Aleteia interviews The Baxter's Roma Downey

An interview with Roma Downey, Producer/Actress on her new Amazon series The Baxters. Interview by Aleteia writer Cerith Gardner.

Transcript

00:00 How do you think it will appeal to people who aren't necessarily religious?

00:08 Oh, I think that there's an invitation on the door for everybody here. This is family,

00:14 you know, they happen to be faith, you know, that's their belief system, but I don't think

00:20 there's any exclusion to anybody else not resonating with the stories and the challenges

00:26 and the family dynamics. And they, you know, they're a family, they don't always like each

00:31 other. They love each other deeply, but they have secrets. They don't always like each other. They

00:36 don't always like each other's choices. They don't always like each other's behaviors. But I think

00:41 that they always love each other. And I think that they're very relatable in that way. You know, that

00:46 at the very least, you'll tune in and you'll say, oh, I'm more like this daughter than that daughter,

00:52 or I like this one personally more than I like that one. And that's how, you know, she's, well,

00:58 she's written these characters that we see a little bit of ourselves in this story. And I

01:03 don't think that you have to be of faith at all to enjoy it. But I do think that people of faith

01:09 don't often get to see churchgoing faithful families on the screen. And I think that that

01:16 will be refreshing for people of faith to see a family that are comfortable to stop and pray for

01:23 each other. And, you know, I can't think of another show where I've seen that maybe sometimes people

01:31 pray before they eat. But, but to just be worried about somebody and say, you know, can we hold

01:38 hands right now and just say a prayer for our daughter or for our son? I think it's very moving,

01:45 you know, but it's very moving, especially as some of the plot, there's a lot of praying that

01:51 needs to be done. And you see what's happening, you know, and, you know, you think that here we

01:57 are at this time in our world, I really do think that that the pandemic created a lot of loneliness

02:02 in people. And, you know, and so this show really is an invitation to belong, we see a family come

02:11 together, and then we see the greater community come together. And it reminds people that we do

02:16 belong to each other. And, and that, you know, there are good people out there doing good things.

02:22 I mean, if you turned the news on, you'd live to believe it was only bad things. Now, that's not

02:27 that there aren't painful things, but that there are good people making good, good choices for

02:32 each other too. And we need to make a bit more noise for those guys, I think.

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