from the golden age of Hollywood. You know, the guy was nominated six times for Oscars, won twice.

And then halfway through the third movie, I get a call from my manager and said, Universal Studios loves what they see.

They want to try to make it a TV series.

Well, by season three, we were in 176 countries and became the most watched TV show in the world, which is crazy.

And it ran for seven years.

It's still out there in like 50 countries even to this day. I still get fan mail coming in through Sorbo Studios.

That's always a good place to go, sorbostudios.com.

But after that, I went straight into Andromeda and being a huge fan of the original Star Trek series through reruns.

When Majel Roddenberry, Gene's widow called me up and said, you know, Gene wrote this show back in 1969.

And if he were still around today, I think he'd be honored to have you as the first captain he ever created after Captain Kirk.

So, I had five years on that show, shooting in Vancouver, Canada.

So, I was pretty much out of America from 1993 till 2005, living in either New Zealand or Canada.

And then I just started doing a bunch of independent movies.

And that's kind of how the road sort of brought to where I am today.

But it was sort of forced on me in a way because Hollywood, my manager and agent of decades, both said they couldn't work with me anymore about 10, 11 years ago because of what I was posting on the Internet.

I said, oh, you mean the truth?

was posting the truth on the Internet. God forbid you do that in today's world, apparently.

So, I formed Sorbo Studios and said, I'm going to do movies that Hollywood used to do.

They don't necessarily have to be faith movies, but just family-friendly and movies that have a good message instead of this woke crap that Hollywood wants to keep forcing down our throats.

So, Hollywood booted me out. Apparently being a conservative is a horrible thing, but being a Christian in Hollywood is even worse.

I'd be better off being a paedophile Islamic radical terrorist, and I'd probably get an Oscar for playing that in a movie.

That does tick a few boxes, I understand.

You had a health crisis back whenever you were filming Hercules.

You had multiple strokes.

What was that like?

Because you obviously fought through that.

You've come through stronger than ever.

But what was that like at the time?

Because you don't know what's happening to yourself if that is happening, that health issue.

No, no, look, I'm everything opposite of what stroke victims have.

They're overweight, alcohol, high blood pressure, All kinds of different things everything I was opposite of that.

I was pretty ripped up on her Achilles ears I was in great shape, but I had an aneurysm way up here in my my left sub-clavicle.

I didn't know about I always had weird things sort of feeling in the arm I couldn't figure what's going on, but ultimately that didn't being the problem when it opened up It sent hundreds of clots in tomorrow, but unfortunately a series of four clots from my brain and obviously very lucky I wasn't killed or paralyzed rest of my life, but it took me four months to really learn how to walk and balance again.

I got my speech back fairly quickly, thank God.

I still have a 10% loss of vision in both eyes, in the upper right quadrants of both eyes. So, yeah, it was brutal.

It sucked, you know, because my career was really taken off. I just done my first big-budget movie called Call the Conqueror, which was the prequel to Conan the Barbarian.

And we shot that for like $40 million over in Eastern Europe.

So, yeah, it was a little frustrating. that this was taking place.

And it obviously hurt me within the Hollywood world in terms of doing movies anymore, but they kept the Hercules going.

I went from a 15, 16 hour day to about a three hour day just to try to keep the show going in any kind of way.

But I appreciate that because it was, to me, it motivated me and gave me some light at the end of this really long, dark tunnel.

I wrote a book.

It's called True Strength.

People can pick up a copy.

It did very well in its first printing.

And my wife and I did a follow-up book called True Faith.

And all of a sudden, I got started doing all these speaking events, which I thought I'd never be doing.

I do about 12 to 15 speaking events a year now for the last 12 years.

I've already done five this year.

I've got another seven lined up.

So, it's sort of a sideline job for me that I never thought I'd be doing.

It's been quite interesting.

But the book is very motivational for people to stop blaming the world for your problems.

God never promises an easy life.

We'll always have obstacles.

How do you get past those obstacles?

The book has a lot of humor in it, it's autobiographical, and it's just, I think it's a good ride.

It surprised me how well it went over the people.

Obviously, you had two focals for you that helped you through that.

You had, I think you were just a newly engaged at that time.

I was.

But you had, and I've met Sam numerous times, and she has a strong character.

And obviously, you need that whenever you're going through that.

But then your faith.

I mean, tell us about kind of those two and how they work together to pull you through that difficult situation.

Well, I think I went through what most people go through and they have something like that happen to them, because I think more than the physical aspect of it, the psychological aspect was huge for me because everything was cruising pretty well for me.

And I was starting to break in to be the next big action hero guy for Universal Studios, sort of replacing Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And to have that happen to me, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I went through that, you know, God, why me, you know, sort of thing.

But, you know, the faith was there.

I mean, I never stopped believing.

