For Neal McDonough, Starring in a Western Is a Career Highlight

In ‘The Last Rodeo,’ which Angel Studios will release in May, the actor plays a retired champion bull rider who finds his faith again.

Neal McDonough and his wife Ruvé attend the Los Angeles premiere of "The Shift" at AMC The Grove 14 on Nov. 27, 2023. Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for "The Shift"

When actor Neal McDonough was growing up in Massachusetts, he loved watching Westerns. Now, he’s starring in one.

The 59-year-old plays Joe Wainright in “The Last Rodeo,” which Angel Studios is releasing in theaters in May.

“This is the highlight of my career that I finally got to play the struggling hero instead of the villain all these years,” McDonough told The Epoch Times. “It’s all about this guy’s journey where everything is taken away from him.”

In “The Last Rodeo,” McDonough is an aging retired champion bull rider who faces a crisis with his daughter that can only be solved with McDonough’s character confronting his demons and winning one last bull riding competition.

“The Last Rodeo” is one of a slew of faith-based films produced and released by various directors and production companies in recent years. Others include “Left Behind,” “Tomorrow Before After,” “The Coming,” “Disciples in the Moonlight,” and “The Remaining.”

“My character turns on God and he forgets about God. He’s just been wallowing in self-pity for years, but by the end of the film, he finds his faith again,” McDonough said.

“The films we’re making for the heartland of America are doing so well because people kind of forgot about them,” McDonough said in a telephone interview. “Hollywood got so dark. I just want to do films the whole family can go to.”

McDonough rose to fame in Hollywood in 2002 after being cast in “Minority Report,” which starred Tom Cruise and was directed by Steven Spielberg.

He currently has a recurring role as Cal Thresher in the series “Tulsa King,” streaming on Paramount+ and Amazon Prime Video.

While all is well for McDonough, who is married to Ruvé McDonough, he experienced an unexpected fall from Hollywood favor in 2010 when he refused to participate in a sex scene on camera. The father of five was subsequently fired from the ABC-TV series “Scoundrels,” and acting work dried up.

“I got crucified years ago for not doing a certain thing,” he said. “I lost everything and it wasn’t until two years later, after being blackballed, that I turned to God.”

McDonough eventually made a comeback when he booked a guest-starring role in an episode of the streaming series, “Justified,” directed by Graham Yost.

“The Last Rodeo“ isn’t McDonough’s first project with Angel Studios. He starred in the faith-based feature film “Homestead” as Ian Ross and in ”The Shift” as The Benefactor.

As previously reported in The Epoch Times, no film project, series, or screenplay is undertaken by Angel Studios unless first approved by the Angel Guild, a 300,000-strong worldwide network of creators who choose which projects to fund. Last year, out of 550 projects submitted to the Angel Guild, 13 were accepted, and $82 million was crowdfunded.

Angel Studios was co-founded in 2021 in Utah by three brothers—Jeff, Neal and Jordan Harmon—who were motivated by a problem they were experiencing in their own families: a dearth of entertainment that’s appropriate for children.

“We independently financed the film, knowing the whole time that Angel was going to be doing it and in talking to the Harmon brothers, they knew this would be their project, but they had to run it through the Guild, like everything else,” McDonough added. “We got a 93 percent, which is an astounding score.”