Actor Chad Michael Murray woke up on his birthday one year knowing something needed to change — not his career, but the man he was becoming.
“I knew who I wanted to be. I just didn’t know how to get there,” he told actress and television host Drew Barrymore.
His first step? A cross tattoo, followed by a much bigger undertaking: grounding himself in faith and learning from older people he respected.
For Murray, the change wasn’t about figuring out how to become a bigger star. He wanted to become a better husband and father—even before he had the family he was working toward.
He told Barrymore that he began spending time with people who had lived through their own mistakes and still carried joy. Their example gave him something more useful than an image to imitate: a way to make different choices.
The pressure to play a part hadn’t always stopped when the cameras did. In a conversation with podcast host Jamie Laing, Murray described trying to live up to the version of himself other people expected.
“I would say I tried to be something that I wasn’t because of the way people classified me,” he said.
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He recalled changing how he smiled and dressed, then growing a beard in an effort to push against his familiar heartthrob image. Eventually, he recognized the difference between performing a character and trying to live as one.
Fatherhood gave him a different set of priorities. When Laing asked about family, Murray put being a dad ahead of the travel and opportunities his career had brought him.
“You start learning what real love is. You start learning what true selflessness is,” he said.
That doesn’t mean he stopped loving his work. Murray returned alongside actresses Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in FREAKIER FRIDAY, which Disney released Aug. 8, 2025, and told Laing he wanted his children to see him approach work with gratitude rather than obligation.
But work doesn’t get to decide everything. In a separate interview with Fox News Digital, Murray explained that he turns down material he doesn’t believe in and prepares for his workday by reading the Bible and doing devotionals.
“I feel stronger and safer walking onto my sets every day knowing that I have God with me every day. Jesus is there with me every day,” he said.
At home, keeping the family together also means taking them along when he works away. Murray told Barrymore his family was with him in New York and that they don’t split up their pack.
“The journey doesn’t mean anything if I can’t do it with them,” he said.
He was talking about the people who know him as a husband and father, not a television heartthrob. That’s the life Murray wanted to build when he decided to change — and the one he now puts first.
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