I never stopped, you know, questioning what happened to me.

Sam was tough.

She's a top Pittsburgh, New York, New York gal.

And every time I got down, she said, Kevin, it happened.

What are you going to do about it?

You know, so it was like, yeah, you know, stop blaming the world for your problems.

The reality is look in the mirror.

That's where you got to start.

And I kept saying to myself every day, I'm getting better.

I'm getting stronger every day.

I kept saying to myself and I pushed through it.

The first first two years really did suck.

I'll be honest about it.

I always said I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

And I go, I don't know, I'd give it to the Taliban.

They can have it.

But yeah it's like I just...

The third year sort of started really some good things started happening I started getting some good hope and a lot it just really sort of the, recovery accelerated I still have side effects that I know like I said the blind I have spot and have each I'll be playing ping pong with my kids and sometimes the ball just disappears so that you know quarter of a second.

So, I use that as an excuse so I didn't return the ball, but I still have balance issues that most people wouldn't be able to see because I still work out every day.

I do cardio every day. I lift every day. Not like I did in Hercules, but I still work out every single day.

I've already got my work on this morning before talking to you.

And yeah, so to me, it's like you just got to fight on.

ad things happen.

That's the way life is.

But I looked at it as a positive instead of a negative to push beyond and make myself better.

I think the only other concerted Christian involved in Hollywood.

I've ever sat on and talked to is Dwight Schultz.

And he told me about his struggles as a Christian supporting Reagan, specifically that story and how he was kind of ostracized soon after.

And you've talked about your faith and being cancelled because of that.

Tell us more about that and why you choose God over career.

Career because for some people that could be a difficult choice.

Oh, no question.

Look every movie I've been doing so I do about four or five movies independent movies a year.

I've already shot two this year I got three more lined up and every movie I've been doing like I said about six last six seven years I I'll get another actor maybe, I'll get a director, I'll get a lighting person, I'll get a makeup, whatever they come up to me privately and say hey they look around like we're doing a drug deal.

I say, hey, thanks for being a voice for us.

And I'm going, you know, be a voice for yourself.

People, but fear is an amazing weapon, you know, and every government in every country used it to control their lives during COVID, right?

Every government used fear to control their lives.

And I got taken, I lost 4 million followers on Facebook because I was posting the truth about COVID.

I was posting what doctors in Europe were saying or doctors in other countries, really just saying, look what they're saying.

Why can't we look at both sides of this?

Why is ivermectin bad for you?

Everything that I posted that they called misinformation or conspiracy theories, of course they all came true. And where is that Wussy Zuckerberg and my 4 million followers again?

You know, these guys, they're just, they use it to control our lives.

And there's so many people, I mean, I travel a lot and I still see that 1% still wearing masks. So they wear their liberal banner on their sleeve.

And I want to stop them and not laugh at it, but I want to say, okay, you see 99% of the people around here not wearing masks.

What goes through your brain when you're still covering your face?

I mean, I want to find out that answer.

I really do, because it's just incredible that the fear factor has been controlling so much of everything in the world.

Now, you saw what New Zealand did, their prime minister.

You saw what they did in Australia.

It was bad enough here in America.

We got the heck out of Dodge.

We left we left California about a year and a half before this whole thing even started.

We've been in Florida now for five and a half years and we barely wore masks here.

The only time I really wore a mask in Florida is when I went to the airport and I'd have to be 10 people coming up to me that worked at the airport to say, please put your mask on before I finally did it.

And then when I got on airplanes, I would have a bag of beef jerky and take it down and I'd eat for two hours.

So, I found ways to get around this stupid thing.

And now we realize even Fauci came out and said the six foot thing was made up.

We all knew that. And the masking didn't do anything.

And we all knew that.

But guys like Fauci and Bill Gates should be in prison for what they've done to the world because we're still seeing those shots played out what they're doing to people's lives every single day, what it's doing.

Anyway it's horrific what they did and they don't care they did it on purpose.

Yeah, it's never ending and I find whenever I look at someone wearing a mask as they're walking down the footpath or sidewalk for you my kids say: no, no, no, just move on move on, don't get involved.

You only get involved I get that.

Yeah, I do, I want to say something but I just oh my god you know what let them live in their in let them live in their fear what a horrible way to go through life every single day and ahh.

But the world has changed forever because of it now.

Oh, completely. Let me jump forward to you doing God's Not Dead in 2020, 2014 and literally that newsboy song is just it's fixed in my head I think everyone knows that song god's not dead.

You in that were a professor and this whole with the students standing up for their faith and whether they will stand up or bend over.

And a lot of maybe individuals, especially younger people in the education system, think, actually, it's easier.

I'm here to get an education.

My faith can be sidelined. But that was a hugely successful film on a low budget.

