home/movie/2015/going clear scientology and the prison of belief
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
Not Rated
Documentary
7.6/10(804 ratings)
GOING CLEAR intimately profiles eight former members of the Church of Scientology, shining a light on how they attract true believers and the things they do in the name of religion.
01-25-2015
2h 0m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Alex Gibney
Writer:
Alex Gibney
Production:
Sky Atlantic, Jigsaw Productions, HBO Documentary Films
Key Crew
Producer:
Alex Gibney
Producer:
Lawrence Wright
Producer:
Kristen Vaurio
Director of Photography:
Samuel Painter
Executive Producer:
Sheila Nevins
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Paul Haggis
Haggis began to work as a writer for television programs, including The Love Boat, One Day at a Time, Diff'rent Strokes, and The Facts of Life. With The Facts of Life, Haggis also gained his first credit as producer. During the 1980s and 1990s, Haggis wrote for television series including thirtysomething, The Tracey Ullman Show, FM, Due South, L.A. Law, and EZ Streets. He helped to create the television series Walker, Texas Ranger; Family Law; and Due South. Haggis served as executive producer of the series Michael Hayes and Family Law.
He gained recognition in the film industry for his work on the 2004 film Million Dollar Baby, which Allmovie described as a "serious milestone" for the writer/producer, and as "his first high-profile foray into feature film". Haggis had read two stories written by Jerry Boyd, a boxing trainer who wrote under the name of F.X. Toole.
Haggis later acquired the rights to the stories, and developed them into the screenplay for Million Dollar Baby. Clint Eastwood portrayed the lead character in the film. Eastwood also directed the film, and used the screenplay written by Haggis. Million Dollar Baby received four Academy Awards including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
After Million Dollar Baby, Haggis worked on the 2004 film Crash. Haggis came up with the story for the film on his own, and then wrote and directed the film, which allowed him greater control over his work. Crash was his first experience as director of a major feature film. Highly positive upon release, critical reception of Crash has since polarized, although Roger Ebert called it the best film of 2005.
Crash received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, in addition to four other Academy Award nominations. Haggis received two Academy Awards for the film: Best Picture (as its producer), and Best Writing for his work on the screenplay. With Million Dollar Baby and then Crash, Haggis became the first individual to have written Best Picture Oscar-winners in two consecutive years.
Haggis said that he wrote Crash to "bust liberals", arguing that his fellow liberals were not honest with themselves about the nature of race and racism because they believed that most racial problems had already been resolved in American society.
Jason Deneen Beghè (born March 12, 1960) is an American film and television actor and critic of Scientology. He is best known for his starring role as sergeant Hank Voight on the NBC TV series Chicago P.D. and for starring in the 1988 George A. Romero film Monkey Shines. He's also known for playing Demi Moore's love interest in G.I. Jane, appearing as a police officer in the film Thelma & Louise, starring opposite Moira Kelly on the series To Have & to Hold, and having recurring roles on Picket Fences, Melrose Place, Chicago Hope, American Dreams, Cane, and Californication.
He began taking Scientology courses in 1994, and later appeared in a Church of Scientology advertising campaign and in promotional videos. According to Beghe, Church of Scientology head David Miscavige referred to him as "the poster boy for Scientology". Beghe left Scientology in 2007 and began publicly speaking out about his experiences within the church in April 2008. An on camera interview with Beghe about his experiences in Scientology conducted by Xenu TV founder and journalist Mark Bunker was published to the video site YouTube and later Vimeo. Marina Hyde of The Guardian newspaper called Beghe a Scientology celebrity whistleblower for his actions.
As a young man he attended the Collegiate School in New York City, where he became best friends with John F. Kennedy, Jr. and David Duchovny.
Philip Alexander Gibney (/ˈɡɪbni/; born October 23, 1953; New York City) is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, Esquire magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time."
Gibney's works as director include The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (winner of three Emmys in 2015), We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (the winner of three 2013 primetime Emmy awards), Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (nominated in 2005 for Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature); Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (short-listed in 2011 for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature), Casino Jack and the United States of Money, and Taxi to the Dark Side (winner of the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature), focusing on a taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed at Bagram Air Force Base in 2002. In 2019, he released his documentary Citizen K, about Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian billionaire exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sherry Lea Stringfield (born June 24, 1967) is an American actress. She is best known for playing the role of Dr. Susan Lewis on the medical television drama ER, a role for which she has received three Emmy Award nominations. Stringfield was one of ER's original cast, but she quit the show during its third season, despite being contractually tied to appear in five. She reprised the role in 2001, but quit once again in 2005. She is also known for her regular roles on NYPD Blue and Guiding Light.
