07/04/2026
God works always in mysterious ways
🙏✝️❤️🔥 She couldn't pay rent. She was depressed, drinking, and about to quit acting forever. Then she got one last audition—and became Mary Magdalene on the most-watched faith series in history.
Elizabeth Tabish was done.
At 30 years old, living in Austin, Texas, she was flat broke, struggling with depression, and self-medicating with alcohol to numb the constant rejection. She'd moved to Austin after graduating with a Master's in Theater, dreaming of a career in film and television. Instead, she spent years auditioning for roles that reduced women to what they were wearing, whose only job was to provide s*x appeal or be the punchline of a bad joke.
She booked commercials. Barely. Not enough to pay rent.
After one particularly brutal rejection, she called her mother. "I can't afford my apartment anymore." Her mom invited her to move back home. Elizabeth packed up her life, feeling like a failure.
A month later, she made it official. She called her agent: "I'm done. I need to quit acting and get a practical job."
Her agent said okay, but added: "I'll keep you on the roster. If something really special comes up, I'll submit you."
Elizabeth thought: That's never going to happen. I've never seen a female character that made me think 'this is incredible.' This is over.
Then her agent submitted her anyway.
The audition was for a new project called The Chosen—a crowdfunded series about the life of Jesus and his disciples. The character was Mary Magdalene, referred to in the script by her demon-possessed name: Lilith.
Elizabeth almost didn't read it. She was cynical about religion. She'd grown up Catholic but had become deeply disillusioned with churches—the hypocrisy, the abuse, the way some of the most devout people she'd met were also the cruelest. She'd thrown it all away.
But she opened the script.
And something happened she hadn't felt in years.
"I had one of those pivotal goosebumpy moments," she later said. "There was something absolutely arresting about the script."
The character wasn't a one-dimensional saint. She was a woman tormented by trauma, struggling with addiction, trapped in despair. She was real—messy, broken, human. And the way the script handled her pain felt honest in a way Elizabeth had never seen in a faith-based project.
She connected to the character immediately. Because at that moment in her life, Elizabeth was also tormented. She was also struggling. She was also trapped.
She auditioned.
And she got the role.
But even then, she tried to manage her expectations. The Chosen was just supposed to be a pilot—four episodes released on an app. Most pilots never go anywhere. She'd been disappointed too many times to get her hopes up.
Then the first episode aired.
It opened with her character—a woman possessed by demons, lost in darkness and terror, until Jesus finds her and says: "Thus says the Lord who created you: Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine."
The response was immediate and overwhelming.
People weren't just watching. They were feeling. They were seeing themselves in Mary Magdalene's brokenness. They were crying at her redemption.
Within months, The Chosen became the most successful crowdfunded series in history. It has now been viewed over 200 million times. It's been translated into dozens of languages. It's screening in theaters worldwide.
And Elizabeth Tabish—the broke, depressed actress who'd been ready to quit—became one of the most recognised faces in faith-based media.
But the transformation wasn't just professional. It was personal.
In Season 2, there's a scene where Mary Magdalene relapses. She's triggered by trauma and found drunk in the street, filled with shame. Two of the disciples, Matthew and Simon, search for her and find her in that state.
Elizabeth was terrified to film that scene. It was too close to her own life. Too raw.
But when the cameras rolled and her fellow actors spoke their lines, something shifted. "I realised they were speaking to me as Liz, as a friend," she said. "I realised I don't have to hurt myself to do this. I can just trust the other actors and be moved by them."
It was a turning point—not just in her acting, but in how she saw herself.
Playing Mary Magdalene became a mirror. Every time her character struggled with shame, Elizabeth confronted her own. Every time Mary was offered grace, Elizabeth learned to accept it for herself. Every time Jesus told Mary she was loved despite her past, Elizabeth heard it too.
"This whole experience has been so personal," she said. "In moments, I feel seen by God."
The cynicism she'd carried for years started to crack. The anger at religion, at hypocrisy, at disappointment—it began to soften. Not because the problems disappeared, but because she was reminded of something she'd forgotten: that Jesus wasn't the same as the people who'd hurt her in his name.
"It reminded me who Jesus is," she said. "The show isn't Jesus, but it reminds us of who Jesus was and is. And that has made me go back to the Gospels and reread these things I loved in childhood."
She started to pray again. Not out of obligation, but out of a genuine desire to connect with something bigger than herself.
Beyond The Chosen, Elizabeth continued the work she'd been doing before—creating films about women. She co-founded the Austin Arthouse Film Festival. She directed award-winning short films exploring female trauma, intuition, generational pain, and survival. She won the Grand Prize in a prestigious screenwriting competition.
But The Chosen remained the centre. As the series moved into its fifth season—depicting the final days before Jesus' crucifixion—Elizabeth prepared for the hardest scenes yet. Mary Magdalene will watch the man who saved her life be tortured and killed. Then she'll be the first person to see him resurrected.
"It's going to be painful," Elizabeth said. "But Mary has been through so much that she knows—there's light because of Jesus."
Elizabeth Tabish's story isn't a fairy tale. She didn't get saved from Hollywood and suddenly become perfect. She's still processing trauma. She's still growing. She's still learning.
But she's no longer the woman who couldn't pay rent and wanted to disappear.
She's someone who was broken and found herself portrayed on screen in a character two thousand years old. She's someone who was cynical about God and discovered grace anyway. She's someone who thought her story was over and found out it was just beginning.
The woman who was about to quit became the face of one of the most transformative characters in history.
And thousands of people—especially women who've been through their own darkness—see themselves in her performance and think: If Mary Magdalene can be redeemed, maybe I can too 💖💛