Big turnover coming in what was that kind of seemed to be a turning point for you or give you the I guess the ability to stand up and say actually this has given me the options now of doing more wholesome Christian-based films.

I mean tell us about that the film and then actually being a success and being told actually this won't work and yet it actually turning out very well yeah well.

I'm gonna go back to even a bit earlier with that I've been a Christian my whole life I've been a conservative my whole life first time I could vote, it was 1980.

I was old enough to vote.

I voted for Ronald Reagan, but that's another story.

But I got to say in Hercules, even though it was a mythological show, it wasn't biblical in any way.

The writers, which I had nothing to do with it.

Sure, I made my calls as, hey, can we try this?

Can we do that?

So, yeah, but they even wrote moral messages within Hercules.

Hercules never looked for fights.

I'll try to talk people out of it. We put a lot of humor in it because we needed to, because it'd be a show, otherwise it'd be easy to make fun of it.

So, we really like, wink, wink, let the audience in and have a good time.

But they put a lot of moral messages in there.

I like that.

So, if I go back a couple years before I did God's Not Dead, I did a movie called What If.

I've shot about 90 movies.

And I would put What If in my top three.

And What If was written by the same guys who did God's Not Dead.

In my book, What If is a much better movie.

And God's Not Dead is a very good movie.

But it shows you the independent world and how we got to get lucky.

We need word of mouth.

You know, when you're shooting budgets of two, three million dollar movies, that's catering budget in Pirates of the Caribbean.

They have three hundred million dollar budgets, a hundred million dollar advertising budget. And we got to compete against that.

So, when when I did “What If” and that the reason that even happened, the guy who gave me the script to read is a good friend of mine, Dallas Jenkins.

Well, Dallas now is huge with The Chosen.

And Dallas Jenkins is the son of Jerry Jenkins, who was the co-author with Tim LaHaye for the “Left Behind” books that were huge back in the 90s and my latest movie last year, I had two movies that I directed last year, one was called Left Behind Rise of the Antichrist.

So, I knew that that was the kind of movies I wanted to do when I did What If?

So, that was through Pure Flix, Pure Flix came to me two years later and said: hey we got this other movie and, don't know if you're interested.

You got to play a pretty bad guy.

I always joked I played an atheist college professor, which is redundant.

All you have to do is say college professor and you got that covered already.

But I read the script and I said, yeah, I want to play this.

I know people like this.

But what I liked about that story, even though I was a bit of a jerk, there's redemption.

And I like movies that have redemption at it.

They say, look, no matter how bad your life is, how bad things are going for you, there's still a chance in your life to become a good person.

And that drew me to that story.

And that little $2 million movie, talk about word of mouth. That thing made almost $70 million just in U.S. box office alone.

It made $140 million worldwide with streaming and DVD sales and merchandise and everything.

So, that movie was just crazy. And to me, and from there, I did Let There Be Light that Sam wrote and I directed.

Miracle in East Texas. Left Behind Rise of the Antichrist.

My gosh, Abel's Field.

I mean, I've done a lot of movies in that vein, but they don't all have to be, like I said, faith-based.

I mean, I think every movie is a faith-based movie.

If you're an atheist, pretty strong faith to believe in absolutely nothing.

Kind of sad way to go through life in a way, but I think I just want to do movies that are more of a positive message instead of a negative one, and that's what I've been doing ever since.

No, with my friends who are atheists, I always say I could never have your faith to believe in nothing and look at the complexity of the universe.

It's an impossible end to looking at the world.

So, yes, I agree.

Sorbo Studios, how did that come about?

Because it's probably easier just to be in the industry, to get paid as an actor, to actually set out and start that yourself.

Yourself is is probably it's quite a thing because you're going against you're providing something different and you're going against the grain.

How did that start and tell us a little bit about that?

Well, it really came off when Hollywood gave me the boot, because I still love the industry.

I love the creative process, I love being on the set, I love directing.

I started directing back my hierarchy of these years.

So, Sam and i talked about it I said let's form Sorbo studios.

We're very fortunate that we do get funded every so often, but a lot of the movies that come my way are from other independent producers and movie makers.

They look, I've got this role.

We are funded.

We'd love you to play in this role.

So, in fact, the three movies I'm filming later this year are all coming in from different indie producers.

So, every time I've raised money for my own movies, when I send my own scripts that came to me that people want me to be the production house of it, it's always been a God thing.

And I've got a very important meeting this weekend.

I got a gentleman flying in from Atlanta to meet with me here at my house.

And they've already offered us a three-year picture deal that if it does come true, this will be a godsend.

So, I feel so highly confident about this, because I know the guy's real, because I know a couple of the people behind him.

And if this does happen, we'll know by Saturday night for sure.

And that'll fund three of my movies for the next three years.

So, it's nine movie package.

