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Actor Stelio Savante Talks Shining Christ’s Light in Hollywood

  • Michael Foust ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor
  • Published Mar 10, 2023

Stelio Savante was only a few years into his acting career about two decades ago when a fellow church member asked him a question that gave him pause: Why do you always play criminals?

"I struggled with it," Savante told Christian Headlines.

At the time, Savante, a Christian, had portrayed bad guys in several projects, including The Sopranos and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In recent years, he portrayed a thief on the cross in the film The Two Thieves (2014), for which he won an American Movie Award.

He says he took the question to heart and began asking himself, "How does that glorify God?" Savante then asked pastor Mike Finizio of Harvest Christian Fellowship in New York City for advice.

"He said, 'First of all, it's between you and the Lord.' But secondly, the Bible [is] if not the most R-rated books [at least] one of. … It actually behooves us to show characters where there's consequences for their sin [and] sin is not glorified."

A redemptive story, the South African-born Savante said, requires "bad characters."

Read the full interview here.

Photo courtesy: ©SWN Designs/Getty Images/Gerardo Mora/Stringer

Music courtesy: ©Soundstripe Library


Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chroniclethe Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

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