Jonathan Roumie
Appearances
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And so in many ways, you have a gift for humanity that, that you might not even be considering in that light. You know what I mean?
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
No, but it's absolutely true because we're not just, I don't think we're just meant to be here to just eke out a living and get a job and maybe have a family, make some money and then die. Like we have a conversation and some sort of fruit comes comes out of that for somebody else hearing this interview. And all of a sudden, the trajectory that they were on all of a sudden changes.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
They learn something or they had misconceptions about Christians or Catholics or, you know, non-Christians that they didn't before. And now they have a better dialogue. It's like, that's part of, I think, what we're all here to do. I don't give my political opinions out publicly.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Well, here's what I'll say about that.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Yeah, it's a pro-life rally. It's, for me, and I was on the fence about speaking there because I recognize that for so many people, it is only political. For me, it is only spiritual.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
So if I come to a conference like the March for Life and they want me to share thoughts, well, I'm thinking like, well, what do I believe as a Catholic? I believe in the sanctity of life from the moment of conception. That's what we believe as Catholics and Christians. And so for me,
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
It's a spiritual thing that has been usurped and turned into a political weapon that divides people in such a way where they no longer see the spirituality of the issue. It becomes completely about right or left, conservative or liberal. I don't understand it. So for me, that That wasn't politics, that was spirituality.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
You can't cherry pick the aspects of your faith you like and dispense with the things you don't like. You said it yourself, I came not to bring peace, but to bring a sword. You know, fathers will divide themselves against their sons, mothers and daughters. Because of things like this, these kinds of issues that I think for Jesus, it's like, if you're going to follow me, it's not going to be easy.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
It's going to be really hard and people will hate you. Get used to it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I mean, I do do that. In fact, I was just in Tanzania and Rwanda visiting these children that I support and their families, which I had been doing even before The Chosen. A year before The Chosen, I found this charity called Unbound. And I saw the work that they were doing and they were amazing. They were changing not just the children's lives through sponsorship, but entire families.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
So I'm doing as much as I can. And I weigh every opportunity that comes to me to speak on these things very carefully. And I also... I also know that there's only so much that I can give of myself. Do you know what I mean? It's a lot. It's a lot for me physically and emotionally. It can get really, really taxing at times.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And so I'm trying to do things like just take better care of myself and try to go on more vacations. But it's hard to find time these days. But, you know, sleep when you're in the ground, right?
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Well, let's see how this goes.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
It's super dark.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I think we've reached a point now in culture where... Seeing depictions and images and symbolism of Satan and Satanism and demons and witchcraft and the symbols that's related to all of the occult are so frequent and regular that it's so easy to become desensitized. I think your mind just filters it. Like, oh, I've seen that so many times now. It doesn't even register anymore.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And if you go back a couple of decades ago, you would never see anything like that. And I've seen it more, I think, in the music industry. Demonic imagery in music videos and immodesty and all of these things that the youngest of our society are subjected to and shouldn't be, I don't believe. I think, for me, remembering that speech...
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
My heart was for the kids that see certain things like on music videos and then they reenact them themselves or they wear what they're seeing because it's what's popular and fashionable and they don't have any idea that
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Some of the imagery or the symbols or the words that are being used are, from a spiritual standpoint, really, really damaging and really dangerous on a level that we've never seen before.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Oh, I'm a huge Iron Maiden fan. Iron Maiden. Number of the beast. I'm like, well, you know, I can't really wear that t-shirt so much anymore.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
So my question for you is, but you're also referencing like that, like black, like rock and, and the imagery from, from those bands in that time are different than some of the more modern. I'd like if, if certain, I think it's much more graphic and sexualized like sexuality and, is so much more prevalent in the media, especially in music.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
The display of sexuality and the dark images connected to sexuality are so much more blatant than they ever were 30, 40 years ago.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I mean, I think it could be a combination of a number of things. I think it could be how society at large has framed faith and religion and banished it from visible culture, you know, from areas in the culture where you used to
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
see more people i think framing their faith within the context of what they do or like even presidents and people would invoke just in their speech would invoke god in the way that they don't do that anymore and i think it doesn't seem like there's a shortage of politicians talking about but not without a negative connotation to it put it this way um i'll speak for myself
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I had a conversation several years ago about the discussion of faith in the workplace. They were a non-actor. It was a sort of a production member. And I know we shared a similar faith and we hadn't really talked about it, but there was a spark of a conversation that made me think, oh, let me ask them about this. And They went on to carefully admonish me like, hey, just be careful.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
You really shouldn't talk about these kinds of things because a lot of people are biased against Christians in this industry. So you might want to just kind of keep a lid on that. And I thought, but it's just us talking. Do you know what I mean? And I think...
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
What I recognized is that there was such a deep fear of being, quote unquote, found out that they had a sense of faith that it was just, it was not okay to possess that. And for me, that's not okay. It's not okay to be told I can't practice my faith or express it, especially if I'm not going around saying, here's the Bible, do me a favor, just read that. I'm not asking anybody to convert.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I think what makes it feel like that, that we have, that all those other portrayals didn't have access to, was the format of time to build characters and build relationships over time. You're seeing, you know, the nuances of his character, his quirks, the humanity of these characters, the day-to-day of these characters. And so, if you believe they existed, and I do, they were human beings.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I'm not. I've never once said, do me a favor, you should convert. I just live out my, my, my mission here. I, I be who I am. And if people want to ask me questions or invite me to come talk to, you know, 200,000 people and share my thoughts about certain things, I'll pray on it first. Like with the March, I didn't even, I, the weeks were leading right up to it. I didn't want to do it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I thought this can't be good for an actor. Uh, But then I got to this moment that I had when I first completely surrendered everything to God before I booked The Chosen. And it was the same feeling of, you know what? I'm asking you to do this and not worry about it. And it was like this wave of peace just kind of swept over me. And he said, just speak from the heart.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
No. No, I think one of the reasons that we're successful and It's one of the priorities for both Dallas and myself, and I think everybody involved, is that we recognize first and foremost, this is a TV show. It's based on scriptures, based on the gospels, but there's stuff that we've had to take creative license in certain situations to be able to tell a more well-rounded story.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
But if the vehicle of this story is anything less than top quality, if it's not a great TV show first, than anything else that any of us might want to have people take away from the show from a personal perspective or a faith perspective, none of that's going to matter. You know what I mean?
