Kevin Sorbo- Will You Be Left Behind?

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show. Stories of hopelessness turned into hope. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds.

Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. The Russian Nightmare, Nikita Kolob.

Now, The Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. My guest today, no stranger to the Man Up show. We had him on a while ago, but I wanted to bring him back on because he has some new movies that are going to be coming out here and making a real impact. And he is a man's man. You might remember him, before I tell you his name, you might remember him from a television series years ago called Hercules. And of course, I am referring to the one and only Kevin Sorbell.

Kevin, welcome back to the Man Up show. We'll be back here. Fellow dragon.

A fellow dragon. That's right. For those who don't know, if you go back into the archives, you'll hear the whole backstory of how Kevin and I actually went to the same college up in northern Minnesota. Unbeknownst to me, it was some of my football peers, some of my teammates that enlightened me to that fact.

And then a newsletter, an alumni newsletter that came out from, as I call it, Morehead State University. They've renamed it. Kevin, I still don't like calling it that whole Minnesota State thing. I don't know about you, but in my world... Yeah, I'm with you.

Yeah, in my world... It's Morehead State. It's Morehead State. Come on, university. But we ended up actually even graduating in the same graduation class. And all these years later, Al Strandberg, a good friend of ours, a mutual friend connected Kevin and I together. And we just reminisced on that very first show about our memories of Morehead State University.

And fast forward, of course, I went off into one direction. I thought it would be football, went off into pro-wrestling. Kevin went off into the acting world. And if you're familiar and or not familiar, I mean, he went from the television series. Right now, is that kind of the first big role you landed, Kevin, was the Hercules series? Oh, yeah. I mean, no question. You know, unfortunate ones, though. I mean, I don't know if any of you people have moved to Los Angeles to be an actress.

Most of you guys are working on a job. I did very well commercially and doing guest spots and different shows like Cheers and Commish and Murder, She Wrote. But certainly Hercules was the big break. And that thing, you know, initially is going to be five two hour movies. And Universal Studios loved the movie so much. Halfway through filming the third one, they said, you're staying down there and do a series out of this. And by season three, we actually became, I know it's the center pride, so I apologize for this, but we became the most watched TV show in the world in 176 countries. It was crazy how these things happen, you know.

That's amazing. And can people still, and forgive my ignorance and not knowing that, but can people still access that old series on Netflix or somewhere? Yeah, it's still airing like 60 countries. I think it's somewhere in cable in the States as well. I can't remember if it's H&I, Heroes and Icons cable. I know it's out there somewhere.

I think Roku has it. But then I did Andromeda right after that for five years. So being a fan of the original Star Trek series, I got a call from the Roddenberry family.

And after Hercules, that is five years on Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. So the captain I played, Captain Dylan Hunt, was the first captain ever created by Gene Roddenberry back in 1969. So for me to be able to be part of that world was an honor. And then since then, I've shot over 70 movies, most of them, as you know, in the family friendly world, especially during the last 12 years, I decided I want to do movies with a little more positive message instead of the negative stuff coming out of Hollywood. Yeah, and I remember too, and when we talked last, the last time on our show, that you had actually even transitioned out of Hollywood over to Florida and began to, and we'll dive into more of this because I want to promote these new movies you've got coming out, but into more than just the acting role. And at what point did you transition from then from the television? So what would have been your first big break in the movies?

You say you've done over 70. What would have been your first big break in the movie world? I guess I started doing a lot of movies for Hallmark and I was very fortunate to do, there was a Christmas one and a Western one I did for them that ended up being their highest ranked Christmas I've ever done. That kind of just really sort of set up a whole new place for me, which was kind of cool. But I got to say God's Not Dead was just a massive hit that came out eight years ago. And a little $2 million movie made over 140 million in box office around the world, which is unheard of for a movie that doesn't have a big advertising budget behind it.

It was all really word of mouth from the people in the faith world. So that pretty much opened up that door for me to do more like that. And I did Let There Be Light. I did a movie called Soul Surfer, the Bethany Hamilton story about the little girl that lost her arm while she was surfing to a tiger shark. Kind of just bouncing around for me that way. And I've got a number of movies coming down the road here.

Yeah, well that's it. And I'm excited to talk about that as well. Now you also shifted then at some point from acting into directing and doing some other roles and what inspired you to want to go down that path as well? Well, the whole directing thing started actually happened on circuit. I started directing back in the mid 90s. I asked Universal, do you guys have a problem if I direct one of these? And they said, not at all.

