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Glenn's Show Prep

Off The Record with Roma Downey

March 05, 2014
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The Glenn Beck Program

Over the last several months, Glenn has emphasized the importance of bringing together individuals who share the same goals and unifying principles so that we can learn from one another. GlennBeck.com is working to fulfill that goal by sitting down with some of the most interesting minds to give you an inside look at who they are and what they are working on.

Last month, Emmy award winning actress and producer Roma Downey spoke with GlennBeck.com assistant editor Meg Storm about her childhood growing up in war torn Ireland, the lack of Christian content coming out of Hollywood, and why people are responding so strongly to The Bible and Son of God.

Below is a transcript of the interview:

Hi, Roma! How are you?

Great! I am in Houston today.

How nice! I am actually in New York, but Glenn is down in Dallas.

Are you freezing in New York?

(Laughs) We are. We have a lot of snow on the ground right now.

Well, be safe!

Thank you! Before we dive into the Son of God questions, I just wanted to ask you a few things about your background. Were you always interested in the entertainment industry?

When I was in high school, I thought I might be an artist. I was very good at drawing and painting. I have always been someone who expresses themselves in an artistic way. I grew up in Northern Ireland. I grew up during the war. There weren’t a whole lot of opportunities to act. The local cinema had been burnt down, and the theater company had been blown up. My growing up wasn’t exactly conducive to figuring out that’s what I wanted to do. But once I started college and got involved in drama, it was clear that I loved that as a form of expression. I have had a great and enjoyable acting career, and now I am enjoying a great second act in my career as a producer.

How did you get your start in the industry – you said it was in college?

Yes, I came up through the theater. I came out of drama college and started working in the professional theater. I did a play with the Abbey Theater, which is Ireland’s national theater company. We brought that play to America. My dream had been to appear on Broadway, which I was able to do – I think it was 1990 or 1991 in a show called The Circle at the Ambassador Theater on 49th Street in New York City. And I also had the opportunity to work at the New York Shakespeare Festival with the Roundabout Theater Company. I had a classical training with Shakespeare, Shaw, Chekov, and so on.

And then I found myself getting cast in roles for television. I moved to Los Angeles on the heels of a mini-series I was in. I starred as Jackie Kennedy in a series called A Woman Named Jackie, which went on to win the Emmy that year. I was just in Los Angeles a few years when I cast to play the angel in Touched by an Angel.

How did you and Mark first meet?

We met just a little over 10 years ago now. We met in Malibu. I was having a manicure/pedicure. My husband was having a haircut. Our eyes met in the mirror – not once, not twice, but three times. And on the third time, having been caught looking over at him, I swore I would not look back. And he left – he took off in his car. We didn’t speak. When I was paying my bill, I was very discreetly trying to ask the receptionist who he was. And she said, "Oh isn’t that interesting that you are asking me who he was because he just asked me who you were!"

Oh my goodness!

So anyway, a few days later he got my phone number and called. And I guess the rest, as they say, is history.

That is such a great story – especially on Valentine’s Day! You were talking about how you have an extensive theater background and TV and movies and now you are behind the camera as well. Do you enjoy doing all of it equally?

Yes, I do. You know for many years, when I was starring on Touched by an Angel, I produced on a number of television movies for CBS. I have always enjoyed the aspect of bringing something together and multitasking in that way.

In the case of The Bible series and now Son of God, it has been a combination of what I love to do and what I believe. To be able to do that with the person I love has just really been a blessing. It has been the most challenging work and the most rewarding work. It was quite an undertaking to realize our Bible as a television series. We knew that came with a huge responsibility to bring the scripture to the screen – one that we took very seriously. We worked with scholars and theologians and faith leaders to refine the story, to tell the story accurately, to make sure that we brought the story to life and always kept true to the story of the book.