Away from ER she has acted mainly on television, but she has also played various parts in films.
Kate Noelle "Katie" Holmes (born December 18, 1978) is an American actress and director. Born in Toledo, Ohio, teen modelling led to a supporting role in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm, before she found international fame as Joey Potter on the teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. She transitioned to film in her hiatuses between seasons, appearing in movies including Doug Liman's Go, Curtis Hanson's Wonder Boys, and Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth.
During promotion for her role in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, Holmes began a highly publicized relationship with actor Tom Cruise. The couple were engaged within two months of meeting, with Holmes converting from Roman Catholicism to the Church of Scientology, and Cruise flamboyantly professing his love for her during a controversial episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Months later, the couple produced a daughter, Suri, before marrying in November 2006.
Holmes went on to make her Broadway debut in a revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons, portray Jacqueline Kennedy in the Reelz mini-series The Kennedys, and launched a short-lived fashion line. Holmes filed for divorce from Cruise in July 2012, gaining custody of her daughter and moving to New York, where she returned to the Roman Catholic Church. While tabloids have long speculated on the circumstances of the couple's divorce, Holmes has declined to speak publicly on the matter.
Following her divorce, Holmes returned to film with roles in The Giver, Woman in Gold and Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky, and recurred on the Showtime series Ray Donovan. In 2016, she made her feature directorial debut with the mother-daughter drama All We Had.
Nancy Campbell Cartwright (born October 25, 1957) is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. She is best known for her long-running role as Bart Simpson on The Simpsons. Cartwright voices additional characters for the show.
Kirstie Louise Alley (January 12, 1951 – December 5, 2022) was an American actress. Her breakout role was as Rebecca Howe in the NBC sitcom Cheers (1987–1993), for which she received an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe in 1991. From 1997 to 2000, she starred in the sitcom Veronica's Closet, earning additional Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Alley appeared in various films, including Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Summer School (1987), Shoot to Kill (1988), Look Who's Talking (1989) and its two sequels (1990–1993), Madhouse (1990), Sibling Rivalry (1990), Village of the Damned (1995), It Takes Two (1995), Deconstructing Harry (1997), For Richer or Poorer (1997), and Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999). She won her second Emmy Award in 1994 for the television film David's Mother.
In 1997, Alley received another Emmy nomination for her work in the crime drama series The Last Don. In 2005, she played a fictionalized version of herself on Showtime's Fat Actress. She later appeared on Kirstie Alley's Big Life (2010), and was a contestant on the 12th season of Dancing with the Stars (2011–2012), finishing in second place. In 2013, Alley returned to acting with the title role on the sitcom Kirstie. In 2016, she appeared on the Fox comedy horror series Scream Queens. In 2018, she was a contestant on the 22nd series of the British reality show Celebrity Big Brother, in which she finished as runner-up.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Kirstie Alley, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Karen Blanche Black (née Ziegler; July 1, 1939 – August 8, 2013) was an American actress, screenwriter, singer, and songwriter. She rose to prominence for her work in various studio and independent films in the 1970s, frequently portraying eccentric and offbeat characters, and established herself as a figure of New Hollywood. Her career spanned over 50 years and includes nearly 200 credits in both independent and mainstream films. Black received numerous accolades throughout her career, including two Golden Globe Awards, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
A native of suburban Chicago, Black studied theater at Northwestern University before dropping out and relocating to New York City. She performed on Broadway in 1965 before making her major film debut in Francis Ford Coppola's You're a Big Boy Now (1966). Black relocated to California and was cast as an acid-tripping prostitute in Dennis Hopper's road film Easy Rider (1969). That led to a lead in the drama Five Easy Pieces (1970), in which she played a hopeless beautician, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Black made her first major commercial picture with the disaster film Airport 1975 (1974), and her subsequent appearance as Myrtle Wilson in The Great Gatsby (1974) won her a second Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.
