For Karen Abercrombie, The Forge film is right in her philosophical wheelhouse.
The award-winning actress, activist and avid environmentalist says arts and entertainment can be used for more than just to jar and jolt the senses. These powerful and influential mediums can be leveraged to educate, unite and promote “balance into the world,” and to make “it a better place for all people,” she writes on her website.
That’s why it’s apropos that Abercrombie would star in The Forge, a vehicle that seeks to entertain and enlighten simultaneously. During her illustrious career, Abercrombie has starred as Grandma Quill in the Marvel Franchise’s The Guardians of The Galaxy Volume 3, Judge Eleanor Thomas in “Eleanor’s Bench,” Miss Virginia in OWN’s TV series “Delilah,” and Miss Clara in the Kendrick Brothers film, War Room.
The Forge enables Abercrombie to immerse herself in a motherly character who is a paragon of serenity, humanity and wisdom in a film about a listless young man who has no direction in life until he meets the right mentors.
What does a character like Miss Clara in The Forge represent to our community?
I think she is the voice of the ancestors, wisdom, unity, all of that. Health and healing and nurturing the way that we used to be. You know, it was just natural. I mean, I feel that we’ve strayed away from that. To me, that is a large part of who she is. She is that mother to everybody. No one is a stranger, you know?
Why is what Miss Clara does in the film important?
Oh my goodness. It’s communication with the Source, the Creator, the open door to healing and growth and really that fountain of light and life that we all come from and we all need in order to be all that we are purposed here to be.
What would you like for the audience to walk away with after watching The Forge?
I would just hope that everybody would open up. And what I mean by that, you know, just open up the being, the heart. And, allow the love to flow through us, the love that God has given all of us. And we allow that to flow to everyone. And, um, that then becomes a juice, some nutrition, [a] catalyst so that we reach out our hands and our hearts, and that we care. And then we embrace and we grow together. We heal together.