And so Sam and I are freaking out because we've got amazing scripts that are in that $3 million to $5 million range.

And that to me is, look, I get stopped every day, whether it's at the grocery store, whether it's at the airport, the lobby of a hotel, and people say: "we love what you're doing."

We know that you got kicked out of Hollywood.

We know that you get attacked.

But we know if we see a Kevin Sorbo name on a movie, it's a movie I can bring my family to.

So that to me is high praise.

And, yeah, I could have kissed butt in Hollywood and kept my mouth shut, but I don't care.

I don't like the road they're going down.

I don't like the stuff they're putting out there.

I don't understand this woke agenda, this cancel culture world.

We've created this massive divide here in the world, not only in America, but around the world.

And we got so much anger and hate coming out, especially from the left.

I mean, I don't know how they live their lives like that.

They hate themselves for kind of, you look at Antifa, they cover their faces.

They're like terrorists.

I call them just a bunch of cowards.

They feel brave when they got another hundred of them with them.

But I would love to do a documentary on their lifestyle.

I would love to get them unmasked and talk about their lives and I bet there's a common denominator with each one of them and I got a feeling that that common denominator is not a very happy life growing up and leading into where they are now as adults.

Well, I was just on The Legal Entity today about doing some work on a similar organization we have here, the most art-spoken Antifa-like.

So, it definitely has to be done. But you're, I mean, Chris, you kind of look around, especially when you have kids, and you see what they're watching.

And you think, actually, it wasn't like this in my day.

You know, 12 meant something.

Now, whoa, what's that doing?

And it's the difficulty of parents allowing their children to consume media.

And parents sometimes feel powerless.

I mean, as a Christian parent, then, you want this to happen because you're a parent, because you're a Christian.

But also you want to make a difference in the industry.

Tell us about the options there are for parents who are concerned about what their kids are watching and consuming.

[Well, as you know my wife's a big home-school advocate and I know she told you you should be homeschooling as well.

I know

But you know, it's to us it's I think one of the blessings of Covid is that two million more families are now home-schooling, because they woke up and looked to see my god look at the school boards, look at our education system.

We all knew new American education has been falling down.

It's been falling since the 1960s.

It's just accelerated on itself since then.

We took the Bible out of school in 1964.

Look where we are now.

I think most of the kids, adults 30 years old and younger down to grade school level, have just been indoctrinated by our school system.

We're rewriting history, or they are rewriting history, and we're allowing it. We're tearing down statues of our forefathers.

I mean, I look at this and go, every country has good and bad history.

Every country does.

And to sit there and not, this is where history repeats itself when you forget it, right?

We're not teaching history in school anymore.

We don't teach civics here in America anymore, because we don't want children to learn earlier that it's we the people. And it's not we the people anymore.

Our government thinks they're God.

That's the thing.

They don't believe in God.

They think they're God.

One of the first things they did when COVID hit is what?

Shut down the churches.

Church God is not essential.

But liquor stores and strip clubs they left open they closed down all these little stores that you know, five generations little grocery stores in some corner of some big city close it down, but keep Costco open, keep target open, keep all these other major...

What's going on?

It's all about money, it's all about power, it's all about control.

We got Chinese buying up hundreds of acres of our farmland.

We've got Bill Gates doing the same thing, because they want us all to eat bugs now because occasionally, apparently farting cows are destroying the atmosphere.

I mean, don't get me going on climate change.

Yes, climate does change.

It's called seasons. I

t's called weather.

Don't get me going on this crap.

I can bring in, for every scientist they bring in saying the world's coming in because of climate, I can bring in another scientist and say the totally opposite thing.

But we don't ever let the other side speak up.

I did a documentary called Climate Hustle 2, and they won't even let it show on Amazon anymore.

It's just it's so silly and so petty but it's all about money.

That's why you can't talk about these things on the networks or even on cable, because who owns all that?

Oh, Pfizer does there's a Pfizer commercial and every every cable in television show all the time.

It's just it's it's crazy what we're doing and people are sheep in this country, we need to wake the sheep up somehow.

The lions better wake up to and.

A hundred percent.

And you don't hold back. I mean, I see you don't hold back, but when I follow you on Twitter, you speak your mind.

My Twitter account's funny.

Go to @KSorbs Follow me on Twitter.

I know, but tell me.

You saw my one.

You saw the one I said, you want to get rid of COVID.

Tell the Clintons COVID's got something on them.

It's so good, but you don't, I mean you get people in the in the public eye maybe hold back and decide actually my career and this may affect it, you don't give a damn and you really want to speak your mind.

I mean did you not make a kind of balance a judgment call on actually I've got a career should I speak my mind?

How does that fit together because you speak truth and you don't hold back.

Well, I didn't even think about it to be honest with you.

I remember years ago, I was at I was at a, it was like 2008 or nine.

