Jennifer Grey on the Complexities of Bringing "Gwen Shamblin: Starving for Salvation" to Lifetime

quotWhen people heard I was playing her they were so excitedquot she continued quotI kept telling them 39You don39t understand how dark and sick this is39 That39s something I really wanted to come across The prep for this was scary but I don39t really believe in doing anything that isn39t a little scary If it39s not what are we doing here So yeah I was scared about everything I like to feel I can do a good job and show the scary elements of the real person from a human standpoint How did she get this way Where did she go wrong What happened in her life that made her somebody in such a powerful situation yet has lost so much and isn39t able to see where she went off I39m always going to try my very best in all of thatquotThe HBO Max documentary The Way Down God Greed and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin 2021 provided a deep dive into how the former pastor39s wife founded The Remnant Fellowship a Church she led based on the teachings of her bestselling weight loss book The Weigh Down Diet Shamblin believed she had a direct hotline to God who told her that overeating was a sin Her flock was quick to believe and that39s something Grey found intriguing quotWhy were these people willing to give themselves up for her approvalquot she pondered quotThat is fascinating Nobody made them do it To me it39s the tragedy of how lost people are and how much they want to believe that someone has the answer to fix them Or that they just feel like they are not lovable as they are in their imperfect state That there is some perfection you can attain if you do what someone who is so broken tells you to do That39s the thing that makes me the saddestquotIn familiarizing herself with Shamblin39s story Grey found the HBO Max documentary invaluable However it was a Larry King interview that provided the greatest insight quotI really got so much out of that one because I heard where she came fromquot she recalled quotWhere God was her boyfriend and she was like God was this handsome football player who could come in and save the day Giving human characteristics to God as her boyfriend her lover her number one Then she meets Joe Lara her second husband portrayed by Vincent Walsh and it39s like she has her first orgasm All of a sudden it39s like quotGod39s not my boyfriend This guy is Godquot All the rules of her church changed You can get divorced and do anything it was all about Joe Then she does a talk show with him amp8230 She was older but in those talk shows she was like a child and he was like her daddy I saw this little girl who was grateful to have this other experiencequotGrey39s physical transformation for the project is remarkable She worked tirelessly for weeks with a dialect coach honing a southern accent and made sure the best wig maker possible was enlisted to complete the quotbigger the hair the closer to Godquot look Grey believes Shamblin39s mental state and its decline can be charted by her look at a particular point in her life quotYou could see by the hair where her mental health was goingquot she said quotThe fact that she thought anyone would believe her hair would come out of her head like thatquotAnd there were no boundaries to her lipsquot she added quotShe was literally coloring outside of the lines It39s like she39d lost the ability to have the sense of what is a reasonablelooking human being It became more is better the higher the bigger and you could see it in the hair and the makeup It almost felt like she was regressing to being a child again How do you become a healthy sexual human being within a church that tells you sexuality renders you a sinner There39s so much complexity in that with body issues becoming a woman anorexia yet wanting to remain a child it39s mind bogglingquotIt was exciting seeing myself in the big wig that first timequot she admitted quotI worked with very collaborative people and we all had ideas of how to show her transition and what stage she was in The hair and makeup team worked so hard Visualizing the trajectory of someone39s mental health where you can see it reflected in their face hair body and demeanor amp8230 Drunk on power and what it means to be this largerthanlife character that people loved In that state she became almost superhumanquotGrey is on the fence about watching the film39s premiere preferring some distance between completing a project and revisiting it but she39s thrilled for people to see it quotWhen I look at pictures from this I39m excited by itquot she offered in closing quotBut I know myself enough to know I love the doing of it I39d rather for now just know what it felt like to be in the flow as Gwen It was hard goingquotGwen Shamblin Starving for Salvation will be telecast Saturday February 4 at 8 pm on Lifetime Click the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Jennifer Grey on the Complexities of Bringing "Gwen Shamblin: Starving for Salvation" to Lifetime

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Jennifer Grey on the Complexities of Bringing "Gwen Shamblin: Starving for Salvation" to Lifetime

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