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Like if you take a piece of gold and you wad it up in a ball of trash and you throw it on the sidewalk and say, you should pick that up, like, no, get lost. You know, nobody's going to want to even touch it. They'll just walk by it. So it's the same thing. Like if the message behind the show is a little piece of gold wrapped up in a wad of garbage, forget it. You're done. Next. Move on.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
So, yeah, it still has to be a great TV show first. And then everything else from that can flow.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Yeah, no, I'm not. And it's really true, David. Like, whatever happens, man, whatever's meant for me will be mine. Do you know what I mean? If I did nothing else for the rest of my life as an actor on camera, but Jesus and the Chosen, and that's all people remembered me for. Well, the fact that they remember me at all, that's amazing.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Like, I'm good because the show is just a vehicle for this point of human contact and this encounter that we're all meant to have with each other and with the divine beyond us.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
To get to the point now where globally it's one of the most watched TV shows in the entire world, and 30% of that audience is non-religious, I think that's pretty significant. And so I don't really know why Hollywood would be afraid of that.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
So, theology aside... Nobody's ever explored that humanity. Nobody's ever wondered, well, what would it be like to crack a joke with Jesus, to have a glass of wine with Jesus, to see him dancing at a wedding? Because if you're human, laughing and joking and frustration and the entire spectrum of emotions are part of the human process, part of the human journey, part of the struggle.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Of course, it's my pleasure.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Yeah, it's... It's been almost 100% secularized in terms of media and culture. I think it's hard to sort of see it being hijacked, but it's been like that for... I remember as a kid seeing these signs around churches around Christmas time. It says, keep Christ in Christmas. And especially now, any movie that comes out during the season that's about Christmas.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
There's no trace of Jesus in it at all. So it's unfortunate, but that's why guys like Dallas Jenkins are around to kind of give people the alternatives like, oh yeah, this is what this is about. And then however I can,
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
contribute in my own way like to remember that yes christmas is supposed to be joyful but at the end of the day you know the birth of christ is meant to ultimately lead us to the cross of christ to bring the world hope and salvation and and everything that comes with with that
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I don't know why, because I think when you look at the numbers with how The Chosen has performed and how other projects like Jesus Revolution have done with audiences, there's an audience that's there. But I think maybe because for so long there has been
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
a rash of media and content and films made under the guise of being related to faith that have just missed the mark in terms of excellence, or they read as so heavy-handed in their attempts to proselytize that essentially they're made for the choir. With The Chosen, it's like, well, we really see ourselves as a historical drama. And so 30% of our audience now is non-religious.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Like, that's a lot. And for a show that the early adopters were Christians, to get to the point now where globally it's one of the most watched TV shows in the entire world, and 30% of that audience is non-religious, I think that's pretty significant. And so I don't really know why Hollywood would be afraid of that.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I think that's a great question. I think the simplest way to describe it is knowing or arriving at the position of where I recognize that my ability to control my destiny, my fate, my path, whatever you want to call it, ultimately I believe is beyond me. Yet I have to participate in the process of moving forward, of achievement, of trying to follow the direction that I believe I'm meant to go.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
He went through all of these things that we do so that we would have somebody to relate to as we're going through these trials ourself.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
When I came to the conclusion in that moment that we talked about, that moment of surrender, I came to the conclusion that for the previous eight years up to that point, I think that God had an idea or a plan for me, and then it's like He said, okay, this is, I've given you these gifts, I've given you these talents, do something with them.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And I'm kind of like, oh, okay, let me go do something with them. And sort of leaving him out of the discernment process when it came to certain steps to take to move forward. And so I did that for years and years and years, and I think as a person of faith, you necessarily cannot keep God separate from any part of your life, especially in areas where you're struggling.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And for me, it was in a moment of severe stress and anxiety and borderline fiscal destitution that I basically said, I can't do it on my own. I recognize I've been trying to do everything that I thought I was supposed to do. but it hasn't worked.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And what I realized is that I've never checked in and thought whether or not this particular action was the right move or that was what God might want from my life. So now it was essentially a prayer where I say, I want whatever you want from me because you know better than I do what's good for me. Whatever that is, show me what it is.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I didn't because I think he has to feel human. If he doesn't feel human, most people won't relate to him. I mean, granted, there might be... Scenarios from time to time where, and I've shared this with Dallas, where he and I may not have exactly alignment on like, well, I feel like if he says it like this, it's just a little too casual, you know? Yeah.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Constantly. God willing, I'm on the path. But that's part of the mystery of faith. God ultimately is unknowable.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Where are you being tested? You know, they asked St. Paul about that and he never really quite answered directly. He had a prayer. He's like, Lord, take this thorn from my side. Three times he said, I asked the Lord to take this thorn from my side. And that God said, no, I'm not going to take that from you because my grace is sufficient. In other words, he needed Paul personally
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
to have this thing, this weakness, whatever it was, so that Paul would always depend on God for everything that he got. And I feel similarly with my own sort of things. I'm not comparing myself to Paul in any aspect whatsoever, but we all deal with something, right? We're all suffering and struggling with something.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I'm a woefully flawed human being, but I'm trying to do the best that I can with the gifts that I've been given. And by me even just walking my, you know, the walk of faith publicly, it's not something that I ever intended to do. It's something that, you know, during the pandemic, I literally felt pushed to do. And I started doing it. I started praying live on my social media accounts.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And I thought, what am I doing? This is career killer. Because it was like... It would, first of all, out me, you know, as a Christian. And then, in many cases, even more stringently, out me as a Catholic Christian, which people find even harder to take. You know, there's like a billion Catholics in the world. There are. But, you know, I don't know that they're all here in America.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And most of my audience... The current president is Catholic.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
But it just wasn't something I'd ever thought to do or wanted to do or felt that I should do. I'd always kept it separate. And then I just felt this, you know, this thought, this, you know, inclination, like you should do this because people are struggling really bad right now. And it's going to bring peace to a lot of people.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
So, you know, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to go where I'm led, man.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Thank you. Likewise, David. God bless.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And he then may come back to me and say, yeah, but here's why. And then he goes through it. I'm like... Okay, I get that.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
Struggle bussing.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I think that the path to that is absolute and uncompromising surrendering to a higher power things that are beyond my control. Because that's what it took, I believe, for me to get to the place where I was ready for an opportunity like this. I had moved to LA and then I struggled for eight years in Los Angeles, only to realize that
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I was trying so hard to control my life, to control my destiny, to do the things that I thought needed to be done to have a successful career as an actor. And they weren't working. I was on government assistance. That ran out. I woke up completely broke one morning six and a half years ago. And I was literally in, it was just, I didn't see any way out. that I could figure out how to make work.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And so I literally said, God, you take this from me. It's in your hands now. It's not up to me and I'm not gonna worry about it. And I was relieved because I really felt now it wasn't my choice. And then three months later, The Chosen comes along and I thought, okay, I just needed to submit.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I feel that it lends an authenticity to the role that allows me to understand more of why Jesus did the things he did and said the things he did than somebody who is completely unfamiliar. And I think I struggle to follow Jesus like anybody else who considers themselves a Christian. But the struggle is part of it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And I think God knows what we struggle with, but we're still challenged to do what he would do in those situations. And I think because I actually believe that, that seems to have lent me a kind of credibility and an authenticity in approaching the character that maybe people haven't seen before.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I think they could. I think if they had... If they had a real understanding of what he represented and why he was so much of a revolutionary to his time and even to today, I think they could.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
But they would have to, I mean, in layman's terms, you'd have to do your research and drop into the character and go Daniel Day-Lewis on it and for three months go live as a rabbi in a kibbutz or something like that. I don't know. But I think with a character like Jesus, I think a lot of people do sort of reduce him to A really great teacher, really cool guy, you know, shared a lot.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
He becomes a sandaled hippie in a lot of, you know, people's minds. They're like, oh, you know, he said some cool stuff and he did some cool things. And it's like, I think he was a little more than that.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
No, because I recognize that none of this is about me. I don't matter in the grand scheme of things. And so I recognize that when I come out to those speeches and people react the way they do and people yell out, Jesus!
