For five years, actor Joe Morton made his mark on primetime television as a special agent and father on the hit series Scandal. For his next major network television role, the Emmy Award winning actor told Ambo TV why he wanted to tackle the role of a preacher in God Friended Me.

On Sunday nights, Morton plays the role of Rev. Arthur Finer, the father of atheist Miles who receives a friend request from someone claiming to be God on social media. When Ambo TV recently sat down with Morton, the actor revealed his reason for choosing the role.

“In terms of what I was looking at after ‘Scandal’ was over, I wanted to make sure that it was something that was completely different than Rowan. …When I read this script I liked it for its humanity,” he said. “I liked the fact that it talked about the connection between people, that it’s about helping people [and] it’s about getting out of social media and actually communicating with people. I think all of these things are lacking in American society.”

The 71-year-old actor who has been in the industry for over 50 years said he noticed how people in modern society lack connection to one another.

“We are all sort of floating around like islands in this sea of humanity with no connection to one another,” he said. “I think if we can figure out that connection, we’ll understand the mosaic of humanity was meant to be just that.”

For Morton, it was interesting to balance the role of being a preacher and a father whose son was an atheist.

“It wasn’t so much a father who was a preacher as a father who he and his son are on opposite sides of the belief wheel if you get my meaning. He’s an atheist, I’m a minister so that was something to sort of try to figure out,” Morton told Ambo TV. “If I’m a minister and my son was an atheist, what did I as a father do wrong to make him believe that that’s what he should believe. So that, I thought would be interesting to try to track down.”

You can catch Joe Morton on God Friended Me each Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBS. Ambo TV will be releasing exclusive video interviews and articles about the God Friended Me series each Sunday.

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(Photo by Matthew Eisman/Getty Images)