And I was at a, I was at the Emmy Awards and with the Governor's Ball afterwards, we're heading to the ball.

And Tom Selleck walked up to me, who's a conservative and he's not just as vocal as I am.

And he told me I better tone down my rhetoric.

And I went, this is 2008.

I said, what do you mean tone down my rhetoric?

I didn't think, you know, I didn't think Barbara Walters like 10 feet in front of me, you know.

What am I doing that's so wrong?

I didn't quite get it.

And my wife kept warning me, Sam kept saying, they're gonna blacklist you, Kevin.

I said, but I'm not saying anything horrible.

I'm just saying, hey, isn't this great Ronald Reagan quote, what he said about abortion when he said, I've noticed everyone who's for abortion has already been born.

I think that's an awesome quote for that.

And all of a sudden that was negative stuff. I said, this is so weird.

You know, Peter I want to meet these people.

I need to meet these people that cancel you, cancel me, they need to come talk to us, because obviously they have led perfect sin-free lives and they need to really show us how to be people that are just as forgiving as they are and if people cannot detect the amount of sarcasm dripping out of my mouth right now then, I apologize.

Sarcasm doesn't always come over online, I get that I have to explain.

I want to touch on the two films you have coming up.

You've got Reagan on August the 30th, you've also got firing squad August the 2nd; two very different films, but Reagan is I mean I has there been film really done on Reagan?

I mean, I've looked and I don't see that.

So actually, this really did catch my eye.

Tell me how that came about?

And I think your Reagan's pastor, Dennis Quaid, is in it.

Tell us a bit about the film?

Well, it came about, there have been Reagan miniseries, documentaries and stuff on him, but they've never done a full-scale movie like Oliver Stone did for JFK back in the day.

And that's what this movie does.

This really covers is his entire life.

And Dennis Quaid and I worked together before.

We did a wonderful movie called Soul Surfer, the life of Bethany Hamilton, the little 13 year old girl who lost her arm in a tiger shark attack.

And Sean McNamara, who directed us in that, directed this movie as well.

And Howie Klosner, who was a good friend of mine, he wrote the Reagan movie as well as writing Soul Surfer.

And he just wrote the script off a book that I'm gonna be directing and starring in, hopefully early next year as well, called Four Seasons.

It's a wonderful, touching, touching true story.

You know, they came to me with it.

I played the pastor when he was younger.

So, it's David Henry, plays the younger Reagan.

o, I'm in like the first part of the movie. Dennis did a great job.

I've only seen bits and pieces of it.

I've been invited to a couple of the screenings of it.

But every time they've invited me, I've been off filming somewhere.

So, the timing's always been bad.

So, I'm looking forward to it.

Coming out August 30th when it comes out in theaters.

I'm going to go see it with everybody else.

I like being in a theater with those kind of movies, those big epic movies.

So, I'm looking forward to that.

It just came about by that reason and that reason only.

They called me up and said, hey, we got this role.

I read it.

And I said, heck, yeah, anything to do with Reagan, I'm going to be part of it. So I'm looking forward to it.

Look, Reagan was a brilliant guy.

Yeah, he was an actor. But he was always a politician.

He was very smart.

He used to be a sports broadcaster back in the day.

He became the SAG president, the Screen Actors Guild president, before he became governor of California.

And I just remember seeing the stuff he says.

I challenge anybody to go online, look at Ronald Reagan's speeches, and tell me if he speaks better than Joe Biden or Joe Biden speaks better than Ronald Reagan.

I mean, where we are right now, it's just, it's a comic book and it's just, but you know, we're coming up with another big election here.

And I just think if you cannot have, you'll, we'll, we'll never have honest.

Voting with mail-in votes.

It's impossible.

And I'm not just saying the left only, both sides can cheat.

Who's going to cheat better?

Because it's insane what we're doing right now.

Now, to me, it's like you vote on the day of the election.

I say make the election day a holiday.

Go and vote.

And you get one vote and show your bloody ID.

There's nothing racist about showing an ID.

It's so immature you say that.

So, you're saying, oh, so a black person is too stupid to be able to get an ID.

So, when they travel, every time I travel, there's any African-Americans in front of me.

They show IDs.

I feel like saying, was it difficult for you to get the ID?

So, it's just silly.

The reasons they come up with.

And Biden, Uncle Joe, has let 15 million people across our border.

You wait.

We've already had all kinds of repercussions of the crime.

You wait and see what happens with the amount of terrorists we've let into America.

You think 9-11 was bad?

It's going to be a massive 9-11 on scale in 30 cities on the same day in the next couple of years unless we do something about it.

And I honestly believe that.

I mean, Trump, I mean, I've had the privilege of seeing Trump speak three times and meeting him. And you watch a Trump rally and it's something to behold.

He's great.

We went to his birthday.

