Actor Lucas Black said he left NCIS: New Orleans to “reflect and connect with my Heavenly Father and spend time together as a family.”
Black was one of the original cast members of NCIS: New Orleans, starring as Agent Christopher LaSalle from 2014 until he was killed off in Season Six.
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“I would go to work, the kids would still be in bed. I would come home and they would already be in bed for the night going to sleep again. That doesn’t bode too well with your relationship with your children,” Black added. “So for us, we knew that couldn’t last forever.”
Black acknowledged that the show was good to his family and that the cast respected his decision to leave.
“But at some point, enough was enough,” Black said, pointing back to the importance of taking “back a lot of that time and spend that quality time with each other that was sacrificed for six years.”
After taking some time away from acting, Black went on to star in Pure Flix’s Legacy Peak, a movie that the actor says highlights “a positive fatherhood” message.
“We decided to take a year off and really reflect and connect with my Heavenly Father and spend time together as a family. [But] we also noticed a big culture shift in 2020. I felt like for a long time that entertainment [had] undermined the fatherhood role,” Black said, noting that it was “under attack.”
“So to get a script like ‘Legacy Peak,’ one that is a positive fatherhood story, one that puts fathers in a good light, one that uplifts and encourages … I couldn’t say no,” Black continued. “This is a story that you can sit down and watch with your whole family. And fathers should be proud that their kids are seeing it, that it’s going to put them in a good light. That’s one of the reasons why we chose to do this project. And I couldn’t be happier how it turned out.”
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Looking to the future, Black said he desires to be a part of films that share positive messages of family and faith.
“I would love to see films that embrace the character traits that God has given to man to protect the innocent and to provide for the innocent,” Black explained. “I would love to see content that embraces the qualities that God has given man to do good. … I think that’s needed in our culture today. I think we need to celebrate the men in our culture instead of tearing them down.”
Black also noted that it has taken him time to realize how he can be that role model for his own children.
“You have to be intentional about your core values, especially as a parent [in terms of] how you want to spend time with your children, how you want that relationship to be and what you want it to look like,” Black said. “We can easily get caught up in our careers, our selfish ambitions.”
“God’s given us a responsibility to provide for our family, but we’ve gotta have that margin in our lives,” he continued. “We need to be present in our children’s lives.”
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Legacy Peak premiered earlier this month and can be streamed on Pure Flix.
