A 16-year-old actor hired for a Seventh-day Adventist Church webseries in Brazil has gone beyond his scripted role: Matheus Pereira, age 16, made a commitment to join the church and was baptized on August 29.
Matheus is known in the Adventist world by the teen audience for playing Gustavo, on the webseries Outstanding (Fora de Série) , which portrays themes from everyday teen life. It was through this role that he came into contact with the Adventist Church.
“With the series, I got to know the school, the people, and I got more and more involved and that has been three years. It was creating a family, friends and I think that influenced me,” the actor said.
For the director of the series, Rudy Barros, the participation of the teenager in the recordings played a major role in his decision for baptism, which took place at the Adventist Education Meeting for the southern region of Brazil. The celebration was broadcast over the internet from the Nepomuceno de Abreu auditorium in Curitiba.
"As he started reading the scripts and getting involved in the history of Outstanding , he ended up understanding the importance of the message and the importance he had as an actor, of representing that message," the director said.
In a short time, he started wearing the Adventist Education uniform, not only to record his character's scenes, but also in reality, to attend the Colégio Curitibano Adventista Bom Retiro, where he started to study.
Change of direction
“Studying with us, he started to participate in Pathfinder camporees, events with teenagers and he started to be an influential figure for this generation… He also went, in January this year, to the Caleb Mission in Paraguay,” noted Matheus Maia, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor and chaplain.
And it was in Paraguay, in the city of Concepción, where the Caleb Mission Project was organized by Adventist schools in southern Paraná, that the turning point in the actor's life took place.
According to Maia, this experience made the young man realize that he could not continue talking to God about people without having a deeper commitment. The days of volunteering transformed his world and brought about a turn in his own life.
The decision for baptism came shortly after the celebration of the project's results at the Central Adventist Church in Curitiba, but the pandemic delayed plans.
Undoubtedly, many people contributed to this choice, but the Christian influence in Pereira's life comes from birth. He is the son and grandson of evangelical pastors and grew up in a Christian home. “We see this reflecting on Matheus's life. At the age of five he was already a musician in the church, so Matheus' career as a differentiated child started early. He started playing the drums and always doing what we thought was right, serving God ”, comments his father, Cleverson Alves.
And the lessons learned in childhood shape your choices. "I can produce content that is of good influence and my plan is to go to college in Radio and TV at Unasp," said the actor, who dreams of specializing in the area of audiovisual production.