I thought there'd be a bigger battle with that, but that wasn't at all. But I directed a few and I got a few more coming out that I directed next year that are done in the can. And I enjoy it. I mean, if you're going to tell me I got to make a choice, I've been acting and directing, I'll stick with acting. I still have the passion for that, but I do enjoy sitting in the director's chair as well. And I've got two coming out, as I mentioned, that I've already done. I've got two more lined up next year that I'm directing. So knock on wood and thank God that I'm still staying busy in this crazy industry. Yeah, I know it is. It is a crazy industry.

And I'm just going to lead into my next question. Say, okay, out of all the different hats you wear, what do you enjoy the most? But so the acting side of it, is that the most, which one, out of all the hats you wear in that world, which one's the most challenging to you?

It really depends. Sometimes I'm going to say acting because it really depends on how much, how big the scenes are, how much the dialogue is. I mean, I've had to memorize 10 page monologues to be a workout in itself, but as a director, I've been on the business for 40 years now. So for me, I'm smart enough to know to hire good people in the camera department and the makeup and hair and the wardrobe and special effects.

And that's their world. I may tell them, I go, hey, this is what I'm looking for. But I trust those people to really grasp the script in the right way and tell me their ideas. And my ego's not that big that I want full control of everything. I'm not a James Cameron out there where I'm going to tell everybody what to do. I always trust the people that are hired to do the job that they've been hired to do.

That's amazing. And let me take a step back just quickly. And how young were you? Like at what point, Kevin, did you know, okay, this is what I want to do for a living. How young were you when you knew you wanted to get adapting or what was that like? I was 11 years old. I went to the Guthrie Theater, which you know of, downtown Minneapolis. We went in fifth grade. We had a few merchant events, Shakespeare, obviously.

And I don't know what the hell they're talking about with Shakespeare. But I knew right then and there that I would be happy. But I was a jock. I was a football, basketball, baseball guy all through high school. And we kind of made fun of people in the drama class. I was a closet thespian. And even at Morehead State, I would go in and sit in all the drama classes.

I never signed up for and stuff. But I would go in there and sit in the back room and the professors would let me. And I would sit there and go, you should sign up and get in the class.

I'd come in and just sort of check it out out of curiosity and see what was going on. So the seed was planted. And I started doing commercials during the college years, during the summers back home in the Twin Cities. I had a commercial agent down there. And as you know, I mean, Minnesota, Minneapolis is headquartered as the Best Buy, Target, Pillsbury, 3M, General Mills. I mean, we have such, Target, Dairy Queen.

I mean, we have a lot of big companies that are headquartered there. So I got to do a lot of commercials during the college years. To me, it was like anytime to get in front of the camera was just sort of a good way to do it. Well, that's pretty cool. So I have a confession to make here. I don't think I've told you this before, Kevin, but you're kind of funny where you said, I mean, it's kind of funny when you said, you know, we made fun of the drama guys, the whole deal, right? So I think the very first thing I saw was the article about you in the Moorhead State newsletter, right?

And the whole acting thing. And I wasn't familiar with you yet, you know, I hadn't talked to Al yet or any of that. And so as I'm reading the article and I'm like, oh yeah, okay. Kevin was up on the other end of the, yeah, up on the drama end of campus, you know, and I'm down on the athlete's end. So my confession is I have to, until I saw, you know, I introduced you as a man's man because, you know, obviously your physique from Hercules would epitomize a man's man. And so I do have to confess at first I thought, oh, he's one of those drama guys. But then I saw your physique. I thought, all right, well, I need to, at some point I need to apologize to him because he is a man's man.

So, but to your point, huh? I lived in the gym. I was over there all the time. I played one year of basketball my freshman year and I just, you know, I just sort of lost that drive. I loved playing sports but I just lost that drive to spend that much time in college.

I was more interested in going to the TNT in Eastgate and meeting girls than I was going to practice. But, you know, I played, we had a team, we had a team in intramurals there and we had Wiley on my team and Jeff Wise, all these guys that you know. And we went undefeated three years in a row. We were pretty, we were a really good team. And you brought up Strandberg, well, he was just at my house here for the Super Bowl. We had about 10 of the Dragons down here. Mark Reed was down here and Wiley was down here and Wise, all these guys that you know, they were down here at my house.