With Son of God, there is such an excitement and buzz growing. It opens on February 28, and we have been traveling across the country seeing a movement growing. Churches, I think, see what a resource the film is to visually bring the gospels to the screen. Jesus hasn’t been on the big screen in 10 years. That was Passion of the Christ, which only showed three days in Jesus’ life where Son of God is the narrative of Jesus’ life from the nativity and our Christmas story right through to his death but then his resurrection and ascension. The movie goes right through to the Commission. And I think the churches are seeing what a beautiful gift it is. They are stepping up and buying out the multiplexes around the country and giving the seats to their communities and youth groups and so on. So it has been very encouraging to be here in the middle of the south of the country and see what is happening.

You saw the great success of The Bible miniseries last year. Do you think there is such a void in the industry for content like this? Do you think people are really responding because there aren’t other options?

I think that’s true. I also think it speaks to a greater surge that people have. They are hungry for God and hungry for hope. When we first started working on The Bible series, I know that many in our industry thought we were fools, that nobody would show up, that nobody would be that interested in seeing Bible stories on the screen. Of course, we now know that one hundred million people showed up. The Bible series continued to ripple around the world with such success in countries that are surprising like Hong Kong and Australia – places that you might not think would have a huge interest or appetite for faith filled stories.

I think that part of our intention always was – it’s not enough to have good intentions, to bring the stories to the screen. We knew the stories had to be brought with excellent production value and told in a way that would be gritty and compelling and engaging and emotionally connecting. Ultimately, I think it was that that people responded to. Yes, they are good stories. But they are good stories well told.

So you filmed Son of God around the same time you filmed the first season of The Bible?

Oh, yes, absolutely! Every Friday night we would screen footage over there in Morocco. We had an editor on location with us. We would invite our cleaning team, our stars – everybody who worked on the movie had an open invitation to come to these screenings. It gave us an opportunity to see the work from the week that we had just completed, and it allowed everyone to feel like they were part of the team.

At one of these screenings, the Jesus narrative began to unfold, I turned to Mark and said, “Wow, Mark. This is really good. I wish we could be making a film.” And he said, “Well, why don’t we? Let’s shoot additional footage and have the editors start putting something together.” So it took about a year to get the movie edited. We had additional footage. We had a reedited form of the series footage. We have been able to present it in this cinematic way – in this stand-alone theatrical experience. And it is so different. It is so beautiful and impactful.

The feedback we are getting is people are enjoying the larger than life experience. They are enjoying seeing it in community with others. And you really get to see the scale of it and the full epic, sweeping stories with visual effects, special effects. It’s moving. It’s inspiration. And at the same time it’s this deeply personal, intimate love story. People are being profoundly moved by it.

I have seen some clips, and it so incredibly powerful the way you were able to translate these stories that have become so familiar because they are so iconic. But then to see them told in such a way is really something special.

The characters of the disciples – we wanted to cast them as a youthful group, as a dynamic group. They didn’t know they were in the Bible. They were just real guys living their lives. They didn’t even know that Jesus really was the Son of God until he rose. I think it’s the telling of the story in a very human way, in a very relatable way to people. The story is asking them to consider the stories in a new way. It’s a fresh telling. I think the movie will really touch people hearts.

I recently read that The Bible was picked up for a second season, this time on NBC. Is that correct?

Yes, we are doing a mini-series for NBC. We have a green light for 12 hours – for the first 12 hours. And it’s called A.D. The story will reset at the crucifixion and tell the story of the 11 disciples and the fear and the danger and the hope of those dark days when Jesus had died and then the beginnings of the early church.

We are currently working on those scripts, and we plan to be filming that new series back in Morocco by the end of this year, with the hope that it will be on television in the fall of 2015. So we will have had The Bible on TV in 2013, Son of God in theaters in 2014, and A.D. on television in 2015.

It’s been exciting and creative days for us. We must be the noisiest Christians in Hollywood!

That’s wonderful. Well, I look forward to seeing it. Thank you so much for time, Roma! It was a pleasure speaking with you.

We appreciate your help in getting the word out to everybody that Son of God is coming in English and in Spanish too. Thanks, Meg. Bye, bye.

Son of God is now in theaters nationwide. Watch the trailer of the film below:

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.