The Curtain and the Cross
We were created by a creative God. Nathan and Grace (along with some of other friends) discuss what it's like to be a creative Christian in both the public school system and the theatre world.
The Curtain and the Cross
Faith in the Spotlight: Navigating Acting with Integrity and Grace
Have you ever pondered how to harmonize your spiritual beliefs with a career that thrives on performance and creativity? Our latest episode offers insights through the engaging story of Matthew Stuart Jackson, a remarkable actor, writer, and comedian. Matthew shares his journey from his roots in various Protestant denominations to discovering his passion for acting. We dive into how he navigates the intersection of faith and the performing arts, addressing the challenges and triumphs that come with maintaining Christian values in the theater world.
Matthew enriches our conversation with his perspective on what it means to be a Christian actor. We discuss how understanding one's identity in Christ empowers artists to tell diverse stories without compromising their beliefs. It’s not about isolating oneself from challenging environments, but rather about demonstrating faith through actions and integrity. Matthew's insights into prioritizing personal integrity over professional success are as inspiring as they are thought-provoking, offering a refreshing take on how artists can lead with example and grace.
In this heartfelt episode, we also explore Matthew’s teaching philosophy, where he integrates faith into his theatre classes. He candidly shares his experiences teaching improvisation across age groups, viewing his work as a form of ministry. We acknowledge his upcoming projects, including an audiobook based on a Christian guide, and also celebrate the deep friendship we share. Our chat reflects on the joys and challenges of balancing auditions, comedy gigs, and social media presence, wrapping up with genuine appreciation for the unique journey Matthew continues to tread.
hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the curtain and the cross. Episode of the curtain and the cross. This is a country podcast. Now see this. You know what this shows me? This shows me that my good friend matthew, who's on the episode with us, does not listen to the show. I think that's what that tells me, right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah I have yet to. I have yet to listen to an episode.
Speaker 1:I'm so sorry no, it's, it's okay. It's okay. A little background homework would have been nice, but that's fine. So the joke is that I feel like our title for the show sounds like a country song. It does so. Now I feel like I have to sing it every time I introduce the show.
Speaker 2:And if I had done my research I would have realized that.
Speaker 1:That is my fault. No, it's totally fine. So, listeners, you hear my friend Matthew. Matthew Jackson is joining us for this episode today and, of course, as always, I have my good friend Grace. Hello, how are you doing?
Speaker 3:I am fabulous, nathan, and I'm so excited to be able to talk with you and your good friend, matthew, today, so it's going to be a good episode.
Speaker 1:Yes. So Grace and I discussed in our first episode and a little bit in our second episode how we started off like deep dived in the world of theater and we felt that we needed to step away. And we kind of discussed a little bit of the reasons why. And it was mostly because we felt like for ourselves personally, it was very hard to balance the theater world and our faith. And we had talked about how we know some people who know how to do both, know how to balance their personal faith in Christ and doing theater.
Speaker 1:And Matthew Jackson is one of those people. I am super excited to talk to him. He and I we kind of admitted to each other the other day that he and I have done shows together. We've formed this friendship but we had rarely talked to each other about our faith and it kind of made me sad, I'm not gonna lie. It made me sad that we hadn't talked about our faith with each other. So I'm really excited for him to be on this episode. So, matthew, I kind of already introduced you, but you can give yourself a little bit of a better introduction so take it away, my, my friend.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. Yeah, my name is Matthew. I'm an actor, a writer, comedian, voiceover artist and, hopefully now podcaster. Apparently, hopefully, I will be doing my own podcast very, very shortly here, but that's another discussion. I'm based in Fayetteville, north Carolina, and and as nathan said, yeah, we got to know each other doing some sweet tea shakespeare together. Um, that was really fun, and I just remember thinking how, when you were playing bottom in midsummer night's dream a dream role of mine I figured, man, I can't even be jealous of that role because he's doing it so perfectly. I don't even want that role, because nobody could be doing it better than Nathan is doing it right now. So that was my first impression of you, nathan.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate that. So one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show. So one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show, obviously, is you are also a fantastic actor yourself, but just until recently I didn't fully understand your walk with Christ. So if you're, if you're comfortable sharing your, maybe your I guess we would call it your testimony or your walk with Christ. I mean, if you would like to give that little background of yourself.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, well, I was raised in the church. I was raised a Presbyterian, but I've always identified as basically anything Protestant. So when I grew up, I went to a Presbyterian church. Since then I've attended Anglican churches, lutheran churches, methodist churches. I currently reside now in another Presbyterian church, so I could basically just call myself a Presbyterian and skip all that mumbo jumbo. But um, yeah, I was raised in the church, had a pretty strong calling towards the acting vocation and this was an interesting story here.