We golfed all week long and we had a big Super Bowl party at my house here in West Palm Beach. And you've been doing that for many years, right? Like pulling all the old guys, the old group together, the old gang together on a consistent, right? Al DeRozer was the guy behind all this stuff.

You know the illusion. So we would usually go out when I was still in California, meet him out there and he lives in Yucaipa, California, which is pretty much halfway out to Palm Springs. So we always did a Palm Springs thing together. But this year they came out here to hang out with me and it was a good time. Al DeRozer came to this one as well. We had a good group. Marty Stuka, good old Marty.

So it was a good group of guys. Well, you know, and I'm sure you know, Al bought a house in Spartanburg, South Carolina and I'm trying to get him out of the north down, you know, southernize him, you know, and but I think he's splitting his time back and forth. But well, let's shift gears and talk about what you've got upcoming. One of the, I'm looking at one of the promotional banners here that you've got, I guess a sequel to a movie that I believe was done maybe seven or eight years ago, Left Behind, Rise of the Antichrist.

And tell our listeners about, just give a little backstory on the movie, your involvement in it and why you did it. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Nikita will send you his two CDs, Adoration and Declaration. For a gift of $50, Nikita will include his book Wrestling with Success. And for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption.

Go to www.colof.net and donate today. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. I'm a big fan of Left Behind to begin with. The book sold like 80 million copies.

They're very popular. And they did a number of movies back in 2000, 2001. And then they did the most recent one was with Nicholas Cage as Raymond Steele, the pilot in the book.

And then they took quite a long break. And then I came in, they got me involved in this a few years ago, and we started piecing together. We got the funding for it, and we shot it last year at this time. And I got to play the same role that Nicholas Cage was.

I also directed it. And it deals with the rapture. And this is called Rise of the Antichrist. So now the rapture is happening, and that's the aftermath on earth, where all of the atheists and agnostics of the world have been left behind. And you see the chaos in our world right now.

We think what would happen if hundreds of millions of people just disappeared, and nobody can explain how and why. So that's the world that we're living in right now with this movie. And we got an opening January 26th on 1100 screens. So we got 1100 movie screens across North America.

And I hope people go out and support it. And it's a wonderful film. We got a great cast with Corbin Bernsen. We got Neil McDonough.

We got Bailey Chase. It's a great, great movie. Sarah Fisher, who's an up-and-coming Canadian actress, she and I did a pilot of a TV series together, and she's great. And she plays my daughter.

And Greg Perrault, who's a new face in Hollywood, but really fine actor, has got one of the lead roles in it as well. So if people go to LeftBehindMovie.com, they can see the trailer, get all kinds of information on ticket buying and what theaters it's in. So once again, LeftBehindMovie.com.

LeftBehindMovie.com. And I'm excited to see that. I'm sure you're familiar with it, but I'm a fan of The Chosen, Dallas Jenkins and The Chosen.

And of course, his dad, again, I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know. You mentioned the Left Behind series that was written years ago, the book series that was Dallas's dad, right? That was instrumental in that whole book series. And of course, The Chosen series, the crowdfunded Chosen series has just catapulted itself. In fact, just recently, they had launched season three in the theater, which was a unique launching of a TV show, right?

But it did... I don't know what the final numbers were, but it did well at the box office. And so it seems like these faith-based movies, you're doing Left Behind, Rise of the Antichrist, whether it's The Chosen and or just so many others. You mentioned God's Not Dead. I know that the two brothers down in Georgia have produced some pretty amazing and well, very successful faith-based movies. Do you see, Kevin, do you see, are people hungry for this? Is that what you're seeing and why you're inspired to do a lot of these faith-based movies?

Oh, it's no question. Hollywood won't do it. You see the stuff Hollywood's putting out there. And their latest animation movie, which just was really one of those movies dealing with the woke culture once again, just bombed for them. I just read recently they're going to lose about $157 million on that. And usually Disney animation doesn't lose money.

So I think the audience out there are sending a clear message that they're tired of all that stuff. I'm going to backtrack a little bit to the Jenkins. So yes, Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye were the guys who co-authored the 80 million best-selling books from Left Behind. Dallas Jenkins directed me my first faith-based movie called What If. Now, What If is written by the same guy as God's Not Dead in my book, What If is the Better Movie.