His birthday party.

We had 6,000 people.

The room was packed for his birthday.

And he was born on Flag Day here in America, which I find quite interesting.

It's so good.

But he connects with people like no other.

And when you kind of see him speak, it kind of is that Reagan-esque.

Because Reagan wasn't in politics.

Can I tell you something to make people angry?

That's me golfing with him right there.

That's to give me a few more haters

I love that.

The guy is a really nice guy.

I've known him for almost 20 years now.

We met back in 2005.

And I'll tell you something.

He is so nice to people.

They've spent the last nine years trying to find dirt on him.

You know, they are slowly finding, okay, he had affairs.

So did Clinton.

So did everybody.

There's hush money everywhere around.

I don't advocate that, but to find stuff on his kids, they can't find nothing on his kids.

He's a great father.

We golf together, and we go out there.

He thanks everybody on the course for being there. He walks up, gets out of his golf cart, shakes everybody's hands.

He's very nice.

He's got a sharp, sharp memory.

And the only thing I want them to do when they have these debates coming up is shut the hell up.

Let Biden talk.

Let him just talk.

Don't do what you did last time and cut him off every half a sentence.

Let the guy talk and let America know.

Look, I think there should be a drug test after the debates too, because all they're going to do is jack him up with B12 and whatever.

They're going to put a human growth cell.

I don't know.

They'll do anything to make Biden coherent for about an hour.

They've done that every time.

We've seen enough on the news how he looks.

And it's kind of, to me, it's sad.

To me, it's like elderly abuse at this point.

How does that, because, yeah, they need to sell that stuff, whatever it is they put them with, that actually is gold dust.

It does seem to work for a time and then it malfunctions.

And we see that over here.

But it's the right, because we've seen a rise of opposition towards mass immigration, especially in the whole LGBT agenda across Europe and the European Parliamentary elections.

We are seeing with Nigel Farage, suddenly excitement in the UK general election, 4th of July.

And then you've got in November.

And it does seem to be that people are waking up.

It does seem to be the pendulum has swung too far one way.

Yeah, people are waking up.

It's just, you know, when you get, we get strong names out there.

When you get like a Shaq, the basketball player, O'Neal, you know, Shaq O'Neal.

You get Charles Barkley.

And you know these are very wealthy very powerful African-Americans everybody knows they are, because of the sports world they even coming out and saying look what have the democrats done for us last six years?

How they made our lives better?

How they made poverty go away?

How they how they made education get better?

How they made job opportunities get better?

They have not, so this is like people need to wake up and start going okay you know I'm tired of this voting this way for this reason, because I'll be honest, I voted for Clinton the second time around.

I thought he did a pretty good job.

He was more of a centrist.

He was working with both sides of the aisle. I voted him for the second time around.

So, I'll admit to that.

I mean, I've always been a truly independent guy to look at things.

But I think people just need to be honest about where is your life better?

I mean, when Biden got in office, he took away everything that Trump did.

Trump made us energy independent.

Gas is $1.80 a gallon.

It's still anywhere between $4 and $8 a gallon, depending what part of the country you're in here in America.

He got rid of all that so we could buy oil from countries that hate us in the Middle East.

So, we keep funding our own wars against ourselves.

It's unbelievable. unbelievable and every time we do another 60 billion dollars to Ukraine.

How much of that actually gets to Ukraine?

I swear to god that comes back and they put a lot of that in their own pockets. It's just it's crazy what's going on in our country right now.

It is so evil, it is so diabolical and we got a country here that just goes, oh well what can we?

So apathy is what's ruling in America right now people need to wake the hell up.

I agree, and for UK viewers they need to pray that actually the result in November is the result we want, because everything is indicating that way which makes me concerned.

Can I, just one question on Reagan, how is Reagan viewed in the US, because Reagan and Margaret Thatcher they were kind together.

Margaret Thatcher has been attacked certainly in the UK and maligned and ridiculed and her huge stature has been a topic of ridicule really with our media and our education system.

What about President Reagan?

Does he still have that stature that he had or is that under attack from the establishment?

All I can tell you is that when we lived in California, we lived only eight miles away from the Reagan Library.

So, we were home-schoolers.

We had yearly subscriptions there.

Every three or four months, we would go out there to see what was going on.

Every time we went, that library was packed, was packed.

And I was in Arkansas one time, so I went to see the Clinton Library just out of curiosity. It wasn't that crowded.

I mean, it's interesting to see what these people are doing out there right now.

Kevin, I saw you put a short video out talking about Firing Squad that's coming out on August the 2nd.

Very different film than Reagan.

And you were talking about not only the story itself, but the opportunity for people to respond to a salvation call to actually become Christians.

I thought that's intriguing.

I get the Christian movie but actually allowing people to respond to Christ, that's something different.

mean tell us about the film and why you kind of want to use it to actually point people to Christ?