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
You know, that they're seeing me as the face of the guy that they've had this response to, this reaction to, while experiencing the show, and I'm the closest thing to the real Jesus that they probably will ever see in person. And so, I think, psychologically, they know I'm not Jesus, but they feel they want me to be the next best thing. I, of course, I cannot go anywhere near that reality, but
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
That said, if I believe everything I believe about my faith, I'm in this position for a reason. I was cast as Jesus and somebody else wasn't. Why? God only knows why.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
You don't matter. Dust in the wind.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I think if I said there wasn't anything at all, I'd be lying. Yeah. Do I allow it to become my reason for doing what I do? No. So the paradox that you're describing, I guess it is kind of hard to make that distinction.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
yes there's for me a sense of mission but the mission is about jesus in this case with the chosen it's about god that's that's what this experience is in playing this role when i meet fans who come out and and i was just in the philippines and it was nuts man like i've never seen anything like it um They were tremendous. They're just so intense.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And everywhere I go, they're like giving me stuff and little articles and notes and things like that. And so I'm playing this character that people, for the most part, they already love him. They have a relationship with him. And then I come in and I sort of fulfill their idea of who that person is to them in their life. And I'm also one of them in that I have a relationship.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And a lot of them know that. And a lot of fans know how I feel about Jesus and God and faith and all of those things. And so I think all of that combined, I think it's the reason for my career.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
It can be draining. If I'm meeting you at one of these events and something has moved you to want to, you know, come and have this individual moment that oftentimes happens at some of these things where they'll have like VIP groups that there are certain people that get to have like some one-on-one time, but there's 700 of them. That takes time and it takes energy and
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
A lot of the times it's emotionally charged and, you know, better or worse, that catches up with you after 700 encounters.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I was at a... I was at a conference in a stadium of about 40,000 people. And I came off the stage and shortly thereafter, I got to the little green room where they had us hanging out. And security comes into the room and says, hey, there's a lady outside who's got a child in a wheelchair. Is it okay? She wants to know if she can say hello. And, uh,
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
I came outside and I met the lady and her son and she was already overwhelmed. And she then went on to tell me, she said, you know, our favorite episode is the episode where Tamar, one of the characters, lets her friend down on a stretcher in through the roof of Zebedee's house and Jesus heals him and he can walk again.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And she says, so I just thought, wouldn't it be great if the same thing happened to my son? And I, and I said, yeah, that would be amazing, but I got to be honest with you, as far as I know, I don't have that gift. But I would love to pray with you if that's okay. So I just stood with them and I prayed with them for a minute. And they were so gracious and thanked me.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
And I walked away and then I just burst into tears. Because I thought to myself, man, on some level, I must have let them down. But they know, they know what I do. They know I'm not a healer. I'm not a preacher. So, Once I got through that line of thought, I recognized that I said, okay, I can't be what she maybe wanted me to be. I can only be who I've been made to be.
The Daily
'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
That's a great question. I mean, I think first and foremost, the category error thing is kind of funny because I think all of us are not the sum total of what we do. You know, I think you, by what you do as an interviewer and the questions that you ask people and the things that you bring out of people shed light on humanity in ways that other people wouldn't know how to do.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah. It didn't happen. It's still going. And that means something to me. And so doing this show, playing the character of Jesus, working with the Halo app, you know, doing all these prayer and meditation challenges with them, learning more about other stories of faith, other people of faith through like the challenges that we have coming up for Lent here. I've grown deeper in my faith.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It's drawn me closer to the church to want to know more about the aspects of the church that I didn't necessarily grow up learning. I went to public school. So I had the Tuesday afternoon catechism or whatever the day was where you went to catechism. CCD. CCD after school. And I didn't learn any of the things that I've learned in the last several years because that's just not designed that way.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And the church has such a rich history and tradition. It's so vast. It's such a storehouse. There's so much to know and to learn. And through the experiences of playing Christ and getting to force myself to go into
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
prayer and meditation prior to every season, through these periodical prayer challenges, like we just did one in Advent for Halloween, and now we're doing the Pray 40, which starts today, Ash Wednesday. It's forced me to just spend more time in the presence of God, and it wants me to get closer to Him.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Lent begins today is 40 days of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving leading up to Good Friday, the Friday before Easter, the day Jesus Christ died on the cross and gave his life for humanity. Two days later, three days later, we say, if you include Friday. Easter Sunday, Jesus resurrects from the dead, and original sin, the stain on mankind is lifted through our belief in Christ. And so...