So I have a tie-in with both the Jenkinsons there. And of course now Dallas is just having phenomenal success with The Chosen, which is completely funded outside of Hollywood. It's just fan-based funding. I mean, he hit a chord with this thing and people poured in millions of dollars, which is just unbelievable. And they built an amazing sex just outside of Dallas, Texas.

And that's where he lives full-time with his family now. So once again, I recommend What If to people if they haven't seen that. But just being part of that world with those guys, and I get stopped all the time. I used to get stopped all the time for Hercules or Andromeda through airports and hotel lobbies.

I get stopped all the time now by people saying, hey, we love what you're doing. Please make more movies like God's Not Dead and Soul Surfer and What If and Let There Be Light. I mean, these are the ones.

People want these things. I did a movie called Let There Be Light that opened number two per screen average. Sean Hannity actually funded the movie. And I got a call from Netflix after opening weekend because we opened number two per screen average against Thor Ragnarok. There's a $3 million movie up against a $300 million movie.

And we opened number two per screen average. And I get a call from Netflix saying, hey, we want to open an inspirational division and want you to head it for us because you got a good foot in that world. And so I had four meetings with them in their West Hollywood offices over a few months. And even after all these meetings and wonderful scripts, they did nothing. So I don't know if it was lip service, why they spent the time. I didn't go to them.

They came to me. And it's like a weird ideology that Hollywood has towards people that are Christians. It's just strange. They'd rather not service 80 million homes out there. It is so business, but they hate the whole Christian world so much. And they're so afraid of stepping into that world that they'll be attacked by their atheist crowd or something. I don't know.

It's just strange to me. And it's sad because there's a lot of homes out there that want the product. I do. I got the product, but how do you get out there if you don't have the backing of the money Hollywood has? Right. And the funding.

And it's almost the expression that comes to mind, Kevin, is cut your nose off to spite your face is the old expression. Hey, I'm going to pull Robbie Dilmore in to ask you a question. He produces these shows. And the minute you mentioned What If even the last time we talked, he lit up.

So Robbie, Kevin Sorbell, fire your question. It was my favorite movie really of all time. And I got involved in promoting it when I was doing Kingdom Pursuits actually years and years ago. I actually interviewed you and Alice Jenkins when the movie came out. And one of the neatest things about What If, and it really is one of my all time favorite movies, was the scene where you're on the couch according to Dallas. I'm trying to remember the name of the lady that was in it that played your wife. But what he said was that she totally ab-libbed that, went off script and kind of caught you by surprise when she had you read of what?

First Corinthians 13. It was Christy Swanson, the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And yeah, she talked to Dallas ahead of time to make a change that I wasn't expecting. And she was supposed to read that passage.

And she hands me the Bible and points at it and says, why don't you read that out loud? And I just went with it. I was in a moment in the scene.

I was there. It didn't throw me off. In fact, I think it had a very strong, I think people see a very strong emotional effect in the scene. And I thought it was a good move by Christy to it.

And I thought it was a good move by Dallas to let it happen. So it was a, those kinds of magic moments happen. And as an actor, I love those things that happen that are instantaneous and unexpected. And a lot of times these things happen in rehearsal. This one didn't happen in rehearsal, but when it happens in rehearsal, great as well. And you kind of go, wow, you know what?

It makes more sense if you say this, or if I walk over here when I say that. And that's why blocking, I think is so important on a movie set. And as a director, I'll give actors the freedom to just kind of, I may have an idea where I want them to be in a scene physically, but I say, look, just walk through it.

Tell me where it feels good. And we kind of go from there and it was really cool. And, you know, John Ratzenberg plays the angel. John from certainly Cliff from Shears, the postman. He was great. He was great in this. In fact, I just directed him in another movie called Miracle in Texas that comes out next spring as well. And he was fantastic in that one as well. And just a pleasure to work with him and just been very fortunate with people and tasks I've had in all the movies I've been involved with. I've been very fortunate. That's awesome. Now, what was the one you said comes out in the spring?

What was that one again? It's called Miracle in Texas. It's a true story set in 1930. And it's about two con men played by myself and John Ratzenberger that would go through Oklahoma and Texas and they would woo widows out of their money on fake oil wealth. True story, right in the heart of the depression. And they would declare, they would sell 500% of the shares.