Well first of all that was Tim Chey, the director, who came up with that he wants to save a million souls through the movie.

So, that was his sort of his tagline is that I want to bring a million souls back to Christ or to find you know have Christ become a part of their lives.

And I thought, it's great when they do it?

Look, they did on God's Not Dead. It was amazing free advertising.

They would Willie Robertson, you know, one of the Duck Dynasty guys at the end of the movie, he had sort of a cameo role in God's Not Dead.

At the end of the movie, he looks at the audience and he says, take out your phones right now, text everyone you know, God's Not Dead.

Brilliant free advertising. So, they just millions of more people said, what is this?

The God's Not Dead thing.

And then, but they were, what a way to get out to people.

I He brought me the script and, you know, we tried to work together in a couple of the moves before.

The timing was never right for either of us where he would, I'd be busy or he'd be busy, whatever.

So, this one finally worked out.

I read the script and I said, this is an amazing story. It's another true story, which I love these true stories.

And it's about an American, I'm sort of one, it's Cuba Gooding Jr. is in the movie as well.

And it's really, a three-way story but the main characters this other character that comes in that he is sort of the last guy that I try to save his soul, because I play a guy that in my 20’surfing in Indonesia.

I saw a guy flirting with my girlfriend and he paddles in there he was angry, got in a fight with the guy, and he killed him.

Whether it was on purpose or accident I don't know the full story behind it, but he got killed during the fight.

He got the life imprisonment he got the death penalty in Indonesia, so during the next decades while I was in there this angry guy in his 20s found God, found Jesus, became a pastor, went through the whole thing, schooling, become a pastor.

And we preach all the time within the prison.

And he saved a lot of souls, the inmates and guards alike.

And near the end of the movie, because it's more of the end of the movie after my ending, because he did get executed in 2015.

He was actually executed by firing squad.

So, they still have that in Indonesia.

He refused to wear the mask because all the guards is a new one now because they became friends in a way.

He wasn't a threat to anybody in the prison. He talked to everybody.

And that was his home.

And he realized that was going to be his home.

And he took the mask off, just put it down.

He smiled at him before they shot him and said, remember that God loves you and I love you too.

And then they shot him.

And it's just an amazing story.

And August 2nd, that comes out.

People go to film.

It's called firingsquadfilm.com.

It's firingsquadfilm.com.

And they can see the trailer for the movie and get information.

I hope it makes it over there across the pond.

I'm hoping it does.

We'll see what happens with it.

I know they have plans for it.

But, you know, it's just a wonderful story.

And I was proud to be part of it.

For the Reagan and Farrant Squad, do you have, like, premieres where you're at, where you show up beforehand?

Because it is a conveyor belt in one way. You're doing so many, but it's not just the film.

Actually, you have to promote it to let people know what's happening.

So, what's your involvement with, I guess, both of those, firing squad beginning of August and then the end of August, Reagan?

Well, firing squad is kind of because it's coming out almost four weeks before Reagan does.

That's the one they've kept me really busy on.

And I've been out, I mean, I think I've already done.

Gosh probably least 150 interviews on it.

Wow

You're 151 so long it's and I've gone to about eight cities to show to talk about the movie and screen the movie.

We've had like you know Seattle, Dallas, Chicago, wherever we go, and we have a screening for the movie.

And I've been to other places where I do my normal speaking events but then we show a trailer for the movie.

So, we're getting exposure out there, which is good.

I think we're going to open here in America on 2,000 screens.

I think that was the game plan.

And, you know, we'll see what happens.

But we need, once again, word of mouth.

You know, we got a budget for promotion.

But, you know, it's mostly guys like me and Cuba Gooding that are out there, you know, doing what they're doing, like interviews like this to try to bring some, you know, word of mouth.

We can't afford to show a commercial at every sporting event or sitcom or soap opera here in America that shows the trailer.

So, once again, we're battling against the behemoth of Hollywood and the divisive, angry, woke culture.

You know, it's weird to me. I mean, I love when they call me homophobic.

I'm going, well, I'm not afraid of people who are gay, so I'm not homophobic.

And I've been in the industry for 40 years, and pretty much every movie I've been on, there's been a gay or a lesbian, somebody on set.

You will not find one of them.

You won't find one that say, oh, my gosh, he was so evil.

He was so mean. Because I treat everybody the same.

I like having a great time on the set.

I like to keep it loose.

I like to have a lot of laughs in between setups.

And you just won't find one.

But, you know, this is the culture we live in now.

We live in a world that if your point of view is different than theirs, boom, they attack you.

And you're guilty now before being proven innocent.

And it's just crazy land right now.

And these are people, I said, these people hate themselves.

They do not like who they are.