Black starred as a glamorous country singer in Robert Altman's ensemble musical drama Nashville (1975), also writing and performing two songs for the soundtrack, which won a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack. Her portrayal of an aspiring actress in John Schlesinger's drama The Day of the Locust (also 1975) earned her a third Golden Globe nomination, this time for Best Actress. She subsequently took on four roles in Dan Curtis' anthology horror film Trilogy of Terror (1975), followed by Curtis's supernatural horror feature, Burnt Offerings (1976). The same year, she starred as a con artist in Alfred Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot.
In 1982, Black starred as a trans woman in the Robert Altman-directed Broadway debut of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, a role she also reprised in Altman's subsequent film adaptation. She next starred in the comedy Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983), followed by Tobe Hooper's remake of Invaders from Mars (1986). For much of the late 1980s and 1990s, Black starred in a variety of arthouse, independent, and horror films, as well as writing her own screenplays. She had a leading role as a villainous mother in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003), which cemented her status as a cult horror icon. She continued to star in low-profile films throughout the early 2000s, as well as working as a playwright before her death from ampullary cancer in 2013.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Karen Black, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Jenna Elfman (born September 30, 1971, height 5' 10" (1,78 m)) is an American television and film actress. She is known for her role as Dharma on the ABC sitcom Dharma & Greg.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Jenna Elfman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) was an American songwriter, musician, singer, and occasionally an actor. Hayes was one of the creative influences behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the mid-1960s. Hayes, Porter, Bill Withers, the Sherman Brothers, Steve Cropper, and John Fogerty were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005 in recognition of writing scores of notable songs for themselves, the duo "Sam & Dave", Carla Thomas, and others.
The hit song "Soul Man" written by Hayes and Porter, and first performed by "Sam & Dave" has been recognized as one of the most influential songs of the past 50 years by the Grammy Hall of Fame. This song was also honored by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, by Rolling Stone magazine, and by the RIAA as the Songs of the Century.
During the late 1960s, Hayes also became a recording musician, and he recorded several successful soul albums such as Hot Buttered Soul (1969) and Black Moses (1971). In addition to his work in popular music, Hayes worked as composer of musical scores for motion pictures.
Hayes is well known for his musical score for the film Shaft (1971). For his composition of the "Theme from Shaft", Hayes was awarded the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1972. Hayes became the third African-American, after Sidney Poitier and Hattie McDaniel, to win an Academy Award in any competitive field whatsoever covered by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Hayes also won two Grammy Awards for that same year. Later, he was given his third Grammy Award for his music album Black Moses.
During 1992, in recognition of his humanitarian work there, Hayes was crowned as the honorary king of the Ada, Ghana region. Hayes also acted in motion pictures and television, such as in the movie, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, and as Gandolf "Gandy" Fitch in the TV series The Rockford Files (1974 – 80). Then from 1997 to 2005, he lent his distinctive, deep voice to the character "Chef" on the animated TV series South Park.
On August 5, 2003, Isaac Hayes was honored as a BMI Icon at the 203 BMI Urban Awards for his enduring influence on generations of music makers.Throughout his songwriting career, Hayes received five BMI R&B Awards, two BMI Pop Awards, two BMI Urban Awards and six Million-Air citations. As of 2008, his songs generated more than 12 million performances.
Description above from the Wikipedia Isaac Hayes, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Kelly Kamalelehua Smith (October 13, 1962 – July 12, 2020), known professionally as Kelly Preston, was an American actress. She appeared in more than 60 television and film productions, including Mischief (1985), Twins (1988), Jerry Maguire (1996), and For Love of the Game (1999). She married John Travolta in 1991, and collaborated with him on the comedy film The Experts (1989) and the biographical film Gotti (2018). She also starred in the films SpaceCamp (1986), The Cat in the Hat (2003), What a Girl Wants (2003), Sky High (2005), and Old Dogs (2009).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Kelly Preston, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Miriam 'Mimi' Rogers (née Spickler; born January 27, 1956) is an American actress and competitive poker player. Her notable film roles are Gung Ho (1986), Someone to Watch Over Me (1987), Desperate Hours (1990), and Full Body Massage (1995). She garnered the greatest acclaim of her career for her role in the religious drama The Rapture (1991), with critic Robin Wood declaring that she "gave one of the greatest performances in the history of the Hollywood cinema."
