These Are All The Stars Surprised By Fox's Weirdest Flex Yet

When Fox News announced that it's launching a 52-episode The Life of Jesus podcast through its Fox Faith netwok, there's no mystery who that's for. But then it promised a star-studded cast of voices for the Bible’s main characters. 

“Featuring over 100 notable actors voicing characters of the Bible, the series will include Kristen Bell (Mary Magdalene), Sean Astin (Matthew), Neal McDonough (Jesus), Brian Cox (Voice of God), Malcolm McDowell (Caiaphas), John Rhys-Davis (narrator) and Julia Ormond (Mary Mother of God), among others,” the press release from Fox News stated. 

The announcement came the same week that Kristen Bell’s new $60 million contract with Disney for the Frozen franchise was announced. Sean Astin is the new president of the Screen Actors Guild. Brian Cox regularly takes aim at Fox News’ favorite president, Donald Trump. 

There was some immediate panic and scorn around the news on social media. Was the recession so bad that even these big-name actors needed to take a mega-church-adjacent Republican money? Did the Right finally, definitively, win the culture war? Is Frozen MAGA now?

But it became clear in short order that many of the actors attached to the podcast found out they were part of a Fox News project at the same time as the general public. In statements to Rolling Stone, representatives for Bell and Cox said they were blindsided by the announcement. 

“Brian recorded audio for a project over a decade ago. He was unaware that the audio would be repurposed for a new podcast series in 2025,” Cox’s rep told Rolling Stone in a statement. “Brian only became aware of the podcast today.”

Similarly, Bell’s publicist told the publication that her audio for The Life of Jesus was recorded 15 years ago and that the Nobody Wants This star had no idea the material would be repurposed. According to Rolling Stone, Bell voiced Mary Magdalene for The Truth and Life Dramatized Audio Bible, a New Testament audiobook. That audiobook also featured much of the same cast Fox said is part of the Life of Jesus. Like Bell and Cox, Rhys-Davies’s publicist also confirmed to the magazine that he was unaware the audio would be repurposed. 

“We had no knowledge these recordings were being redistributed as a podcast until this week,” a representative for Malcolm McDowell told Entertainment Weekly. “This was long ago forgotten about.”

While the actors all do their best to distance themselves from the production—or at least appear ignorant to it, Fox News told The Independent: “Gulfstream Studios produced the Life of Jesus Podcast from The Truth and Life Dramatized Audio Bible, which was licensed by FOX News Audio, with full cooperation and participation by all the actors involved.”

It’s a pretty devious move on Fox News’ part to just totally exclude that information from the initial press release—but the move turned out to be quite clever, in a way. Now we all know that the Life of Jesus Podcast starts airing on November 30, something that would not have happened if they hired a bunch of MAGA-loving actors.