In the season finale of The Family Crews, which airs Sunday May 15 8P/7C Rebecca Crews returns to her roots and takes the stage in a one-woman production, under the tutelage of famed choreographer George Faison. Prior to her marriage to Terry Crews, Rebecca had dreams of pursing a career on Broadway. Those aspirations were put on hold because of a growing family, but Rebecca shares who motivated her to take the stage once again.

Plus, have you ever wondered what the real Terry Crews is like when the cameras aren’t rolling? There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to this athlete-turned-actor.   

Who or what was your motivation to do a one-woman show—and how would you grade your performance?

I’ll tell you who got me going on the theater tip was my daughter, Azriel. I hadn’t done a show since the year before Terry and I got married. The last play I did was Dreamgirls and I played Deena and it was back in Michigan at a regional theater, like the equivalence of the Pasadena Civic Center. It was the biggest theater in the area and we did really, really huge shows and would go on the road sometimes. I was so stoked about this show and right around that time, Terry got drafted. It was like, Am I going to go on the road with him to Los Angeles and be a football wife, or am I going to go to New York and try to become an actress? As a mother and a newly married wife, I thought I should stick with my husband. I kind of put my career to the side for a very long time to raise my family and never did see how it would work. Like, how could I do that? I was a bi-coastal mother, would we stay together? How would our marriage turn out? I felt that was the bigger issue for me than the career. I thought at some point in my life when we were a little more stable, I could pursue that … and so I did.

When I saw Azriel going to school for theater, [it] totally blew me away. She fell in love with it in junior high and just became so amazing at it. It made me a little jealous. Like, “Wow, I love this and why don’t I do this?” We’re here in Los Angeles and I could be pursuing it. As we got the opportunity to do The Family Crews, they talked about it and I said, “This could be amazing.” So I really just took a lot of the material that I had written over the years as a songwriter and put together the story of my life in this little show. Next thing I knew, I was telling these stories that I’ve never told anybody and I realized how little people knew about me. I just thought it would be an appropriate title to call it High Yellow Girl and title it from one of my songs of the same name, and just put together this vignette where you hear my stories from Gary [Indiana] to now. People really loved it. The audiences’ response to it was really amazing. The ladies that came were really motivated and touched. They were even hurt by the assertion that I would never do it on Broadway. They were like, “You have to put this show on Broadway; I would come and tell my friends to come." "I would bring a busload of women from my church and come." We are looking into that. I have connections with people at George [Faison]'s theater and we are looking into some places where I can do summer performances. All I need is a piano and me.

What’s Terry Crews really like when the cameras are off?

Terry as a whole is a little bit of a shy person. People say that a lot about actors and that they are really shy in person. Terry is not the loudmouth that people think he is when he’s around us. He is a goofball, for sure. He’s like the biggest child in the house. He and the children are wrestling and I’m over there saying, “Tsk, tsk, tsk.” He’s definitely a whole lot of fun but he’s certainly not as gregarious a person in his private life. He’s a very serious thinker. He’s totally into music. We play a lot of music in our home. Various types. He loves house and movie soundtracks. Anything that’s connected to film or makes you think of film. An insane musician, just like demented with his love of hip-hop, jazz, orchestral music. I think as much as I play and do music, I’ve never been into it as much as him. He constantly fills his iPod with newer and newer music. He’s a renaissance man. He’s very gifted. He has abilities in art and writing. He’s written several scripts. So there’s a multi-faceted side to him that I think people don’t know about. He’s a very godly man. He loves God … very sincere in his devotion to Christ. I just love him for that. People don’t see even sometimes the Christian side of him because of all the silly parts he plays and things like that. He’s a very devoted father and just a godly man.

