What do a former mayor of Fresno, California, a starting quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, and an actor who’s worked with Charlton Heston have in common? Answer: they’re all the same man.
Perhaps best known for his role as Lt. Bubba Skinner on the TV series In the Heat of the Night, Alan Autry had an encounter with God 25 years ago that changed his life forever. “For so many years I searched to be somebody in all the wrong places,” he says. “I was more miserable than ever. I started drinking, doing drugs. Finally got to the point where I thought I was dying. I was trying to chase things you can never get in this world, things only God can give.”
Autry cried out to the Lord, and He immediately answered, showing him what mattered in life. “He told me in my heart, ‘Son, I don’t make nobodies. Everybody is somebody in My eyes, because I created them.’ That gave me such great peace.” After becoming a Christian, Autry didn’t abandon his acting career. God spoke to his heart that what he’d selfishly started for himself, he was going to finish for the Lord. “I realized how powerful storytelling and movie making can be. Instead of making it for me, I was to use the influence He’d given me to make films for Him.”
The first of those is Forgiven, what Autry calls a “traditional, throwback Western.”
As the co-writer, director, and star of the film alongside his wife Kimberlee, Alan’s creative vision comes through loud and clear. “It’s good family entertainment with a strong message of love and redemption,” he says. “This movie shows you can’t fall so far into the black hole that God can’t get you out if you reach up and take His hand.”
Click here for more about the film — and to watch the movie trailer!