Speaker 2:It was my freshman year of college and I'm visiting my parents back home and I remember sitting down with my dad and we went out to breakfast together and he said so what are you going to major in? I was like no, probably English. He's like why do you want to? Why do you want to do that? And I said, well, I don't know, I was figuring out. I was going to go be a high school English teacher, raise a couple of kids and and do, do, do what I know. And he's like like, okay, you don't sound very excited about that. I was like, no, it's just, I don't know what else to do. He said well, what do you want to do? I was like well, I want to be an actor but I feel like the world could use more teachers.
Speaker 2:He's like, well, you're not wrong about that, but I think the world could use more christian actors. And then after that I was like sold, okay, like say less, that was um, and so I went back to school it was my freshman year of university and went back to school with a brand new mindset of okay, now, what does that mean to be a Christian actor? And I don't just do Christian stories, but it's like I'm an actor who happens to be christian.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I guess that that's a brief, brief, little little summary there so I guess that leads me to the question, the question that you basically just presented what does it mean to be a christian actor? A Christian actor? Because Grace and I discussed before that we felt that we weren't at a place, I guess, where we could balance that. And I know you and I have done shows with Sweet Tea you mentioned before, and it got to a point for me, and we had briefly discussed this it had gotten to a point to me where for some reason I can't explain and I still can't that I just felt like I didn't belong in that environment anymore. So how do you find the ability to balance both your faith and being an actor, or do you think you have to do that?
Speaker 2:No, I do think it's a balancing act and I think it's to forgive the pun a balancing act because we're all actors, but it is.
Speaker 2:It's not something I've honestly struggled that much with because, yes, being around theater people and the theater industry itself is, by nature, pushing boundaries and always trying to be on the edge of culture and is much more liberal and loose and wanting to bend norms, and that's always been fine with me because I have always known who I am and who I am in Christ, and I, I and not everything in theater has to be for me, and but my job as an actor is to come in and to tell my story and to tell the story with the people around me, and my job isn't to judge and if there are things that are happening around me that I don't approve of, I don't have to participate in that. But I'm not there to be like, oh, these people are going to hell, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like that's not my job. My job is to love them and to maybe show them a different way.
Speaker 3:I love that because in your job you may be, just by showing them the love, the only Christ someone sees, and like, taking that just through your way, you act with them. Probably is God enough without shoving it down their throat. You're like, hey, you need to be a Christian. It's just like by your example.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so basically what we're coming to? The conclusion is that Grace and I are just two judgmental jerks who can't hold their tongue, and that's why we backed away from them.
Speaker 3:I'm just kidding, and that's why we backed away from that. I could not not participate in the things at the time in my life. I was at, I was going in the wrong path and I was like I have to focus on, I was not strong enough in my faith where I could, like you said, just not participate in some of those things, cause I wanted to be a part of everything.
Speaker 2:So I also think, too, that there's there's, like, some schools of thought in the acting world about, like how you have to be so extreme or you have to do certain things that I was like. If I ever get to the point of my career where I am sacrificing being a good person to be a good actor, I that then it is time for me to step away from acting like, like if whatever work I'm doing as an actor is coming at the detriment of my soul, then it is not worth it to me anymore. Then I need to be doing something else. It is time for me to hang up my boots and say it was fun while it lasted. But I think these things are not mutually exclusive. We can be God centered actors and tell stories that aren't God centered Like. We can tell stories that are important and that need to be told and that we are just representing ourselves in our own little circle and our own little spheres.