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Lent, you know, for me, Lent is a time to, I think, simplify. And it's a time to sacrifice. And it's a time to draw myself closer through, you know, the way of the cross. Basically, the theme of Hal's Pray 40 Challenge this year is called The Way. And it's the way of surrender, you know, the way of Christ, basically. Yeah.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
How do you go in like one of the Gospels, in one paragraph from, you know, he was being mocked and reviled even by the thieves next to him to all of a sudden... The penitent thief, as he's referred to, gives his life basically to Jesus in that moment and says, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus says, truly, today you will be with me in paradise.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And everything that he did leading up to his passion death and resurrection is something for us to meditate on in that 40 days. Typically, we try to... we try to make some sort of meaningful sacrifice. Some people say, oh, it's a time to give up chocolate. Well, if chocolate is something that gives you joy and happiness, then yeah, that might be a good thing for you to give up for 40 days.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And it can be really hard. For some people like me, it'd be coffee. For some people, it's alcohol. For some people, it's cigars or cigarettes or something. We do asparagus every year. Yeah.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Does asparagus give you joy? Because if it doesn't, Tucker, I would think you may want to revisit.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Well, I start typically by going to mass, getting ashes, which I have not yet done. And then fasting on, well, especially Ash Wednesday, but typically, and it's not an obligation, but I like to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. Sometimes it's nothing but maybe water. Sometimes it's just no meat. Fridays and Lent especially, no meat. Fish, soups, broths are even okay.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It's like fasting from the flesh. You're denying the flesh. You're denying yourself. It's about denial. And it recalls Christ's 40 days in the desert prior to the start of his ministry when he denied himself everything, food, water, the temptations that he was faced with in the desert. He held steadfast and came out ready to basically start his ministry.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And he basically, it's like the first confession on the cross. And he grants him access to the kingdom. And so how does that, how do you go from... being one of the mockers, revilers to this sudden conversion on the cross. And so Dallas tries to answer that question in the course of this 25-minute film. I actually read for The Penitent Thief because he's got this fantastic narrative arc.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And the practice of fasting is, spiritually speaking, is super powerful.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I mean, if there's obstacles or challenges that you're experiencing in your life that just don't seem to be resolved through traditional prayer, you know, Jesus himself was confronted by the disciples at one point, I think they were trying to cast out these demons in their community and it wasn't working and they had been given the power to do that.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
He comes up on them and they basically said, we tried everything. We tried, you know, cast them out in your name and everything. It didn't work. Why didn't it work? And he said, paraphrasing, some demons can only be cast out through prayer and fasting.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And so that's, there's an extra, it's like an extra superpower level that you get given when you commit to denying yourself the things that the body needs. with the intention that you are offering something up to God.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah. Yeah. I've, um, there have been decisions that in my life that I'd really been, or not even people, I'll go, I'll go even more personal, um, people that I prayed for that were, um, we're sick we're in like a comatose state and through prayer and fasting remarkably on a particular day that I did this, came out of it. And they, for like weeks, just unresponsive.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a game changer.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah. In fact, in fact, so to tie it to, to, to part of the reason why I'm here today, it's on Fridays in this prayer challenge on hallow, Mark Wahlberg and Chris Pratt handle the fasting portion of the challenge. So you go through this challenge seven days a week.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And on Fridays, which is the day we typically fast from meat, they get into the spirituality and the psychology of fasting, but the potent spirituality of denial and what that means. And it's super powerful, man. It affects change like few things do.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's something that I would pray about. Like if, for some people, having just bread and water is extremely difficult. Right. or even just like a bowl of soup or water, or like, you know, there's the, the church Catholic church has, uh, sort of, uh, as, uh, suggested guides.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
So it's essentially one meal and like partial meals, not, not a full second meal, I believe is one meal a day. But if that's If that's too easy for you and you're like, well, that's not, I don't feel like I'm sacrificing anything by just one meal. Like I want to go no food at all and maybe just some water or a couple of pieces of bread, you know, bread and water. then that becomes your fasting.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
So I think it depends, but it's always something that I take to in prayer first. Lord, how do you want me to approach this fast? How can I deny myself? What do you need from me in this fast? And how can I serve you better through this fast?
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Well, I also find like even the Middle Eastern Christians, like the Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, they're much more culturally rigorous when it comes to fasting. Right. not just meat, but no dairy. And same thing with Muslims, no dairy, I believe no meat, no dairy, no oils.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And I thought I'd had a great audition. It was in L.A. at the time. And I knew it was an opportunity to get paid a nominal stipend for some work in another city, in this case, suburban Chicago. And I thought, man, I would audition for this short film. I don't care if it's for a church. It's a great story. The script is great. So I go and I audition. I had a great audition.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
There's a number of different levels, but the same thing with the Christians and my family, like, wow, we don't do, the Catholics don't do the no dairy thing, but yeah, you're right. I mean, here in the West, it's... It does make you wonder if... You say you're fasting, people say, why? Then you got to explain, you know, it's foreign.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
One of the seven deadly sins is gluttony.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It doesn't have to be food, but it can be. Like, how are you being gluttonous in your life? Is it, or are you hoarding things? Is it food? Like, is it just not putting any kind of boundaries on your satiety? Like, you know what? And I think it's something that can fuel other sort of leeches into breaking that spiritual connection to the divine.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Not one time. Well, then you see movies. I mean, here's the power of entertainment. You see a movie like Wall Street. You got Michael Douglas, who was a superstar at that time, the height of his career. Greed is good. I mean, isn't that the phrase from that movie?
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
No, no. I mean, it's, yeah, but it's everywhere too. It's everywhere, which is maybe why you don't hear it.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Well, I mean, I think luckily we have, I mean, that's what repentance is for, you know, in the Christian life. It's, you know, becoming aware of your faults and the way that you've hurt people or hurt yourself even. Yes.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
and if the body is truly a temple of the lord a reflection of of the creation and of the creator god and you're hurting yourself then it's like it's an affront to god which is why things like gluttony are sinful because it also dulls you it's like a long head or you know three beers or something it keeps you from experiencing anything beyond yourself kind of yeah
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah, you're now creating a wall around the ability to be connected to from the divine. You know, it's like you're walling yourself off from God in a way.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
That's right. You know what I mean? I love that you used food as a reference.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I'm like, I think I nailed it. A couple of days later, I get a call back to come back in, but this time to read for Jesus. And I thought to myself, ah, man, I didn't get the first role. And then I looked again at the script. I'm like, Jesus got like five lines in the whole thing.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah. A hundred percent.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
That's right. And your mind is just like, you sense everything.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And the longer you do it, it starts to, you know, I once, I tried, I know people who have done like, 40-day water fasts. I don't, like with electrolytes and stuff that's not, you know, where they're, it still sounds dangerous, but I don't know how. I tried it for a week, one Lent. I got through four days of it and I'm like, this isn't going to work.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
your body starts to do stuff that you have no control over. I can't imagine. And it's like, I think we're dying. So let's just get rid of everything. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm at work. This isn't... I'm on a set. This doesn't work. I can't keep running to the... So I said, Lord, please forgive me.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I can't continue this if I'm going to work for the rest of the week because I just... Unless you make it stop. It's not stopping. So I got to...
