Joan of Arcadia: Talking Back to God

'People in real life cuss God out when they're angry,' says the show's star.

BY: Interview by Laura Sheahen

Taking as its theme song the Joan Osborne hit "What If God Was One of Us," the CBS series "Joan of Arcadia" shows God in various guises: a little girl, a Goth punk, a Cute Guy. Amber Tamblyn plays Joan, a teenage girl who talks to the Deity--and sometimes yells at him. She spoke with Beliefnet recently about the show's spirituality, comparisons to "Touched by an Angel," and upcoming episodes.

What did you think when you got the role of someone who talks to God?

I really didn't think too much into it. I think I had an advantage in the sense that I wasn't raised religiously. My own personal connection with God was not in a religious sense, so I wasn't really thinking in that way when I got the role and when I started doing it.

I just thought it was really cool, something different and funny. I liked the humor of it, I've always enjoyed a sense of humor in God and in religion and in spirituality. It's something that is not shown very often-everything seems to be so serious. That was something I really liked about the writing of the show. That was the first attraction.

I just played it as naturally as I could. I tried not to make God this big deal in Joan's life. She treats God like a friend: she's nice to him some days, and other days mean, and then cries when she needs help. She's a teenager. She shouldn't know any different and that's the irony of the whole situation.

It sounds like, based on your background, you bring a fresh perspective to the role.

I think any time you have too much education in one certain field, that can sometimes play against you. In this particular case, also the notion of Jeanne d'Arc--I didn't want to apply this savior aspect to Joan either.

I wanted her to have missteps and make mistakes. I wanted her to not be perfect and be insecure and be scared and have self-doubt. And at the same time, through all those things and through hardships, find some sort of balance in her life.

When you're playing Joan, do you draw from any spiritual experiences in your life?

At first, I had none. I wasn't using it in a spiritual way. But I didn't even see God in the show as being very spiritual, I see him or her, it, as being something that is just relevant and very important in her life.

But later on, as the season continued, really strange things started to happen, coincidences. I don't know if they just started to happen or if I was just noticing them because of the show. Big things too, though--like the fact that Jason Ritter's father died the day we started the episode called "Death Be Not Whatever," which is all about Joan dealing with the death of this young kid and how everyone in the whole family deals with death. That's odd.

There's a couple other things that are personal to some of our other castmates that I can't get into. Just basically about how life affects you and the decisions that you make, how they affect you positively and negatively.

What you were saying about treating God like a friend--being nice to him sometimes, or even complaining to him--have you been hearing from fans that this appeals to people? That you can talk back to God?

Oh yeah, I think so. I think that people are definitely interested in the idea that Joan has conversations with God. I think that's appealing to anybody. I know we have a few people who've taken offense when Joan says, "No wonder people hate you." Or I have a line in an episode where I say, "People wait their whole life to talk to you... and if they only knew." And I call him a jerk. Joan is not very smart.

But I think that's fine. People in real life cuss God out when they're angry. That's all real. And I'm so glad that Barbara Hall and the writers are not afraid to put that kind of stuff in the show. To not be scared to make it real--what is a person's relationship with God really like, not what it's supposed to be. What does a person say when they're desperate and in hard times?

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