{"id":30806,"date":"2023-12-15T10:46:15","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T15:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=30806"},"modified":"2023-12-15T10:46:15","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T15:46:15","slug":"neal-mcdonough-shares-how-playing-lucifer-in-the-shift-changed-his-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/12\/neal-mcdonough-shares-how-playing-lucifer-in-the-shift-changed-his-life.html","title":{"rendered":"Neal McDonough Shares How Playing Lucifer in &#8216;The Shift&#8217; Changed His Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_30812\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30812\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/12\/neal-mcdonough-the-shift-credit-movie-trailers-source-youtube.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30812\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/12\/neal-mcdonough-the-shift-credit-movie-trailers-source-youtube.png\" alt=\"neal mcdonough\" width=\"768\" height=\"501\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30812\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Movie Trailers Source\/YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Actor Neal McDonough, who&#8217;s known for playing a villain in most of his Hollywood projects, said his latest role as Lucifer for the faith-inspired movie &#8220;The Shift&#8221; changed his life.<\/p>\n<p>McDonough stars in the new Angel Studios sci-fi film &#8220;The Shift,&#8221; which follows a man named Kevin, played by Kristoffer Polaha, &#8220;who finds himself in a dystopian world confronted by a mysterious stranger known as &#8216;The Benefactor&#8217; who presents him with challenged as he fights to shift realities and return to the woman he loves,&#8221; the film&#8217;s synopsis reads. An overview of the movie posted to the film&#8217;s funding page reads, &#8220;Kevin will face off with the devil in a way that exposes his tricks and his lies by shining a light that cuts through all that darkness. Kevin will be presented with concrete temptations most of us can relate to, and we&#8217;ll see how his choices alter the world around him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>McDonough says regardless of background, having to go through darkness is where everyone finds true light. The actor said in an interview with The Christian Post, &#8220;We all have to go through our darkness. We all get beaten up in life. We&#8217;re also all sinners in life. We have our flaws, we fall down, we trip all over ourselves, but it&#8217;s how we get up that dictates what kind of men and women we are for Him, not for us, but for Him.&#8221; He continued, &#8220;God first, me second, family first, me second, those are the tenets that we live by in our house. If more people live by that, wouldn&#8217;t the world be just a much sweeter place to live in?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HxPsTggfdsg?si=sIo4JoO3uAgNh6In\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>McDonough also advised people not to take their blessings for granted. He said, &#8220;It&#8217;s films like &#8216;The Shift&#8217; that make us realize that we shouldn&#8217;t take any of it for granted. It&#8217;s so fleeting. We&#8217;re here for such a short amount of time. Make your life remarkable. Be the greatest version of you possible.&#8221; McDonough added, &#8220;In this film, I get to play the character that tries to pull you away from that. So the importance of playing that character as truthfully as possible was one of the greatest challenges I&#8217;ve ever had as an actor.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>McDonough said he didn&#8217;t want to play the devil as this &#8220;sick, twisted, dark being.&#8221; He said, &#8220;I wanted to play him as he&#8217;s your next-door neighbor. He seems like a really nice guy. That&#8217;s a guy I&#8217;d like to hang out with. And then, all of a sudden, everything just kind of gets too dark, and he loses his faith.&#8221; The actor told The Christian Post, &#8220;Lucifer lost his faith in God a long time ago. And I played this character that all I want is that faith back. That last scene that I have with Kevin is one of the most painful scenes I&#8217;ve had as an actor because I have to dredge up all these thoughts that get me to why don&#8217;t I have that in my life? Why can&#8217;t I be more like Kevin?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>McDonough said the role &#8220;changed&#8221; his &#8220;life forever,&#8221; adding, &#8220;I gave up drinking eight years ago, and that was hard. But to be sober now for eight years of my life have been the greatest eight years of my life.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Actor Neal McDonough, who&#8217;s known for playing a villain in most of his Hollywood projects, said his latest role as Lucifer for the faith-inspired movie &#8220;The Shift&#8221; changed his life. McDonough stars in the new Angel Studios sci-fi film &#8220;The Shift,&#8221; which follows a man named Kevin, played by Kristoffer Polaha, &#8220;who finds himself in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":30812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3383,7,3388,3],"tags":[5126,5621],"class_list":["post-30806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","category-christian-celebrity","category-entertainment","category-faith-based","category-movies","tag-neal-mcdonough","tag-the-shift"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Neal McDonough Shares How Playing Lucifer in &#039;The Shift&#039; Changed His Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Neal McDonough recently discussed how 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