Speaker 1:Are you of the mindset that you can find God's truth in in almost anything?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that there's like, obviously there, there were always trying to be people, people trying to push back against that and be like okay, find God in this. I'm like, well, that's not worth our time. In a good faith argument, I think there could be. God can be found anywhere, like if it's in good faith. There's, and there's some people acting in bad faith who will try to present you with an argument like, okay, find God in this, and then obviously present you with something that is completely devoid of anything holy.
Speaker 1:But if it taking you at your word of like in a good faith argument, yeah, I think there's some goodness to be found in anything and I've gotten to that place too, which is one of the reasons why, um, I kind of left the, the christian school that I was at, because I got to a point where I was wanting to do shows that weren't overtly christian, but had that message in there somewhere, because I believe that that and this is something that grace has quoted me, even though it's not a direct quote from me that we were created to be creative, and no matter what that means, what that looks like, if it's not like what you said, if it's not to the detriment of someone's soul, then I believe that God is behind it.
Speaker 1:And so what are some things and you kind of touched on this already, but what are some things that you would tell someone like me or Grace, who that that want and that pull to perform, but we just just don't see how we can and how we can justify performing and also professing to be christ followers well, I would say look at the story that you're.
Speaker 2:What is the story you were trying to tell is part of the whole. Like, what production are you a part of? What character are you playing? What story are you telling? And then, what story are you bringing to your character? Like, any character I play is going to have the matthew angle, because there's there's just no other way to do it. I think johnny depp was the one who said that if you don't bring some part of yourself to your acting, it's not acting, it's lying. Um, so you always have to bring something of yourself to that story and that and that is that can be the joy and the receptivity that you're receiving from other people. Like a given, a take. But, um, I would just say like, yeah, what is it uniquely you?
Speaker 1:that is that that only you can bring, that nobody else would bring to that room yeah which kind of worries me that I played characters like john falstaff and nick bottom and I was able to bring a little bit of my conceitedness myself to that character and the the desperation of because john falstaff is a character that when I see him he's just desperate for companionship. Yeah, and if that isn't me when I first started out in Fayetteville theater, I don't know what is. So that that's definitely a side of myself, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think I mean going back to at least my reason for, for getting out of the theater world. I hate to say it like at least my reason for getting out of the theater world. I hate to say it like that, like I was getting out of something, but it was mostly because and Grace kind of touched on this I wasn't in a place in my faith where it wasn't so much that I was having to justify being a Christian in the theater world, but it was more so like holding on to my faith in the theater world, if that makes sense. Like I, I was such in a place that I was so desperate for companionship and friendship that I thrived off of that want and need, so much that I guess we could say that theater became like an idol to me. Like I needed theater for verification, I needed theater to have friends, I needed theater for this and for that.
Speaker 1:So have you ever found I mean, it sounds like you're at a really good place, matthew, doing theater and and and, so grounded in your faith? But have you ever found yourself like in that kind of why am I doing theater? Is there a? Is there a hidden idolatry reason while I'm doing it or or. Or. Have you always been like? No, this is what I feel God has called me to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say the latter it is. I think I feel like God has put me on this earth to tell stories. Whether that's through theater, film, tv, stand-up comedy, my writing, my audio books, whatever it is, I'm on this earth to tell stories. I'm not a theologian, I'm not a prophet, I am not a pastor. I am a storyteller, and one of that is through the craft of acting, where you become another person to tell a story. So I guess I've never really had that problem where theater has become my idol.