I love him because of who he is on the inside. I didn’t marry Terry because he’s famous. He was just a broke boy from Flint [Michigan] with a hope of playing in the NFL when we met on a Wednesday night in church. He was just this local guy who tried to make his best on football teams and they didn’t even really want him. He had to beg them to take him on the team at his college. He was just someone who had a dream. I remember saying I just like his style because he’s just so heartless about that, like “I’m going to win.” I just saw in him a great potential to be a great person and that was what I loved about him. He became famous much to my surprise, I have to be honest. They always joke that behind the successful man is a shocked and surprised woman. I wasn’t so shocked that he’s as successful as he is in one sense, because I knew how determined he was. But as an actor, this has been a surprise to both of us, because he never wanted to be in the front of the camera. His lifelong pursuit is to be behind the scenes as a producer or a director. The guy who makes things happen … just that kind of mogul piece. I’ve seen him just grow into this magnificent actor. I told him, “Wow, you didn’t even go to school and you’re doing it more than people that studied for it.” He says, “I’m just not afraid to try,” and I’m like “You’re right.” I’m afraid to try some of the stuff you’ve done. I probably wouldn’t do it. He’s so antsy about life. He loves to just jump off a cliff and take a chance. I went with him and I flew off the cliff going, “Oh my God, what are we going to do?” He said, “We are going to make it, baby,” and somehow we spread wings and landed without dying. That’s how I look at my life with Terry Crews: as a big adventure.

BET.com users had the chance to submit questions to ask you. Username “Nguoy” wanted to know what advice would you give Christian women to be strong like yourself?

Read your Bible and pray. I know that sounds very cliché, but I built my life on discipline. Discipline of the flesh is hard for me. I work out but I don’t work out as hard as my husband does. I am a discipliner of my spirit and my soul and my thoughts. One of the things I wanted to be is excellent in character. I’m determined to pursue wisdom at all thoughts. I sat down and read my Bible like it was a cookbook or a knowledge book. I pursued the word of God in that same way. I gave it my full attention. I made sure that every day, around the same time, I read my Bible; I meditated on what it meant and I said the words of God over and over again in my heart to become the kind of person that I am today. It’s because I wanted the strength, so no matter what I went through in life, I could withstand the pressures of life. So that I could face tomorrow with confidence.

God is a source for me. He’s the strength of my life. I don’t encourage people to seek God for religious reasons. Seek Him about anything. Seek Him about fashion. Seek Him about work. Seek Him about your husband. Seek Him about your children. He is the knowledge of the universe and He knows all things. What I learned about life, I learned in my Bible and learned it from people who studied the Bible and learned how to cope through the knowledge of scripture.  Scripture is nothing but the experiences of life [from those] who lived before us and who walked with their father into their destiny. They’re people of faith that succeeded in doing great things despite great odds and never looked back or backed down. I admire these people. I admire Jesus Christ and the faith of Abraham and Sarah, who started out on a journey away from their home town and country and started a whole new nation. God has called me like a Sarah.

Lastly, username "Tangie36393" wants to know how does she access God’s favor in order to introduce a Godly man into her life?

My first advice to a woman seeking a Godly man is to just be the woman you need to be in order to attract that kind of man. Sometimes we want to be the woman who gets the guy, but we need to be the woman the guy gets. In other words, he’s got to see you. I didn’t get my husband by looking for him. I found him by being my best self. People look for someone in perfection already. My husband was not the man he is today when I got him. Help him grow into who he is. He might respect you. I’m not a young woman today, so if she’s a woman that’s not 23-24 years old, she’s looking at a different kind of man. I was a very young bride, so I was just looking at someone that had good moral character and the potential to be something great. I say this because so many men are helped in their life by a great woman to become the success they want to be. I encourage women not to seek the man for what he has or what you think he has. Seek for that all in yourself, and as you lead, they will follow.

Tune in Sunday May 15 at 8P/7C for the season finale of The Family Crews.

EXCLUSIVE: Rebecca Crews Q&A Interview: Part I

EXCLUSIVE: Rebecca Crews Q&A Interview: Part II

(Photo: Ben Rose/PictureGroup