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The Touched by an Angel alum shares her thoughts on marriage, aging, faith and her new TV series, The Baxters

- Fortune Benatar

Actress Roma Downey was looking for a new job when the script for Touched by an Angel crossed her desk. “I would have been happy playing a doctor, a lawyer, a woman who worked in a shop, a mom — whatever. I needed work because I had to pay my rent,” Roma, 63, tells Closer. “But as a person of faith, I couldn’t believe this script was asking me to play an angel and to be the messenger of God’s love.” The series, which ran from 1994 to 2003, would be a huge hit.

Roma recently returned to the small screen in The Baxters, a family drama based on the bestselling book series by Karen Kingsbury, available to stream exclusively on Prime Video. “It’s a very rich, meaningful drama about a family and all of their issues and how they deal with them through the lens of their belief system and their faith,” she says.

Had you read Karen Kingsbury’s books before you got involved with this project?

Yes, I was a fan girl. I had read the first book, Redemption, and I was very moved by it. When I was reading it, I thought, “Gosh, this can make a great television series.” When I called Karen, she said it was an answer to a prayer. It felt like there was serendipity at play.

How does the show differ from the books?