'The Chosen' Star Almost Quit Acting Before Landing Role in Hit Series

Virginia Allen : Mar 4, 2024
The Daily Signal

“I was so deeply moved by it that every take, I realized, oh, there's a new way of acting for me, which is, trusting—instead of having to rely too much on myself..." -Elizabeth Tabish

[DailySignal.com] When actress Elizabeth Tabish learned she got the role of Mary Magdalene in "The Chosen," she says, the series "was not the show we know it is today."

Initially, the show was going to be released on an app and was only set to release the first four episodes of Season One. "It felt more like a pilot," Tabish says, adding that as an actress she knew many shows never went past their pilots, so she was trying to keep her "hopes in check."

Up until receiving the role in "The Chosen," a multiseason series that depicts the life and ministry of Jesus and the Twelve Apostles, Tabish was struggling in the industry and says she was "trying to quit acting."

"I just was not very successful," she explains. "So, I was like, I need to do something more practical. So, it was sort of like the last audition that I was going to do, and when I got the scripts for the audition, I think that's when I knew ... this is different. There's something really special about this."

Since Tabish joined the cast and was a central part of the first four episodes that were released in 2017, "The Chosen" has garnered more than 200 million viewers, is in its fourth season, and it not only streams on multiple platforms, but also released the first episodes of Seasons Three and Four in theaters.

For Tabish, the series has even changed her method of acting.

"Earlier on in the seasons," Tabish says, she "really relied on some old habits of acting, techniques which were a little self-abusive and a little, like, you have to put yourself in a bad emotional state in order to portray ... I guess that would be a sort of method acting."

But the actress says she can remember the exact moment on the set of "The Chosen" when something clicked and changed in her.

In Season Two, Episode Six, Tabish's character of Mary Magdalene is struggling with her past life of sin. In the show, the Apostles Matthew and Simon search for her and find her drunk in the street and filled with shame.

"I was so nervous about doing that scene," Tabish says, but explains that as she did it, she was deeply moved by her fellow actors and felt that they were "speaking to me as Liz, as a friend."

"I realized, oh, I don't have to hurt myself to do this, I can just rely on the other actors and connect with them and be moved by them," she says.

"I was so deeply moved by it that every take, I realized, oh, there's a new way of acting for me, which is, trusting—instead of having to rely too much on myself," she said. "It's trusting on, one, God, and the situation that it's going to unfold the way it's meant to unfold."

Tabish joins The Daily Signal's "Problematic Women" podcast to share her journey as an actress on the set of "The Chosen."

Also on today's show, we discuss the effects of the transgender movement on young women with The Daily Signal's own Mary Margaret Olohan, author of the forthcoming new book "Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult." Plus, we discuss the true costs of illegal immigration. Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

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Virginia Allen is a senior news producer and podcast host for The Daily Signal and is the co-host of The Daily Signal Podcast and Problematic Women.