Did Hollywood Accept This Christian Actress’ Faith?
By Movieguide® Contributor
Actress Patricia Heaton says she’s been blessed to work on shows that share her values.
“I am Catholic. I was raised in a very devout Catholic family,” she explained during an episode of “Real Talk with Marissa Streit.” “I am constantly having conversations with God in my head, so that’s just always been there.”
Heaton said that her values and faith never impacted her experience on sets, as “all anybody is doing is just trying to do their best, for the most part.”
“If, down the road, someone found out I was conservative or a Catholic or whatever, it wouldn’t matter to them because I’m great to work with,” she explained.
The EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND actress shared a memory of the 1992 presidential election when she was working on a project where everyone else was pro-Clinton. Heaton wore a Bush pin to work, and someone asked her to share why she was voting for him.
After she did, Heaton said people came up to her “who were more liberal” to commend her for speaking her mind.
“Somebody came down from the production office and said, ‘We don’t agree with you, but we absolutely stand with your right to say anything you want to say,’” she shared, adding, “It used to be okay to have different points of view, and we need to go back to that. I have hope that we will go back to that, because I think that things have gotten extreme.”
The actress discussed this further in an interview with the Vatican News.
“As much as people want to paint Hollywood as a sort of anti-religious place, I have found that going into work, we’re all there to do a job,” Heaton said. “We’re all there to be professional. We all respect each other. We share opinions, different opinions. And because we love each other and we have a common goal of creating something wonderful for people to enjoy, the differences in our religion or politics or whatever, in my experience on a set, have not been a problem.”
In her conversation with Streit, Heaton also talked about her experience working on TV shows that have shared her values, saying, “God’s been very kind to me, putting me on these shows that never veered into those areas.”
“EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND was this family who was Catholic,” she said. “Then, on THE MIDDLE, that family went to church, and it was just a part of their lives. It wasn’t emphasized. It wasn’t ignored.”
Heaton is currently returning to the world of television, joining the cast of Paramount+’s FRASIER.
She plays Holly, “down-to-earth, unpretentious, and openly mocking of overly-intellectual types. A Boston native who tends bar at upscale restaurants and events, Holly is extraordinarily comfortable with both who and where she is in life, a quality that the always-climbing, always-reaching Frasier finds as alien as he does attractive,” per Entertainment Weekly.
Movieguide® previously reported:
Season 2 of Paramount’s FRAISER reboot is on its way, and star Kelsey Grammer will be joined by another iconic sitcom face.
Patricia Heaton, best known for her role in the sitcom EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, will join the cast as Frasier’s new love interest.
In an Instagram post, Heaton announced her excitement for the new role.
“The news is out! I am so excited to join the @frasier family on @paramountplus!” she said.
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