When Alex first approached me about playing “Cindy,” the devoted “church lady” whose sheltered life lies at the heart of Child of God, I was intrigued for several reasons. I was excited about the prospect of playing my first lead in a feature film after nearly eight years of acting, although the idea of improvising the whole movie and working without a script was daunting to me. The only improv work I had done up to this point was extensive work in the re-enactment shows like True TV’s “I, Detective” and “Murder by the Books,” where I usually played victims or killers. We improvised dialogue a lot, but it usually was not used in the final scenes. I was excited to work with Alex, whose reputation as as a talented filmmaker preceded him, although I didn’t know him personally. But mostly I was interested in the subject matter. Few films deal with the issue of spirituality these days, and as we talked about Cindy, I realized that I shared a great deal with the back story Alex was developing for her.
I was born in a small town in North Carolina, to Methodist parents who were involved in the church, although they were not conservative, Bible-thumping stereotypes. My father was an engineer, and we moved in 1963 when I was five years old to Huntsville, Alabama, for him to work for NASA with the team that would develop the Apollo rockets that took men to the moon beginning in 1969. Perhaps because of the scientific field in which he worked, my father grew away from the church, and my family stopped attending services when I was in grade school. I was drawn back into church, however, when I started dating my high school sweetheart, a boy who was a devout Southern Baptist who was determined to “convert” me. I didn’t think I needed converting, but eventually he won me over, and I was baptized in a full immersion tank (that means the pastor pushes you all the way under the water) in a Baptist church and “born again.”
I married my sweetheart at 20 and became very involved in the church. I taught Sunday School, played the piano in the service on Sunday morning, and sang solos occasionally for services. My husband and I studied the Bible with our pastor. And if we had stayed in Huntsville, my life might have continued this way until now, 30 years later. But here is where Cindy and I took divergent paths. In my life, I took an exciting job with AT&T and we moved to Birmingham. Within a year I was making about three times my previous salary, working in sales, but my husband (who had a biology degree but had failed to get accepted to medical school) had only been able to get a minimum wage job. He became violent and abusive, and began to use drugs. Within two years of moving to Birmingham, we were divorced.
I went on to have an exciting 20+ year career in telecommunications and was very successful, working my way up to a general manager position of the $5M regional office of a management consulting company by the time I was 40. Unfortunately, the next year, the double hit of an on-the-job accident and a diagnosis of lupus forced me into early retirement. I started acting in late 2001 after taking a musical theatre class on a whim; I got a part on my first audition and have never really stopped working since. I remarried 11 years ago to a software engineer who is also a musician; he understands my love of the arts but he also has a good job. Through the years I have been involved in the church, especially when I was single; I was a soloist for many years, a choir member, and even directed the youth choir for two years while I was in graduate school at Vanderbilt University. It was a stabilizing force in my life, a safe haven, a surrogate family. But it was just one of many support centers for me, not the only one.
For Cindy, we decided that she also married her high school sweetheart, and that they had stayed very active in the church but had not moved from their small hometown. Thus they had not faced the issues and temptations that couples often do face when they move out into “the world.” Sadly, Cindy lost her husband early (in my mind in the first Gulf War), and she retreated completely into the church. She completely withdrew from dating life, and never allowed herself to think about remarrying and having children, even though she was young enough to do so. She had already decided to use her voice “for the Lord,” that is, never to sing secular music and to use her singing as an act of worship only. This is something that I too, struggled with, until I finally realized that each time I sing I can glorify God, no matter what the song is.
When Steve the Pastor gives Cindy the opportunity to sit in with the comedy troupe as they develop their show, she is deeply concerned about being involved at first; her fear of being corrupted is very great. Gradually, however, she comes to realize that even Jesus would associate with “sinners” and that she needs to be able to be in the world and let her light shine and be a good example to the members of the troupe. Unfortunately, this attitude can make Cindy seem self-righteous, prudish, narrow-minded, and judgmental at times, and the troupe lets her know their exasperation. Even her beloved friend Marya feels frustrated from time to time as Cindy attempts to “help” her realize the possibility that she, too, could lose her soldier husband who is also at war. But gradually, through dealing with the different types of personalities, through being forced to sing solos (rather than just duets with Marya) in church, and through taking the chance to sing in the show, almost as if she were called to do it, Cindy begins to open up and becomes a much stronger, more tolerant, and more loving person.
I realize that in my own life, as I spent more time “in the world” and did not let my life revolve totally around the church, I also became a much more balanced and loving individual. That is where my path met up with Cindy’s again, and I see that in many ways she represents the more naive, innocent, gentler, and maybe more faithful woman that I used to be, before I was hardened by life’s inevitable sorrows, great and small. I love Cindy, and in some ways she represents the best part of who I am. I like to think that during the course of making this movie, creating the character of Cindy made me grow in ways I never expected, and I have become a stronger, kinder person because of the process of creating this film.
