We chatted to actor Paul Kwo, who plays Martin Yip in God’s Not Dead and God’s Not Dead 2.
God’s Not Dead 2 is currently is US theatres and will be released in the UK on April 29th.
The interview with Paul is split into two parts, Part 1 looks at growing up in Church and getting into acting, and Part 2 looks at God’s Not Dead 2, Christianity in China, What he would like to see in God’s Not Dead 2 and his other projects.
Part 1:
Could you tell us about growing up and becoming a Christian?
I was born into a Christian family, my parents are both Christians, my dad was the minister when I was really young and I went to Church every single Sunday when I was a little kid. Not just my parents, my grandparents and almost every one of my aunts and uncles are Christian too, so grew up in a very Christian family. I went to Church for a very long time from when I was a baby, I’ve served in the Church, I started when I was 10 years old playing the piano at the Church, and then helping out at the Sunday school for my dad’s Church and teaching VBS, translating work, lead worship, directed choirs, I’ve done a lot of various different positions in Church.
Did any of those positions in Church help you get into acting or how did you get into acting?
My Church life definitely had an influence on it, its one of the biggest reasons why I got into music and I got into acting because I was a musician to begin with and I was a musician because my parents thought ‘hey you know, lets give him a skill and piano seems like to be a good thing and at the very least he could help out and play at his dad’s Church’ that kinda was their reason for giving me piano lessons, life skill and help out at the Church. Thats how I started in my performance career and when I was in high school I started doing more drama and I did some of that also at the Church, actually one of the first musicals I ever did was directed by my high school musical director but was at a Church in the Los Angels area, they put on a summer musical of Oklahoma and I played one of the lead roles and thats how I got started, got bitten by the acting bug.
Did you have many roles before God’s Not Dead?
I have done some films and some minor roles in TV shows like the remake of Knightrider, Scrubs and a lot of commercials for big companies, voiceovers and on camera, I have done a lot of various different TV performances and some theatre work in LA.
What drew you to auditioning for God’s Not Dead?
I wasn’t a famous actor when I started the whole thing, nobody knows me at all, so I just went to every audition my agent sent me and my agent sent me to this movie called God’s Not Dead, I looked at it and thought oh its a Christian film, great, why wouldn’t I go to this audition. So I went to this audition just like any other audition, I went and did my thing and was like ok I’m done, I’m never going to hear from them again , but I heard from them the next day, they booked me on th e movie and I got flown out at the end of that same week for three weeks to Louisiana to shoot the movie, that was the craziest three weeks of my life.
For you being able to act and share your faith is a great opportunity
It was an absolutely wonderful thing, my parents were like extra thrilled about it, one of the biggest roles that I’ve ever gotten is a Christian film, they’re like ‘thats so awesome, you’re in a Christian film’ and then when the film did so well they were even like thats just really great. You can’t make your father/pastor more happy than being in a Christian film now can you right?