Actress Danica McKellar has spent years in the public eye after breaking into the entertainment industry playing Winnie Cooper in the 1988 show “The Wonder Years.” She’s enjoyed a successful career as a performer and book author, taking her acting chops most recently to Great American Family.
The actress, who stars in the new film “A Royal Date for Christmas,” has also been on a public and authentic faith journey over the past year and a half, embracing Christianity and sharing her experience. She said of her willingness to discuss her beliefs, “I feel so blessed. People have said, ‘Oh, you are so bold.’ It doesn’t feel like bold. It doesn’t feel like it requires courage or anything. When you experience something that is so beautiful and so wonderful and so life-changing, you want everyone to feel that.”
She said the roots of faith were set in her heart after fellow actress Candace Cameron Bure invited her to a Passion play in 2022, an experience that ended up being life-changing as the Gospel permeated her heart. McKellar said, “It just hit me. Everything hit me. The Holy Spirit came to me. It was like a wave of love and understanding hit me.” Until then, McKellar said she had always had a “sense of God in some shape or form,” but she said her ideas about Christianity were very colored by negativity and framings presented in the news.
McKellar said of her faith, “I’d always thought of religion and Christianity as being restrictive and limiting somehow, but, instead, I feel the most amazing freedom. And I was like, I have to share this. I have to tell people the good news.” Before becoming a Christian, she assumed believers were judgemental and had caused problems, with these preconceived notions clouding her vision. McKellar continued, “I just didn’t get to see this is the most miraculous, amazing, incredible gift in the whole wide world. I just want people to feel that they’re not alone, that there’s love for you at any time, and it’s such a gift.”
The Passion play brought that gift to McKellar, who said Bure had also given her a Bible at the start of her spiritual journey. She described Bure as “amazing” and inspiring, explaining how Bure spent time answering her faith questions. One of the more unique facets of McKellar’s journey was her openness in immediately sharing her experience, telling fans about it in real-time as it unfolded.
Fast-forward a year and a half, and she said her faith has profoundly impacted her life. When bad situations unfold, McKellar said she has a “different way of dealing” with these crises now. She’s also reading the entire Bible this year, something she’s found deeply fulfilling. “I don’t have to figure everything out,” she said. “That’s not my burden. I get to turn it over to God.” As for McKellar’s acting career, it remains in full force.
She said she’s excited to be a part of Great American Family and Great American Pure Flix, where she can help “lift up the positive and good side of human nature” through storytelling.