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It's like, eat the soup.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah. Well, at that point, I would think you almost don't want to break it. You're like, how long can I go?
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
How far can I go with this?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I think everybody should try fasting if they've never fasted. Everybody should try fasting. I mean, you know, if you've got medical conditions, I'm not a doctor, but I think discern and pray about it. And like, I've only found it helpful. And I think it just, even if it's just like for a day, like...
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
see what denial denying yourself food what does that do for your mind for your spirit you know i mean if i don't know if you don't have a sense of spirituality might not mean anything it might just be like a challenge like i wonder if i can do it you know but i think the point is not to do it for the sake of doing it i think to do it for the sake of of depriving yourself and offering up
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
But I had happened to have played Jesus six months prior for another completely independent project up in Washington State at a studio for this Catholic company called St. Luke Productions about this saint in the early 20th century named St. Faustina. who was considered a mystic. She had these visions. She wrote an entire diary that was sort of dictated to her by Christ himself in these visions.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
The pain and the discomfort and for some people the suffering that that might cause. Yes. Taking that pain and suffering and discomfort through the fast and offering it towards an intention, a sick person, the decision to move to a new home, problems that a child is having in school. Yes. Any kind of obstacles or challenges that seem insurmountable.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
fast, fast about it, pray and fast about it and see what the Lord can do with that and with your heart because then it's, what you're doing is you're opening up your heart.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
You know, it's not about, well, if I do this exactly X, Y, and Z. I mean, Jesus' whole thing, issue with the Pharisees, you know, you cleanse the outside of a cup, but then the stuff that's already inside you is just, is rotten. Your thoughts and your heart is rotten. So it doesn't matter that you wash your hands before you eat this and you eat that.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Like he was calling out the Pharisees at one point. for being so specific and attentive to the law. But meanwhile, he could see in their hearts that they just had malice and they had evil and they weren't doing the right thing for the priests of the time, what they should have been doing. The same thing.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It's like fasting just to see if you can get through it doesn't really serve anyone other than your own ego. That's right. But offering up the pain that comes with the fasting, the denial that comes with fasting, the hunger pains, that then gets applied in a spiritual way. That then... assign spiritual rewards to you by offering that for someone. No, that's right.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And so I played Jesus in the vision aspect of that story for this traveling one-woman show where it was an actress playing the saint, a screen behind her, a couple of rudimentary set pieces. And then all of the other characters in the show, in the play, including these visions of Jesus, was projected on a screen that she would choreographically time out her scenes with for 90 minutes.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Well, I think you have to ask yourself, well, why is he mad? Yeah. And what is he mad about? And who are the Pharisees to him? And I think it goes back to what I was referencing in that here you have who are people that are supposed to be models of God's law and rule and grace. The Pharisees, like the priests, the people that the people look up to for spiritual advice and wisdom and guidance.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And because Jesus can read souls and know what's in their hearts, he sees they're probably the worst of them. And he knows that they have ill will towards him and they don't have the interests of the people in their hearts because they're so enraptured by sin. the letters of the law.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
He said, you're so concerned about the letter of the law that you that you're not even considered about the heart of the law, which is, you know, God's mercy and justice. And, and how are these people? How are you treating these people? I mean, the fact that they would go every year on Passover, the poorest of the poor trying to bring their offerings and sacrifices
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
that through extortion were getting charged 500%, you know, probably more than what they should have. I don't know the exact numbers, but like the point was that they were being extorted every step of the way by their own leaders, these Pharisees. And that for him was the straw that broke the camel's back. And the next day he's clearing the temple. Flipping the tables over.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Flipping tables, whipping, you know, using a whip to clear money changers' stands and, you know, just outraged. God's righteous anger. Yeah, it's not the gentle Jesus at all. No, no. No, excuse me. No, it's not. It's, um, it's, it's the fury of the Lord really come to visit them. Uh, it's not, you know, fire from heaven, but it's fire on earth in this man's eyes and, and, uh,
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Also, you know, the precursor to what sets him up for the crucifixion. I mean, I think on some level he knows, number one, he has to make an impression and he is vindicated through his actions because of who they are, who the Pharisees truly are deep down inside.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
but also that this will then continue the chain of events that have been set into motion that will put him on the cross so that he can redeem mankind.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I mean, I think, I think, you know, with power, you know, there's greed, there's hurting people at, you know, at someone else's expense. Yes. There's, you know, taking advantage. When you have all of these forces that try to... I think, take control over a society and the people through power, through influence. And there's nothing that those people can do.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
So fast forward six months later, I get to audition for the two thieves. I didn't get the penitent thief. I go and I audition for Jesus because I'm like, you know what? I enjoyed playing Jesus six months ago. Like this would be cool if I got, if I got anything, it'd be cool because I wasn't working steadily or consistently.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I mean, it's the definition of injustice.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And God is about justice. Blessed are those who thirst for righteousness, who thirst for justice, basically.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
it's, it's, it was, it was the thing that one, it was one of the things that was most important to him and that people experience, you know, to have justice and feel human and be seen and be, and be not discounted because of their status, because of their, you know, financial, um, you know, situation because of who they were, who, what family they were born into or what, what, what, what, what cased for lack of a better term that they were born into, you know, um,
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
So I think it was something that... It was a last stand for him, basically, when he cleared the temple. All the preaching and the teaching didn't have enough of an effect on the Pharisees for them to change what they were doing.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
So I think he had to show, don't tell. He had to show and not tell.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah. Gospel plus, I'll say. It's, you know, because as a TV show, it's not always, you know, the scriptures, as they are, don't always give us the full picture of a conversation. They definitely don't. Of a character, of a person. So we have to, through, you know, biblical, a group of biblical scholars that, and advisors that help us and give insight into the things that we're writing.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
We have to craft these plausible, hopefully authentic backstories that create believable characters that could have existed in the first century, that augment the world that the Gospels give us a glimpse into. So, a lot of it is scripture, yes, but then there is some creative license taken just to be able to make a good TV show. Because at the end of the day, this isn't the Bible.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
We're not saying this is the Bible. We have a TV show, first and foremost, that is based on the Gospels and hopefully is compelling enough to... for you to really get hooked into it and binge it just like you would binge any other TV show. And then start asking yourself, well, what did Jesus really say? Did he say these things? Is this character really like this? I want to explore.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And then if you can get people to read the Bible and then... want to have a relationship or even explore what it means to have faith if you've never had faith or even be curious about Christ. I mean, inevitably, that is the relationship in a person's life that will change their life.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