Rogers has since appeared in Reflections on a Crime (1994), The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Lost in Space (1998), Ginger Snaps (2000), The Door in the Floor (2004), and For a Good Time, Call... (2012).
Her extensive work in television includes Paper Dolls (1984), Weapons of Mass Distraction (1997), The Loop (2006–2007), and recurring roles on The X-Files (1998–1999), Two and a Half Men (2011–2015), Wilfred (2014), Mad Men (2015), Bosch (2014–2021), and Bosch: Legacy (2022).
Anne Archer is an American actress. She starred as Beth in the psychological thriller film Fatal Attraction (1987), which earned her nominations for the Academy Award, BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Archer was named Miss Golden Globe in 1971, and in the year following, appeared in her feature film debut The Honkers.
Archer's other film appearances include Paradise Alley (1978), Raise the Titanic (1980), Patriot Games (1992), Short Cuts (1993), Clear and Present Danger (1994), and Lullaby (2014). On stage, she starred as Mrs Robinson in the West End production of The Graduate in 2001, and in the title role of The Trial of Jane Fonda at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy stories, and the founder of the Church of Scientology. In 1950, Hubbard authored Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and established a series of organizations to promote Dianetics. In 1952, Hubbard lost the rights to Dianetics in bankruptcy proceedings, and he subsequently founded Scientology. Thereafter Hubbard oversaw the growth of the Church of Scientology into a worldwide organization. Hubbard was cited by Smithsonian magazine as one of the 100 most significant Americans of all time.
Description above from the Wikipedia article L. Ron Hubbard, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Nazanin Boniadi was born in Tehran, Iran, at the height of the Iranian Revolution; her parents relocated to London shortly thereafter. She performed violin and ballet as a young girl.
She attended a private high school and later moved to the United States where she earned a bachelor's degree, with honors, in biological sciences from the University of California, Irvine. At UCI, she won the Chang Pin-Chun Undergraduate Research Award for molecular research involving cancer treatment and heart transplant rejection. She was also Assistant Editor-in-Chief of MedTimes, UCI's undergraduate medical newspaper.
Nazanin Boniadi is rapidly making her mark in both film and television. She co-starred as CIA analyst Fara Sherazi on seasons three and four of the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning drama Homeland (2011), for which she shared a 2015 SAG Award nomination in the Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series category. Boniadi appeared in the 2016 MGM-Paramount remake of Ben-Hur. Directed by Timur Bekmambetov, the film stars Ms. Boniadi in the female lead role of Esther opposite Jack Huston, Morgan Freeman and Toby Kebbell. She will next appear in a leading role opposite Armie Hammer and Dev Patel in Anthony Maras's Hotel Mumbai.
Among her many television credits, Boniadi portrayed Nora, a relatively longstanding love interest to Neil Patrick Harris's Barney Stinson, in seasons six and seven of How I Met Your Mother (2005). She also appeared as the notorious Adnan Salif in season three of Shonda Rhimes' hit political drama Scandal (2012). She will next star alongside J.K. Simmons in the original Starz series Counterpart (2017), created by Justin Marks and Executive Produced by Morten Tyldum.
On film, Boniadi appeared as Amira Ahmed in Jon Favreau's Iron Man (2008) and portrayed a young mother, Elaine, in Paul Haggis' The Next Three Days (2010). She also has several independent features to her credit.
Born in Tehran at the height of the Iranian Revolution, Boniadi's parents relocated to London, England, shortly thereafter, where she was raised with an emphasis on education. While she was involved in theatre early in life, Boniadi later decided she wanted to become a physician. She moved to the United States at the age of 19 to attend the University of California, Irvine, where she received her Bachelor's Degree, with Honors (Dean's Academic Achievement and Service Award) in Biological Sciences, and won the "Chang Pin Chun" Undergraduate Research Award for her work in heart-transplant rejection and cancer research.
Switching gears to pursue her first love, Boniadi then decided to study acting, which included training in Contemporary Drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London under the supervision of dramaturge Lloyd Trott.
Boniadi is fluent in both English and Persian. She is a dedicated human rights activist. Boniadi served as a spokesperson for Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) 2009-2015, and continues to partner with the non-profit as an AIUSA Artist of Conscience.
