‘Roll With It’: A New Movie Starring Chonda Pierce
The comedic masterpiece, “Roll With It,” hits theaters May 9, 11, and 13. Chonda Pierce plays the main character, Bonnie Taylor. “Bonnie is complex and needs to lose weight,” Pierce shared as she laughed uncontrollably. “That’s what I decided once I saw myself on the screen. That’s the number one issue with Bonnie.”
A spark of an idea for the film started years ago. Pierce and her husband toyed with the thought of a movie portraying a main character who was a store greeter and needed to win a karaoke competition in order to save her home from a sinkhole. Unfortunately, producers thought the project would cost too much in production.
Pierce went on to describe the filming of “Roll With It” in her own small town of Ashland City, Tennessee. “Never film a movie in your own hometown,” she shared. For years since the filming, local friends kept asking the comedian for updates on when the film would be released.
Pierce has acted for years. She recalled the first time she walked on a movie set to deliver her lines—and waited in silence wondering if her performance was okay. There was no audience to immediately react to her poise and delivery. “You really have to have some self-confidence to do movies,” Pierce reflected.
While working on the set of “Roll With It,” Pierce had a unique drive to fulfill her role completely. She treated the film and her performance as a tribute to her late husband, David, whom she called “a great writer.” Pierce admitted, “I was doing this for the both of us.”
But, for any movie, “it’s about the director,” Pierce said. “It’s what he sees—what he wants to get out of it.” Throughout the interview, Pierce praised Chris Dowling, director of “Roll With It.” She complimented his experience and his smarts and admits he was right about how he approached the project.
“I had to learn to keep my mouth shut, which is very hard,” confessed Pierce.
“Go and support any Christian movie,” she requested. The box office speaks volumes, and when Christian movies do well, mainstream supporters begin to notice and make more of them.
Chonda Pierce’s Faith Journey Began Early
Chonda Pierce grew up in a conservative, holiness church “where I was saved 342 times,” she joked. “Anytime there was a good-looking boy at the altar, I’d get saved again.”
Pierce worked in country music and heard a lyric, “The love you’re needing now is the saving kind.” It was then that Pierce realized that there was an intimacy with God that she needed—and wanted.
“If you base your faith in feeling, it’ll fail you,” Pierce said. She is thankful that she has a personal relationship with the true God.
