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Producer Roma Downey is back to acting with The Baxters, a new Prime Video series based on the popular book series by Karen Kingsbury. Downey plays Elizabeth, the matriarch of the tight knit family and Ted McGinley co-stars as her husband John. Downey and Kingsbury talked to Deepest Dream about the new Prime Video program.
Growing up, I was not able to actually watch a lot of series where prayer and living in the faith in modern day was prevalent. I’m just so happy that series like The Baxters exist. Can both of you speak to the fact that maybe that’s maybe a driving force why both of you wanted to collaborate on this project?
Roma Downey: I came to the Baxter series as a book fan. A friend had given me a copy of the first book, Redemption, written by the amazing Karen Kingsbury, and I just couldn’t put the book down. I fell in love with the story. I fell in love with the characters. I thought, “this needs to be a television show.” I called up Karen. I didn’t know her, but I called her up and boldly asked if she would consider allowing me to have the option of her books.
And she shared with me a great conversation she’d had with her father.
Karen Kingsbury: So back in the beginning, when I wrote the first book, Redemption, about the Baxters, my dad was my greatest fan, and he’s since gone on to heaven. But he read it, and he was just wiping tears and just smiling so big. And he said: “Everyone’s going to know the Baxters. But you know what? It needs to be a TV show because it’s like a Hope opera. And I think you should call that Roma Downey woman. You know, the one who’s in Touched by An Angel. She would love to make this into a TV show.”
Roma Downey: So then when called Karen and she told me this, we just both felt like it was a blessing. That it was like a God moment that we were supposed to collaborate and bring this to the screen together. And I think that one of the reasons that Karen entrusted me with her beloved family series was that she knew I would remain true to the very thing that you’ve just asked us about, and which is that the faith, their faith, and that we would be able to show that on screen.
Because you don’t often get to see a church going family, a God honoring family, a family that takes a moment to stop and pray. And we see marriage and committed marriage modeled so well in the characters of John (Ted McGinley) and Elizabeth Baxter (Roma Downey).
Karen knows her audience. Millions and millions and millions of fans (of Karen’s books) already exist. So if we just bring the fans to the book to the series on Amazon Prime, it’ll be huge. But I anticipate that a lot more people that maybe didn’t know the books will also come in and fall in love with this family on television.
Both of you are natural writers and wondering for both of you in your respective busy days, how do each of you find time to write, whether it’s books or whatnot? Where does that time come from?
Karen Kingsbury: So I know for me, I am in a season right now where I’m more about, you know, film. I have The Baxters (and) I have a movie coming out in theaters on April 2nd. So I sort of took a little hiatus. I’m screenwriting more than I am book writing, but I’ll get back to it because I have books in my heart.
But when I’m doing two novels a year, when I’m in those sorts of seasons, I have to pull away. And thankfully, God’s given me the ability to write quickly so I can write a novel in about two weeks and spend sort of the rest of the time around it working on the marketing and helping (readers) find out about it. What about you, Roma?
Roma Downey: Yeah, well, you know, I’m primarily these days a producer, so my time is taken up with a development of story or in this case, marketing our wonderful Baxters television series. But I think anything that you love to do, you’re going find the time for it if something lights you up and you feel you have purpose and intention.
We called our company Lightworkers, and we adopted the mantra that it was better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. For the first time in a long time, I’ve stepped back in front of the camera. I haven’t been on a series television since Touched by an Angel when I played the angel Monica, but I stepped in to play the role of Elizabeth Baxter because I just really love this woman. She’s compassionate, empathetic, strong and she’s a prayer warrior. But she’s also feisty on behalf of her children. She loves her children so ferociously. When she feels that anybody or anything is coming in to hurt them, she gets naturally defensive as we would. Karen and I are both mothers, so I think we both understand that Karen obviously has written this role and I’ve taken it and interpreted for the screen.
I think (with) American audiences, we don’t often get to see our values represented on the screen in this way. And this is not a preachy show in any way. Just because this family believes doesn’t mean that they are immune to life’s challenges. Yhere are plenty of challenges that are going to be thrown at them, but it’s how they deal with it I think that’s unique to American TV shows. We’re thrilled that we’ve gotten the Easter time slot to launch.
Easter has been very good to me with my past projects. The Bible, last year (it was) On a Wing and A Prayer with Dennis Quaid launched at Easter. We’re confident that families will enjoy curling up together with each other over the Easter holiday and watching The Baxters on Amazon Prime Video.
