[embedded content]
The 37-year-old actress has spoken openly about being on the verge of quitting acting right before she booked her job on “The Chosen.” She told CNA that she was only booking jobs for commercials and wasn’t earning enough money to make a living.
“Creatively I was just so frustrated and I just couldn’t see the path forward,” she expressed. “I just couldn’t imagine what was next, and that can lead to some feelings of despair and sort of a sense of being lost in the world.”
When she booked the job to play Mary Magdalene, she explained that she had such a “direct connection and emotional relationship” with the character that it was “uncanny.”
“It was immediately this sort of wake-up. It shook me out of a mental fog I think, or maybe a spiritual fog,” Tabish said.
She shared that she was “very cynical” before joining the show.
“I only saw the bad in religion and churches and the hypocrisy and the abuse and I was very disappointed in some church experiences and some interactions with very devout church-going people,” she expressed. “And so I kind of just threw the baby out with the bathwater. I thought ‘this is hypocritical and this isn’t the Jesus that I grew up with.’”
However, after being a part of “The Chosen” and seeing the way Jesus has been portrayed in the show, she was reminded of the Gospel stories she loved in childhood.
“It has reminded me who Jesus is,” she shared. “The show is not Jesus, but it reminds us of who Jesus was and is. And that has made me go back to the Gospels and reread these things that I did in childhood, that I loved in childhood.”
“The show just brings up so many beautiful points that should not be lost just because someone from church was mean to you one time in the sixth grade,” she added. “Let go of all of that because these stories are way more important than our personal opinions about specific churches or denominations.”
“Ultimately your actual direct and personal relationship with God and with Jesus is the thing — that’s the most important part of this,” she shared.
(Story continues below)
Subscribe to our daily newsletter
Season Four does not currently have a scheduled date for release on streaming services or on “The Chosen” app. Dallas Jenkins, creator, director, and co-writer of “The Chosen,” announced on March 10 in a video that due to legal matters the company is facing, the release of the current season will be delayed.
Francesca is the Social Media Manager for Catholic News Agency. She received her degree in Communications with an emphasis in Digital Media from the University of Colorado – Denver.
