NEW YORK — Kirk Cameron and Chelsea Noble met on the set of the 1980s sitcom "Growing Pains" and have worked together on and off screen since then.
Their latest project, "Left Behind: The Movie," is especially meaningful to them; Cameron and Noble are Christians who believe in the Rapture, a precursor to the apocalypse.
"Left Behind" is based on the best-selling Christian novel by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Cameron plays a journalist and Noble plays a flight attendant who are "left behind" on Earth after God summons true believers in the final reckoning.
Noble, 36, was intrigued by the novel even before she and Cameron were approached about doing the film.
"It was probably 3 o'clock in the morning and I was still up reading, and I woke up Kirk and I said, 'Kirk, I can't believe this book, I'm so excited about the book. It has to be made into a movie."'
About a week later, Cameron got the script.
"The content of the story was just so intriguing and fascinating to so many people," he said. "It was really great to be in on all the controversy of the end times and be a part of telling the Bible story about what's going to happen."
Cloud Ten Pictures of St. Catherines, Ontario, released "Left Behind" as a video last year to fuel interest, and the film opens in theaters nationwide Friday.
Noble hopes "Left Behind" will attract a broader audience because it provokes questions and conversation. "Some of these characters turn their hearts to God and some don't," she said. "I felt that there were some great different perspectives in the book that people can relate to."
Director Vic Sarin said in a phone interview that although those who don't believe in the Rapture may dismiss the movie's premise, the action will keep them in the theater.
"My push was more to entertain," Sarin said. "To keep people in a room for 100 minutes, you have to give them something more than a lesson."
On "Growing Pains," which ran on ABC from 1985 to 1992, Cameron played the wisecracking Mike Seaver and Noble played a recurring character, Kate MacDonald. They then starred in the series "Kirk," which ran from 1995-1997 on the WB network, and appeared together in a "Growing Pains" reunion special on ABC last November.
They have been married for 10 years and live in California with their four children.
Cameron, now 30, said he's grateful for "Growing Pains" and his days as a teen-age heartthrob.
"I haven't found a need to kind of shrug it off," he said. "It's been what made my career and given me the opportunities to do the things I'm doing. And now people are seeing me in a whole different way."