Jennifer Grey, 62, opens up on 'terrifying' experience of playing 'dark' Christian diet guru Gwen Shamblin
VENICE, CALIFORNIA: Despite feeling 'terrified,' Jennifer Grey, 62, could not refuse to play the role of Christian diet guru in Gwen Shamblin: Starving for Salvation movie. The more she learned about Shamblin the more intrigued Grey became.
Shamblin, who preached about loving God over food, died in 2021 after her private plane crashed into a lake. That same year, she was the subject of the HBO Max docuseries 'The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin', reports Daily Mail.
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'What the heck going on here?'
"I knew nothing at all," Grey said during an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "So, when the script landed in my inbox, I thought, "Oh, okay, this is a real person that Lifetime is doing a story about." The first thing I did was I Googled her, and I got the visual right between the eyes of like, "What the heck going on here?" I was completely riveted. I thought, "Why me?" And then the next thing I saw was that there was this two-part, very clearly respected and serious documentary about a real person who died," as per Entertainment Weekly.
In the television movie, it is shown how the registered dietician gained notoriety for her divisive faith-based "Weigh Down Workshop" before establishing her Remnant Fellowship Church in Tennessee in the late 1990s.
'I was horrified, and I was so sad'
"I looked at the trailer of The Way Down, and I was riveted, I was horrified, and I was so sad. I felt so much heaviness around it," Grey added. "My first thought was, "Well, this is a terrifying prospect to play somebody so dark, who was a real person just recently on this earth..." Her next thoughts were, "how can I be part of a story that really corroborates a very powerful voice in our culture..."
Grey negotiated with conditions
Grey negotiated on three conditions for playing the role, "I said to Lifetime, if I do this, there are three conditions. One is I must be able to use this as a platform to counter the message of "it is best to be thin, it is best to aim for perfection."
"She was the personification of anorexia nervosa", Grey says of the controversial church leader, "which has one of the highest or second-highest mortality rates [among eating disorders]. I thought, if I can do this and use this as a platform to raise awareness about seeking treatment, and to show the insanity and the misguidedness of her message, then I would be interested."
Secondly, "because I'd never worn a wig before and because I'd never done a dialect before, I said I would need to have incredible wigs, which are very expensive. If you are not willing to pony up [for] that, I can't do it. And if you're not willing to pony up for as much dialect coaching as I feel I will need to be comfortable, I can't do it. Those were my terms."