There’s no question: Church members like seeing other Church members become famous.
Having famous Church members in the news in a variety of professional fields--business, sports, singing and dancing—provides a certain comfort to Latter-Day Saints who can see fellow Saints be successful on a national stage, even beyond the simple “good PR for the Church” standpoint.
If I (or one of my kids) wants to be a successful entrepreneur (or musician, or athlete, or writer) it’s nice to be able to point to some famous person and say, “See, he or she is a faithful Church member while also being successful at career X”. Having famous and/or successful Mormons sends the message outwardly that Church members are ‘normal’ and play regular roles in regular society—we’re not all cooped up in armed compounds in southern Utah or Texas or something--but also sends the message
inwardly that secular success and spiritual success can mix: that faithful Saints don’t necessarily have to choose one or the other.
Of course, in order for this to really count, those famous Mormons have to be faithful and active also. Just being a member doesn’t mean much: if those famous Mormons are not currently active and practicing—even if the reasons for not being active have nothing to do with their chosen profession--they don’t really work as ‘examples’ for other Saints who might want to believe that they can be successful in their career without being forced to compromise their beliefs somewhere along the line.
In most professions, one can find any number of active and inactive Church members. Acting, however, seems to be an outlier.
There are a few well-known actors whose names are on the records of the Church, but virtually all of them are not currently practicing. That may be partially a coincidence as some of them—such as “Enchanted” actress Amy Adams—simply grew up in an inactive LDS family, and were never active themselves in adulthood even before becoming involved with acting.
Yet, that doesn’t cover every LDS actor and actress, whose ranks include one returned missionary who’s currently being seen in a $300 million movie this summer. Is succeeding in the modern day movie/TV industry AND being a faithful Latter-Day Saint inherently more difficult than other professions? Do LDS actors have to choose, to some extent, between succeeding in acting and being active in the Church? Without some prominent counter-examples, a lot of circumstantial evidence points to ‘yes’.
This issue has been raised by the recent developments regarding LDS film alum Kirby Heyborne. Kirby has starred in, among other films,
“The Singles Ward”,
its sequel,
“The RM”,
“The Best Two Years”, and
“Saints and Soldiers”. Kirby has, more or less, been the face of LDS cinema from the beginning, although the state of LDS cinema being what it is, it’s perfectly reasonable that one can’t easily make a living off of it, and Kirby has been living in California making a go of acting in non-Church stuff as well.
What kind of ‘non-Church stuff’ that included came to the fore in June when Kirby appeared in
a Miller Lite commercial, causing no small amount of controversy back in Utah. Just recently, the DearElder.com website, which has featured billboards with Kirby’s picture for years along I-15 in Utah,
has announced that they are searching for a new likeness to be the spokesperson.
Coincidence? While the official statement makes note of the need to “update our current advertising and billboards” which were all four years old, the remainder of the statement makes pretty clear between the lines what the catalyst for the change was:
“Going forward, we have made a deliberate decision to select advertising that is consistent with our message of missionary support, service and values…”
Kirby’s
response:
"I'm a temple-worthy member that loves his wife and kids, and fulfills his calling at church and does his home teaching. And yet I'm going to play characters that might have moral dilemmas, or do a commercial -- or whatever it is -- because my job is the way that I provide for my family,"
"If I could do [Church films] for the rest of my life, and make enough money to support my family, I would do that in a heartbeat. But in reality, there's no way."
That’s a very reasonable response…and that’s actually the problem. In fact, that may have been the absolute worst thing Kirby could have said.
So, basically, after all the work he’s put into pursuing an acting career, he still found himself stuck doing...beer commercials?
That's the only work he could find for himself to support his family in the end? And that’s what aspiring LDS actors have to look forward to, when trying to make it in modern day Hollywood?
Even if Kirby had said something along the lines of,
“I had other opportunities for work…but I decided to do a beer commercial deliberately because I’m a BAD MORMON!” that may have actually been better in the long run, because that would at least have presented some hope to future actors that they would still have some choice in the matter. As it is, what does the future generation of LDS actors have to look forward to?
“If Kirby Heyborne is forced to sell beer on TV to feed his family, what hope is there for me?”
Now, being a successful actor (or musician, or writer, or artist) is inherently a difficult endeavor, and (inside or outside the Church) the failures will far outnumber the successes. However, the question still remains whether the acting industry is just inherently incompatible with a faithful LDS lifestyle. Kirby Heyborne may have wanted to be the exception to that rule when he left Utah, but I wonder if he’s ended up providing ample proof of it, instead...