irrevocably i mean forever so if we can create an entertaining story that is based on the truth of the gospels and who jesus and the disciples were maybe it'll introduce people to to christ and in a way that the audience is introduced to him and maybe they'll want to follow him too how did it change your life the gospel I think the more I read the gospels, the more I discover the Bible is alive.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And the way Dallas tells the story about 10 seconds into the audition, he's like, that's Jesus. That's my Jesus for this show. And so we did that film and it was screened. He brought me back to view it like a month later at the Good Friday service with his church, about seven services. It was like 15,000 people saw this thing in a matter of a day and a half. And it was remarkably well received.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It's the living word, right? They say the Bible is alive. And so At any given time, you can read a passage from scriptures, from the gospels, even from the Old Testament, the letters of Paul, the Acts, that somehow will apply to your own life. Especially when you're struggling with something. You know, if I'm struggling with something, I just, I just can't figure it out.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I just don't, I have no ideas about where to go to resolve it. Inevitably there's the answers somewhere in the book and it's, it's a matter of sitting down with it and reading it. And I mean, it's remarkable the amount of times like I've had something in front of me that I just didn't know how to deal with it. And then I would flip to a random page. And it's like, the answer is right there.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It's right there. So I stopped being surprised about it. I just like, of course, this is... Yeah, and I take notes.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And I've met those people where... And we kind of talked a little bit about this at one point. Where... the craziest things are happening that they kind of already had a, an intuition was going to happen. Like, I don't even know what's a good example. There've been so many times where it's like somebody, uh, wanted to, wanted to, to, to, uh, trying to get rid of their house or something like that.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Try to sell their house and, and, uh, like, You know, they had like a certain amount of, it's just an example. Like they had like a week to get out of their house for somebody to buy their house. And, you know, somebody just comes knocking on the door and says, hey, you got a beautiful house. You're not selling this by chance, are you? And they're like, well, as a matter of fact, I am.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And it just so happens that they're like, Lord, just let us find somebody that wants this house. Like we didn't even put it on the market yet. And then somebody knocks on their door like an hour later or, you know, like, I mean, crazy, crazy stories. And they're like, yeah, I just, God just did it. I'm like, how? You don't seem phased. And that to me even, it's just. I totally agree.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah. Because he kind of, Jesus kind of set it up that way.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
He kind of told us 2,000 years ago, you know, you'll be hated because of me, persecuted because of me. Like, he lays it all out 2,000 years ago. But just know... That's okay. I overcame the world. You're good. Just remember that you're good when things hit the fan. Just remember that. Well, I still find it infuriating.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It was so beautiful. And it was essentially the foundational bones of the concept of the chosen, which is this sort of Ignatian spirituality, this Ignatian insight into the gospels, which is basically you put yourself in the gospels, you ask yourself a series of questions and that's how you meditate. on the gospels through this form of spirituality.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
awful lot of arab christians get killed in a bunch of different countries all the time yeah and no one says a word about it no notice this i do yeah i do a lot uh christian persecution is something really close to my heart in fact i just executive produced an animated short film called the 21 which uh came out uh towards the end of february
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
on the 10th anniversary of the martyrdom of the 21 martyrs in Libya, and who were all, well, 20 of them were Coptic Christians from Egypt. One of them was non-Christian, initially, from Ghana. And they just rounded up all these guys. ISIS came and rounded them up, and... tried to force them to deny their faith. They're just migrant workers.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Like, just like, we're just trying to, they went off to work for a few weeks to try to make some money. And they got rounded up, just captured. And ISIS was like, yeah, deny your faith and we'll let you go. Don't deny it, we'll kill you. Like, oh, well, we're not going to do that. And they tortured them for months. And even the guy from Ghana Isis said to him, like, you can go.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
You're not, you're okay. You're not Christian. You're not one of these guys. And he's like, no, no, no. Their God is my God. And so they say he converted and he died with them. And so six years ago, this producer friend of mine named Mark Rogers, he was in Egypt and he saw, he knew about the story and he saw the image of one of these martyrs who had, um,
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
who had like a lazy eye, and it reminded him of the image, which actually is on this little medallion, of Christ the Pantocrator. Basically, it's that figure of Christ that it's got both sides of his face. One side of him represents the divinity of Christ. One side represents the humanity of Christ.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And one of the sides, his eye on one side is kind of drooped, and it reminded him of this image of Christ. And he got this idea to create this animated short film about the martyrs and their story. And it turned out to be stunning. 21film.com, people want to see it. It's an extraordinary short film. Beautiful, beautiful. That implements Coptic iconography into the animation.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It was actually on the Oscar shortlist. It didn't get nominated, but it found its way onto this shortlist of 15 selections. And then they whittle it down to the top five. It had no marketing, had no advertisement, nothing. But somehow I think enough people saw this like, no, this is amazing. And it tells their story.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
and the mystical nature of their experience and of actually their captors, what they experienced with these, you know, while they had these guys in captivity and like the divinely mystical experiences that they had. Are captures? Yeah, yeah, are represented in the short film. In fact, if you haven't seen it, I'll send you a link, but it's gorgeous.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And at the end of the day, what people walk away with is that these guys had the opportunity to say... No, no, I'm not Christian. And then live. But none of them did it. They went to their graves, literally.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And so this process of filmmaking was kind of like a living example of that on celluloid or digital celluloid. And so we did it again the following year for a different kind of scene. And then we skipped a year. And then 2017, the spring of 2017, I did one more film with him for his church.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Migrant workers. Not evangelists, just people? Christian migrant workers, poor migrant workers, I think construction or farming or something. And they wouldn't deny their faith. And so I got a chance to screen this film for the first time with the families of the martyrs 10 years later. Oh my gosh. Which was amazing.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Words fail me because it was such an overwhelmingly powerful experience to be there with them and kind of have them sort of reliving this experience. But when you talk to them, full of joy, full of joy. And they, more than one of them, thanked God.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
They're captors because they feel, and as Christians, we believe this, that because they died for their faith, they got a straight shot right to the divine, right to God. They're like, we thank them because they sent them right to heaven. So the Coptic church declared them saints. And then very recently, the Catholic church, it's the first time it's happened.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Catholic church also considered them saints because they died for the faith in the way that they die. Yeah. It's so inspirational. It's unbelievable. And so right now I'm trying to get the film out for more people to see and get it out there so people are aware that these stories exist. Like this is a reality for people, for Christians in the Middle East.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
This is a reality, you know, that their lives are on the line for their beliefs. That's for sure. You know?
