Known for his leading roles in “Lord of the Rings,” the “Goonies” and “Rudy,” actor Sean Astin’s approach to choosing his next movie role is similar to his take on religion; he doesn’t want to be confined to one group.
“I guess I never wanted to declare a team because I wouldn’t have wanted any of the other teams to invite me to their party,” Astin told FOX411. “I’m a wildcard, they can’t figure me out.”
Astin, who is “technically Lutheran” after he, his wife and three daughters were baptized in the same church, never thought about defining his faith until he was asked in a live interview to share his religious beliefs.
“I thought, ‘Huh, I guess I have to have an answer’,” he recalled. “I consider myself a Christian. I don’t know if I’m a very good one but I’m praying the forgiveness thing is legit.”
While Astin’s answer is confident now, his road to faith was a winding road. Raised by his mother, actress Patty Duke, and father, “The Addams Family’s” John Astin, in what he describes as a secular home, Astin was exposed to a variety of religions before coming to his own faith.
“My mother was a Catholic who had been kicked out of the church at one time and she put me in Catholic school in sixth to eighth grades and I wanted to become a Catholic then,” he said. “But my father, who was an atheist because his parents were a scientist and school teacher, later discovered Buddhism.”
In addition to his exposure to Catholicism and Buddhism, Astin’s oldest brother “went to India, shaved his head and lived on an ashram and became Hindi.”
In 2003, Astin decided to “embrace Christianity” and develop his own “relationship and understanding with God.”
“I figure since I went to Catholic school for three years and my mom did some really good Catholic type work, and since I starred in ‘Rudy’ and I was in ‘Lord of the Rings,’ I figure if I get to [heaven] and St. Peter is taking numbers, I might have to wait a little while, but I’ll probably get let through.”
Astin stands strong in his faith today and currently stars alongside “Grey’s Anatomy’s” Sarah Drew in the faith-based “Moms Night Out.”
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SOURCE: Sasha Bogursky
Fox News
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