BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. _ When he was 15 years old, actor Brandon Micheal Hall was warned performing was not for him. "I had a teacher who told me that acting was not going to be financially stable and I shouldn't do it. That was so much fuel," he says.
"I'll never forget being in class and me saying, like, 'Thank you.' That was my confirmation that I NEED to go do this." One year later he left home to attend the South Carolina Governor's School for Arts and Humanities.
His mother (who'd singly raised him) and his sister encouraged him to attend the boarding school. "My mom has always been supportive," says Hall. "'If that's what you want to do, you need to go in 200 percent.'"
It's clear Hall has always done things 200 percent. When he was little he used to regale customers at Walmart elaborate stories about how he met Mickey Mouse at Disney World, though he'd never been to Disney World. "I saw him on TV," he grins, "I was a storyteller."
He still is. And Hall is performing a unique story in CBS' new comedy "God Friended Me," about an atheist whose life is upended when he receives the ultimate friend request on social media from _ you guessed it _ God. How faith intercedes in our lives is not only the subject of the show, but a pivotal part of Hall's life.
"I grew up in the church, reading the Bible, going to church three times a day _ Southern Baptist _ you were IN the church," says Hall.
"You gotta take your homework with you. I think that's the reason why I took on the show because I finally get an opportunity to gain my own relationship with God through this experience, because I'm going completely away, taking on the role of an atheist to find his way back to what God means to him," he says.
"My grandmother used to say this old Southern quote: 'You can only ride on grandmother's prayers for so long.' God rest her soul, she's not with us anymore," he sighs. "So this came at a perfect time when I was in a place where I needed to see God for my own self."
Hall, 25, says he always exhibited a questioning mind about religion, even as a kid. "Then I got to a certain point where I said, 'OK, I'll just take it at face value.' But then I remember praying about two months ago, and I was saying the prayer like we always say them, I was like, 'I have no idea who I'm talking to and why I'm saying this. I just know it makes me feel good, which is great. But what is my own personal relationship?'"
Today he says he's not defined by any particular religion. "Spirituality-wise I find that meditation is working really well for me, and also when I pray and am having conversations with someone, no matter who that person may be in that moment, now I have a conversation with some 'one' who I definitely can see, and I'm ready to hear what they have to say to me. Before it was just like, 'Let's go through the routine.' But now it's like, 'I'm ready. What's up? Let's talk about some things.'"
With his mom as inspiration, Hall developed self-reliance early. "Growing up without a dad that showed me independence and showed me respect for single strong women," he says. "Mom taught me the essence of work."
And work he did. At 14 he landed his first job at Chick-fil-A. The following year he toiled at both Chick-fil-A and counseled at the YMCA.
"We grew up wealthy, we didn't grow up rich," he says. "The difference is that the rich you can see it, the wealthy is more of an internal. I was wealthy in my mind, spirit and soul. My mom always kept the lights on. We always had a roof over our head. Now sometimes we didn't have a lot in the refrigerator, sometimes there was nothing but peanut butter, some rice and wienies to throw together."
He landed his first acting job while he was still in school. "It was a pilot for CBS called 'LFE,' a medical drama using only millennials. "I was 21 and was working at Teavana, a tea shop, as a barista and was a bike courier delivering food on the Upper East Side. I was so fit, great abs," he laughs.
Parts in "Search Party" and the starring role in "The Mayor" followed. "The thing that scares me _ and it won't happen because I have too many people in my life that are keeping me on the straight and narrow and center ... what scares me is to get too commercial and you start losing the sense of the message behind what you're doing," he says.
"I won't want to watch the screen one day and say, 'THAT'S what I was working on, I took that risk?' I never want to do that. I want to make sure that what I'm always working on is uplifting, is controversial in a way that makes people talk and question, and that it changes me in some kind of way."
'CHARMED' CONJURES UP NEW WITCHES' BREW
"Charmed" is hoping to weave its magic spell when it arrives on the CW Sunday in brand-new packaging. This is not a reboot of the original, but a remake, so to speak, of the popular series that ran from 1998 to 2006 and starred Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano and Shannen Doherty (later Rose McGowan).
The new version features a diverse cast of witches who share the same mother but were sired by different fathers, so says executive producer Jennie Snyder Urman.
"Beyond that, we are using a lot of their central mythologies: whitelighters, the Book of Shadows, the Power of Three, the feeling that at its core this is about a love story between three sisters. And they're going to have romantic ups and downs," she says. "But the core of the show, I think, remains the same. And that's why it was useful to both use the IP and also look at all of the elements that worked so well for them and repurpose them for now, in this moment."
HUNT HELPS UNCOVER SHAKESPEARE
Helen Hunt will be hosting the first of six new stories on PBS' "Shakespeare Uncovered," arriving Friday, with the comedy "The Merchant of Venice." While Hunt has mostly appeared in film, she says her love of theater began early. "I was 5 years old, and my father took me _ well, this isn't Shakespeare _ but took me to see the original production of 'Godspell,' which was in a church basement. And actors were painting each other's faces, and drinking wine, and chatting with you.
"I had just some part of my deep lizard brain woke up and never went to sleep. That just sort of started something. And then I remember he took me to see Meryl Streep and Raul Julia, 'The Taming of the Shrew' in the Park. That made a giant imprint on me. I ended up doing that play. Not that part, but that play, in that same theater years later. So it was just early experiences of being in the theater. And I don't remember even saying, 'I'm going to act one day. That's going to be me.' I just wanted to be in the room where it happened."
JENNIFER GARNER CAMPS OUT
Jennifer Garner is leaping back to television in HBO's new comedy "Camping," premiering Sunday. The show is based on a British series. Garner plays an organized and controlling woman who is celebrating her husband's birthday with a camping trip that turns ugly. The last time she performed in a live television series was "Alias," which ended in 2006.
In real life, Garner says she loves camping. "I'm a big backyard camper. My kids and I camp in the backyard every year. We just spoke about it this morning, when we're going to do it. So that's a way to do it. But I like camping with a group. I like being with the Girl Scouts or with a group of girlfriends. And I have done it and will do it, with a group of grown-up friends, I haven't done that, but with our cast, I would go in a heartbeat."