Remember, you can only have 100% of anything. So they would just rip people off across these states and then declare a dry hole and move on to the next place and do it again. Well, they get to Kilgore, Texas, and by accident, they strike oil, ends up being the largest oil find in the history of the world and ends up being where the Hunt family became so incredibly wealthy because, do you know any history of the Hunts? I mean, the two brothers of their father, they went on in the 60s and 70s to own the Kansas City Chiefs and they're still in the Hunt family to this day. And they actually got arrested for a sorbo in the 80s. I do remember this because I was invested in silver at the time.

They artificially made silver go from five bucks, announced the 80 bucks when they cornered the market. But it's an interesting, wonderful story. And we're hoping that comes out sometime around April or May next year. That's awesome. And one of many, because you had, I know you mentioned before you'd started your own, really your own production company, right? Yep. Yep.

A good place to go is sorbostudios.com, sorbostudios.com. My wife and I put both of ours together. She's a homeschool advocate. We homeschooled our kids and she travels the country speaking out.

I think one of the few blessings of COVID is that 2 million more kids are now being homeschooled because parents are waking up to the horrors of schooling and from kindergarten to universities in today's world. It's crazy because, you know, you and I, when we were in college, I didn't have teachers telling me how to vote. I didn't have teachers telling me to believe in God or not believe in God. Teachers taught what I took for classes, you know? Right. And you taught some drama classes. I was a double business major just in case you didn't know.

So that's what I got my degree in. Right. Yeah. And well, you're right. And where can, so if you go to that website, can people find out more about what Sam does as well then?

Oh yeah. I mean, everything's on that site. sorbostudios.com.

We got our merchandise, our books are on there. You can get Hercules DVDs. You can get Let There Be Light.

You can get Soul Surfer. I mean, we're a good place to go for Christmas shopping. Trust me if you want things that are good for your family.

Positive messages out there. But that site is where all the information, and it's got the information from our trip. We're going to Israel. We took a group back in 2019.

I would love to get a plug for that if people want to put that on their bucket list. My wife and I are hosting May 17th to the 29th. We're going to be hosting a trip to Israel, walking the footsteps of Jesus. I've been there three times now, and this trip is unbelievable. And you will not be disappointed in what we have set up for people. And we're going to be able to get into places that most tourists don't get into because of the connections I made out there. And so go to sorbostrialship.com. sorbostrialship.com is the shortcut to get to more information on that trip in May. So awesome.

So you've got, you have a lot going on. And so I'm excited, grateful to have you on the show today. Whether it's, if you're interested in going to Israel, if you've never been, I can just say for the record, I've been one time, I'll be going later in 2023 myself, back again and hosting as well. And so, but to go with the, to be able to go with Kevin and Sam Sorbo would be certainly a memorable trip as well. Check that out, check out his website, Left Behind, Rise of the Antichrist. If you know anything about Kevin's movies, you know this is going to be as stellar as anything he's been involved in, in the past. And the website for the movie one more time, Kevin, where you can find out more information on the movie itself. Is leftbehindmovie.com, leftbehindmovie.com.

It's simple. Oh, and by the way, I do have one of the movies done in the can. I shot it with Dennis Quaid.

He and I did Cold Surfer together. Same director, Sean McNamara. And it's the Reagan movie.

Dennis Quaid plays Reagan and I played his pastor. That's going to be out sometime next spring as well. Wow. You've got a lot of great projects that you're working on. And I know people will be blessed to attend one and or any of these movies.

And again, I would emphasize if you've never been to Israel and that's something on your bucket list or something you would desire to do, I would venture to say a trip with Kevin and Sam Sorbo will be quite memorable. Well, Kevin, thanks for being on the Man Up show today. And I can't wait to hear, we'll have to down the road circle back around and find out how all these movies and what else you're working on. Okay. All right.

Sounds good. All right. Well, thanks for tuning into the Man Up show today. Kevin Sorbo, hope you enjoyed the interview. Look forward to each and every week bringing you another great episode, another great interview. God bless you. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support, and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to koloff.net and donate today.

Hi, Nikita Koloff. Be sure to check out the Man Up show now available on television, broadcast, and podcast. Go to morningstartv.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet, download the Truth Network app today.

Silas Creek Parkway in Winston-Salem. Be sure to check them out today at wsmc1.com because you are number one. Hi, Nikita Koloff. And I am excited to announce that I will be hosting my first ever Holy Land tour.

That's right. A trip to the Holy Land with the Russian nightmare. And I am extending a personal invitation to you to join me December 27th, 2023 for a once in a lifetime trip. Go to biblical-journeys.com for more information. This is the Truth Network.