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I've learned how much I have to learn.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Well, I don't think I can ever do it successfully, like completely. The only thing that I, I mean, I can't do it successfully at all. The only thing that I can do, believing Jesus was fully God and fully man, but sinless in his humanity, the only thing that I can relate to is the humanity part. And my own flawed humanity at that, deeply flawed, deeply, deeply flawed humanity.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And then it was in probably the summer of 2018 where he called me and said, hey, want to put the sails back on? I think we're going to do this. Four episodes of a crowdfunded TV show, probably not going to go anywhere, but it'd be some consistent work. And I jumped at the chance. I thought, okay, I had now played Jesus for him a few times. I was getting really comfortable with the role.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
But luckily, I don't have to rely on me. I don't rely on me. I rely on him. And so my job is to simply show up, come with an open heart, I do a lot of praying and fasting before every season. I pray before every scene and then do the best that I can to simply be, for lack of a better term, a mirror of the divine.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
So I'm like, I just show up and I'm like, I'm just trying to mirror the divine, reading the words that I have, being a vessel for which the Holy Spirit can use me to reach the truth of the gospel to the people that watch this show. And if it goes beyond entertainment for some people, awesome. I mean, between the show and between the Halo app, the amount of feedback and changed lives,
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
that have occurred, the stories that we get about people that, you know, that are, they were atheists all their life and somebody gave them the show and all of a sudden they, something tweaked in their heart and they're like, why do I feel this way about this guy? Like, I wanna know this guy. Or people who haven't been to church in 30 years.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Elapsed Catholics, like I haven't been to church in 30 years. I started going back to church. Went to my first confession in 30 years. Went to my first confession in 15 years. Like I've heard all of these things. I even once, I was in confession once myself and a guy came out of the confessional and he recognized me. He's like, oh yeah. And so he starts talking to me and then he starts,
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
starts to tell me what he was telling the priest in the confession. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, you see.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
You keep it in there. I wouldn't let him get that far. No, that's not for my ears. Save it for the confessor.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And then for the sacramental part of it, that's where the healing comes in. That's where the spiritual healing comes in. So it's like, It's like if you're a cheesecloth full of holes, right? And you go into confession and you receive the sacrament of reconciliation from the priest.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And the priest, you know, we believe he's been given divine authority that has maybe a not visible, but a tangible, physical power. metaphysical effect on the casing of your soul. And it's like mending the little holes. Every confession is like you're closing up those holes and restoring that connection with God in a way that is... essentially repairing your soul.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
That's what the sacramental part of confession is for us, which is hugely comforting and also physically tangible. For me, I feel just chemically slightly different after every confession that I go through in a way that's like, okay, I can breathe a little easier.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I was also pulled in during that time between like 2016 and 2017. In 2019, I started doing these passion plays, being involved in these passion plays that a friend of mine was directing. And then I helped co-direct and then I co-wrote a version of the passion that we would put on for our church.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It's like nothing else.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I give God all the credit. I give Jesus the credit. And, you know, like our buddy Russell Brand, like I was once his stand-in, I feel like I'm Jesus' stand-in. Jesus is the star and I'm his stand-in. You're Russell Brand's stand-in. I was Russell Brand's stand-in.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Not too bad, eh? It's all right. So we had a good time with him. Yeah, he's all right. He's a good mate. He's a good guy. He's a good man. I love that man. I love him so much.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I mean, let's take Whole Foods. So in some parts of the country, You know, I got to go in with a hood and glasses. And in other parts, especially the coastal cities like New York and L.A., it's just another day. So it can be... They mistake you for a bike messenger, but in Michigan they know. That's very appropriate. Yeah, that's very appropriate. It can be interesting. I think...
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
because of who I'm playing, and because there is this, oftentimes, this front-loaded relationship that they already have with Jesus, And then I become the stand-in, like the face of that relationship that they now, when they read the Bible, I've been told this, my face pops into their mind as they're hearing scriptures or they're seeing.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I mean, even for myself, when I'm at mass and the priest is reading the gospel, And he's talking about Peter. I'm thinking of Shahar Isaac, who plays Peter in our show. And I'm like, okay, yeah, I can't get him out of my head. Yeah, but okay. I love Shahar and he's great as Peter. And so, yeah, it's just, you try, even as an artist, like you still suffer that. You can't quite make the separation.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah, because you now have this relationship with these people and these characters. And so... To be the face of what is often the most important relationship in a person's life. I mean, even beyond their family. It's like God first and then family and then everything else. To be the face of that for people, I don't often... I try not to think about that.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And so for whatever reason, like God was putting me in these situations, in these stories about Jesus so often in such a short, I mean, a relatively short period of time. In a few years, I'd played Jesus like five, six, seven times. And I started to think like, well, there must be something to this. Like, I don't know what it is yet. And then when I got the call for The Chosen, The penny dropped.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah, it's more than being the sidekick on Seinfeld. Yeah. Yeah, and I think... God's given me the gift and the grace of kind of being somewhat blinded to The magnitude of it and the weight of it. That's good. Sometimes I can feel it. Most of the time I think I'm shielded from it. Because I think if I was aware of exactly what that implication was, even for a single person, it would crush me.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I mean, other things, like I have a lot of that in other areas, but when it comes to playing this character, I'm glad I don't have much. Smart. No, so that is a blessing. Yeah. What is Halo? And how'd you hook up with it? Halo is... the world's largest, and for my money, the greatest prayer and meditation app a person can ever find. Like ever.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
There are thousands and thousands of ways, prayers and challenges and meditations that people can use in their daily life to the point of automation. They just set it up and you get reminders where you can just connect with God. in the most creative ways. For me, it has been a way to keep me completely focused on God when I'm in the middle of life.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It's an opportunity for me to access my faith in a consistent way and to get through life's biggest challenges. I mean, there's so many prayers on this app that I use daily, like daily. And, you know, for instance, there's a prayer called the Surrender Novena. Novena, it's a Latin word, just means nine days. So it's a prayer you say for nine days.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And this particular prayer has been so valuable to so many people. Basically, it's very simple, but you repeat it like 10 times. And there's all in the app, like it walks you through it. But the essence of it is this prayer where you simply say, oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything. Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And you repeat that like 10 times. And the number of people that have experienced profound grace, And just ease of their burden, a lightness of the weight in their life. It's been, I mean, I've never heard of a prayer that's had such a profound effect. Like the rosary is another one. So there was this couple. They were trying to have their first baby. They had a miscarriage.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