Speaker 2:But I also think of it as my life as a vegetarian as well. But like I don't judge other people who eat meat but and so like there are things in theater and things in the acting world that are not for me and people that I'm like, okay, yeah, if you want to go full method and you want to take your role that seriously, that's fine for you. That is not fine for me. I would not feel comfortable doing that. Um, but just because I am a vegetarian, I do not need to put my vegetarian beliefs on you as an actor and make you feel bad about the meat that you're eating, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1:You've done some theater camps You've done some improv camps. So how do you? Because Grace and I are both theater teachers. I teach elementary, she teaches high school, and you've worked with all ages, haven't you? Like kids and adults?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, kindergarten up through adulthood. In fact, I spent a year in South Africa teaching for that whole year. That was after college and that was kind of when I realized I didn't want to be a teacher full time, like I spent that year as learning. That was like, yeah, I'm not a teacher, that is not my primary calling. My calling is to tell stories and not to teach. That's another distinction that God has given me is like, yeah, you're not, you're not primarily a teacher, but you do do it on the side and that's fine. Um, so I teach kind of once or twice a year eight long, eight eight week classes. Um, eight week long classes was what I was trying to say. Um, I teach mostly improvisation and I in the past I've taught acting and speech and other stuff, but yeah, so that's kind of my background there.
Speaker 1:So so Grace and I both teach in the public school system. You kind of do it's kind of public school system kind of stuff that you do, cause it's not a Christian organization, right. But how? How do you, when you teach whatever age student, do you find yourself trying to implement um aspects of your faith in your teaching? Or do you see it just strictly as I'm here to teach improv, I'm here to teach acting, or anything like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say I'm not there to evangelize. That's not. That's not the time or the place. Um, I'm not trying to convert anybody to my religion. I'm there to be an example of what an improviser or an actor or whatever it is I'm teaching. And then if they learn afterwards like, oh yeah, he's a Christian too, how can he be a Christian and an actor at the same time? It's like great, I'm happy to have that discussion, but, um, but I'm not there to. That's you really not the time or the place for me to to do any proselytizing? So?
Speaker 1:yeah, I think I I think kind of what I was going for is like what you just said, like being that example and being that, that example of christ, because, yes, you can't openly talk to people about your faith and obviously yeah yeah, yeah, you might, you might get in trouble for that, just just just a little bit, um.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I, I mean, like, like I used to say when I was first teaching, like I see my class as a ministry, like that's, that is my ministry, that is where god has my ministry, that is where God has placed me, that, that is where God has called me to be in the moment. And, yes, I can't openly talk about my faith, but I can be a shining light to the students that God has placed in my care and and in that time, so, yeah, I mean, yeah, that's, that's that. That's kind of where I was, where I was going for I think it was saint francis um, one of them.
Speaker 3:That was like you need to preach the gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words and I feel like just through teaching, through, just like living for Christ through your actions, is enough of the gospel that you don't have to say anything. So I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Matthew, do you have anything coming up, any projects, any voiceover, audio books, cause you do everything.
Speaker 2:So actually recording a. A book that my dad did is a guide to discovering God's will, and so it's a Christian book that I'll be getting to in the next couple of weeks. Here I'm also proofreading a new manuscript that hasn't even come out yet, so that's exciting too. So my dad has written several books for the Christian faith and, yeah, I got an audio book coming up. And yeah, just auditioning my way through, doing some standup comedy gigs here and there, and, yeah, keeping busy.
Speaker 1:So if anybody wants to follow your acting journey, how can they do that?
Speaker 2:That'd be great. And Matthew Stewart Jackson on Instagram or Blue Sky I'm a Matt Jack laughs. And, yeah, facebook as well. Matthew Stewart Jackson I go by my full name cause there are too many Matthew Jackson's out there. So, yeah, thank you very much for that plug.
Speaker 1:Well, matthew, you're amazing. You're one of my best friends and I consider myself blessed to know you and to have say to be able to say that I've been on the stage with you, so I know how good you are and so thank you right back at you feeling is mutual. Well, thank you, I appreciate it, but thank you for coming on the show and this is the curtain and the Cross, with Nathan and Grace Signing out.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