They don't like the direction they've taken in life. But they want to drag you, Peter, and me right down the black hole that they live in.

And their attacks on me don't affect me at all.

It doesn't make me think one way or another at all.

I'm doing what I'm doing, because I love what I'm doing.

And I look in the mirror and I like the life that I'm leading.

These are people that hate who they are and they just want to spread their hate to the rest of the world.

And it's a really sad and pathetic way to live every single day like this.

Where because they failed in their life, they've just given up on life.

I'm a 13-year overnight success, okay?

I failed many times, but I never gave up.

I kept plugging along, and that's what you got to do.

Failure is a good thing.

You learn from these things.

But unfortunately, most people just want to blame the world for their problems, and they just give up.

No, it's right you see the Antifa you see the LGBT and lobby and there when you look at it and it shows you good and evil because you see the evil you see it has to be demonic because, the anger the vitriol, the hatred, they have of a different viewpoint has to be demonic there's no other way of explaining it.

Yeah, well pride pride is one of the deadly sins it's the most biggest is deadly sin.

And here in America, we have pride month. Give them pride day.

I don't care about that. But we give our vets one day.

We give pride a month to a population that is, what, 3% of the population in America?

They get a whole freaking month.

Why?

To me, it makes zero sense.

And our vets get one day.

One day. And these are the people, just like they did for the Brits, these are the people that have given people the right to have a free life, to have freedom of expression.

And yet pride gets a whole month.

It's crazy.

Go back.

You were saying that Maggie Thatcher had all these attacks on her.

What did she do for England?

She did amazing stuff for England.

She brought it, I mean, she, yeah, that's socialism, but she brought it into the world of capitalism as well and opened so many doors for people and cleaned up neighborhoods and cleaned up crime.

But that's the left.

They're doing the same thing in America.

They're attacking that.

I remember meeting a guy, Giuliani, he cleaned up New York City. New York City became walkable again.

Look at now.

It's just a dirt hole.

Every city in America, my home state of Minnesota, is just as bad as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Salem, all these places.

I mean, Seattle. They're all horrible now.

Every single one are run by Democrats.

What does that say to people?

People now look at that and go, here we go. Look at all these things, and they're all run by Democrats.

All right, Detroit, Detroit in the early 1950s was the number one economy in America, mostly because of the car industry.

Number one economy, three million people living there.

They have not had a Republican mayor since 1954.

Look at them now, 600,000 people in that city now.

They lost 2.4 million people, moved the hell out of there.

They said, this city is, hey, forget it, we're out of here.

And it's just sad.

And yet people sit there and still vote the same way.

You know, we got 8 million people have left the state of California in 10 years.

8 million have left the state of California.

They're filling in Nevada.

They're filling in Texas.

They're filling in Tennessee, filling in Florida.

And all the posts, you know, these posters are up saying, don't California our state.

You know, because they leave that state.

There's liberals leaving that state in droves.

They moved to another state, and yet they vote the same way.

And then they see that state start to fall, and they're going, huh, I wonder what the problem is here.

So it's like, wake the hell up.

That's true.

I mean, just on the political side, to finish off with, I remember going to L.A for the first time ever in 2022, going twice and thinking: I wish I was here whenever Reagan was governor.

I wish I was here to actually experience what the state was like, because what it is now is a world away.

Azerson, I think L.A and D.C being the only places in the states that I felt unsafe.

yeah

You go to Florida, you go to Texas, even Virginia, lots of other places Colorado and and it's it's beautiful, it's lovely.

You don't have that fear where actually I remember vividly on the subway in D.C and L.A and thinking: I don't want to do this again this isn't good.

No, it's horrible.

It's horrible what they've done.

There's a, there was a buddy of mine left San Diego; this is like two or three years ago, he got it.

He said, I'm done.

He went to get a U-Haul, a truck to move all his stuff out of his house.

He was moving to Texas.

He took a picture of Employee of the Year, and it was Governor Newsom for the UL company, because so many people left that state.

And he'll probably be the one running for president next go-around.

I mean, it's just like, what, because he's got good hair?

He was horrible at what he's done to that state.

And how are they dealing with homeless people now?

They're walking around giving them shots of vodka.

That's their answer.

Give them clean needles and shots of vodka and everything will just be fantastic.

Oh, I agree it's a disaster and I mean we're praying for a result in November.

Kevin I really appreciate you coming on I'm really looking forward to the Firing Squad and to Reagan the end of August.

I hope they make it over the water over to the UK and Europe.

I hope so too and I appreciate being on there.

Go to sorbostudios.com, a lot of good stuff at sorbostudios.com and follow me on twitter.

You want a good laugh every day follow me on twitter.

I'll 100% agree with that, but all the links are in the description Twitter and sorbostudios.com Kevin thank you so much for your time.

All right thanks Peter appreciate it.