Hollywood actor, producer and evangelical Christian Kirk Cameron recently gave an interview to the Hollywood Reporter.
Cameron, 45, is best known for his role as Mike Seaver in the 1980s sitcom "Growing Pains." He's hosting the upcoming National Bible Bee Game Show and starring in “Come Home,” a show about family, faith and marriage.
Reporter Paul Bond asked Cameron about being a Christian conservative in the entertainment industry:
Hollywood doesn’t share a lot of your conservative values on abortion and same-sex marriage and such. Do you see bias against you?
Everybody has to deal with bias. If you draw a line and say, "Hey, I’m about truth," well, those who aren’t will have a bias against you. If you say you’re about faith in God, you’ll have people stand up and cheer, then you’ll have others who won’t. That’s the way the world works. You have to know what it is that you are willing to take it on the chin for.
Are you taking it on the chin from some in Hollywood?
I take it on the chin here and there. Just Google my name. But I never look to get into political debates. I like to stick to issues of love, hope and what made this country a place where free speech and free religion are possible. Ironically, it’s that freedom that allows people to come after me when I share my honest feelings about things. I embrace the whole system.
Do you know if you lost offers over your politics or Christian beliefs?
People ask me that all the time, but I can’t find a downside to my differences with some in Hollywood because here I am talking to The Hollywood Reporter 30 years after Growing Pains, and I have my own company (CamFam Studios) where I’m making projects I’m passionate about. Plus, my wife hasn’t left me after 25 years, which is like 250 in Hollywood years!
That said, what’s your advice to others just breaking into Hollywood who share your faith or politics?
You have to be true to your higher values. As an actor, you’re playing someone other than who you are, but as a human being, you need to be who you are. Find people who love what you love and then work together, and there are plenty of them in every vocation.
If actors just coming to Hollywood followed your advice, would it cost them work in mainstream projects?
Yes, but that could be a good thing. While I may not know what they are, it’s very likely I have not gotten roles because of who I am and what I want to stand up for. But that’s a great thing because how many times do doors close where you look around the backside and say, "Wow, I’m really glad I didn’t go through that door because this other door opened over here"? It’s why I’m doing the Bible Bee and other projects I believe in. Find people who think like you think, and go make a difference.
Ever get any hate mail from someone in Hollywood?
Ahhhh (long pause). Nothing from anyone notable that I could frame and put on my wall. But go to my Facebook page, and you’ll see plenty of intolerance. Some of the most intolerant comments are from people calling me "intolerant."
Bond noted that Cameron “didn’t make many friends in progressive Hollywood when he spoke against same-sex marriage during an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN four years ago.” In that interview Cameron called homosexuality "unnatural." He also condemned abortion: “I think that someone who is ultimately willing to murder a child even to fix another tragic and devastating situation like rape or incest…is not taking the moral high road. I think we’re compounding the problem by also murdering a little child.”