Faith and Hollywood
Do you think it's easier to live out faith and to raise kids in faith in a place like Nashville, or is it just as hard here in Hollywood?
I think it's harder here [in Hollywood]. No doubt it's harder here. In Franklin, Tennessee where we're from, there's a lot of faith around, a lot of light. A lot of people have read the Bible. [Faith is] part of your life, part of the community. And you know what? [With] all due respect, in this world, it's just hard to find a lot of light here in Hollywood. You know that's one of the reasons I started doing "Doc" on Pax TV. [Doc was a TV series about a country doctor transplanted to New York. It ran from 2001 to 2004 and starred Billy Ray Cyrus.] I read the script and it was about hope and faith and love. To me it was a little reminiscent of "Touched by an Angel." It represented positive entertainment in a world of darkness. In some ways, had it not been for "Doc," Miley wouldn't be here being Hannah Montana right now. It was through "Doc" that she started acting and started studying the theater. Even with that show, the harder we worked to represent the light and be positive, the more the forces of evil and darkness would come in to try to put out that light.
So you can imagine being Miley right now, let alone me, you just gotta know that what the dark side wouldn't give to put out that light and that positive hope and love and bring down anyone. Miley gets up and wins an award and thanks Jesus, because it's who she is and what she believes. She's been reprimanded a few times for that from people in the business, saying, "What are you doing?" Can you imagine how much joy it would bring to the devil to see Miley just do something really stupid and all these kids around the world that she's represented such a positive force to just taint it with something stupid and ruin it? There's a lot of forces that would like to see that happen. But we pray…and I still pray the same prayer…that God will give us the wisdom and the vision and the ability to see the things we're supposed to see, to do the things we're supposed to do, to sing the songs we're supposed to sing, to be the people we're supposed to be.