They were in a pretty severe state, crisis, depression, everything that comes with that. Yes. They see an ad for Hallow. They download the app. They start praying. Specifically, they start praying the surrender prayer that I was telling you about, the surrender novena and the rosary. And they were Catholic as well, so they were familiar with them.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
So they prayed the rosary, super powerful weapon, and the surrender novena. And they get pregnant again. And their relationship is really growing together in faith and in God's strongest that it's ever been. Five months in, they lose the baby. And they're holding their past son who had passed away. And the words that come to mind for this woman is the surrender prayer.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything. It's the first words that come to our mind. And they told us, they said that if they hadn't gotten into this consistent routine of communicating with God through prayer, if their faith hadn't been strengthened, that second miscarriage would have destroyed their marriage. But it didn't. And they kept going.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And it was like, oh, all of that was preparation for this.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
A year later, they had a healthy baby boy. And the first words that came out of her mouth that time was the prayer from Numbers. Lord bless you and keep you. Lord shine his face upon you. Be gracious to you. The Lord look kindly upon you and give you peace. I think their son's name was Jack, I think.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And so the power of having that relationship, the power of prayer, the power of being in a constant dialogue with God, it's what we were made for. We were designed to worship. We were designed for that relationship. It's in our DNA. And the more we try to ignore it or squash it or bury it or ignore it or pretend it doesn't exist or that it's not there or replace it with something else,
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
the more we just run in circles, the more we try to fill that hole with something else, with some other vice, some other endeavor, some other, you know, righteous indignation of something, some other effort that will never substitute, never replace our need for God. It'll never replace it. And so, For me, it's like playing Jesus in The Chosen.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It's one of the most important things that I've ever done artistically. All of this for me feels like an apostolate. It feels like... I'm a media apostle. I feel like that's what I was sent here to do. Like at this time and place to kind of be a part of this, what I see is this growing movement in film and television, in the culture that is truly counterculture to the current culture.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I would say so. Yes. The four episodes that probably wouldn't go anywhere became eight episodes of a first season of the show that was crowdfunded by selling shares to fund the show. And then... Released in the fall of 2019. Re-released for free because we were charging, I think, 15 bucks for the season, the entire eight episodes on DVD and streaming. And then when the pandemic hit.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
You know? And to be a part of the ushering in of this movement opportunity of expression that supersedes the previous iterations of what this looked like, because it's so attentive to quality. Like The Chosen aims to be a great TV show first. And because of that, the fact that the people making it are really invested in the subject matter,
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
make it that much more powerful and then from a very myopically human level and then god sees that and he takes it and he multiplies it he's like he multiplies the magnitude of it the the efficacy of it is then energized and multiplied globally But even just reaching one person and changing one person's life, Dallas will tell you this as well, it's worth it just for one person.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
All the discomfort or whatever I may or may not feel in the world as people approach me, wanting to take a selfie in the gym or in the supermarket, when I'm clearly trying to like get in and out.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I mean, all of, all of that discomfort for me personally, and it's, I've been through worse, you know, like I've been through real discomfort that it's nothing, something, but it's, it's relative, you know what I'm saying? So all of it's worth it because one person decided to go get baptized and now they have like, they have a whole new life.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
They have a whole new, they have a spiritual awakening and,
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
um so it can't operate in europe yeah that was a tough one they just they had just launched in polish and italian and i think german and like all these languages and and now they can't people can't know about the app because they've why is that a threat i mean it just does tell you everything right i mean it's like it's like understanding things in reverse yeah
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Yeah, I'd be curious to hear the EU's answer for that. Or Meta's answer for that.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
No, you're not. I mean, when you read of the stories for decades of people smuggling Bibles into countries, You know, underground churches, even in the story that we cover in the Pray 40 Challenge for Hallow. It's a story of this guy, Takashi Nagai. I mean, he was living in Nagasaki, Japan, right around the time of the Second World War when the bomb was dropped on his town, on Nagasaki.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And Japan had just come out of 300 years, basically, of Christian persecution. They had gotten rid of any... I mean, I think in the late 16th century, they were crucifying people.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And then 300 plus years later, Nagasaki's now the largest Christian hub in all of Japan. And it wasn't the first target for the bomb.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
They tried to drop the bomb somewhere else. This is all in the story that people hear about this length. It's an amazing story. This man's story is amazing. Takashi Nagai. He's a radiologist, doctor. The first target, they tried to drop the bomb, and it was too cloudy. They couldn't see, and they didn't have the conditions appropriate to drop an atomic bomb.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
So their second target was Nagasaki, oddly enough, right above a cathedral. And it blew up, detonated right over the cathedral and wiped out everything. And he survived. Nobody else, his family, everybody died.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I agree. There's a thing that I wanted to read that he read, that he said right after the bombing, which he had converted from atheism. He was Shinto and then he was atheist and then he converted to Christianity and Catholicism. And he was influenced by the writings of Blaise Pascal. So he gave a speech to his community. He was one of the very few survivors in his community.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And this just goes to show you the resilience and the mindset of him and how having faith can completely change the perspective, especially when you're effectively living in hell on earth, which is what Nagasaki was after the dropping of the bomb. People were walking around asking for water while their skin is melting off, like it's literal hell on earth.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And the folks at The Chosen said, we want to do something to kind of ease people's burdens and give the show away for free. And it exploded after that, like beyond anyone's imagination. And since then, it's always been free on the app, The Chosen app. So, and then now we just did a deal with Amazon.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
He said, I have heard that the atom bomb was destined for another city. Heavy clouds rendered that target impossible, and the American crew headed for the secondary target, Nagasaki. Then a mechanical problem arose, and the bomb was dropped further north than planned and burst right above the cathedral. It was not the American crew, I believe, who chose our suburb.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
God's providence chose Urakami, the suburb, and carried the bomb right above our homes. Is there not a profound relationship between the annihilation of Nagasaki and the end of the war? Was not Nagasaki the chosen victim, the lamb without blemish, slain as a whole burnt offering on an altar of sacrifice, atoning for the sins of all the nations during World War II? Happy are those who weep.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
They shall be comforted. We must walk the way of reparation, but we can turn our mind's eyes to Jesus carrying His cross up the hill of Calvary. The Lord has given. The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Let us be thankful that Nagasaki was chosen for the whole burnt sacrifice.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Let us be thankful that through this sacrifice, peace was granted to the world and religious freedom to Japan. Wow. Is that not a profound perspective?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
That's amazing. That is the power of a relationship with Christ. That's what that does.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
So I am one of the main voices on HALO for prayers. So if you want to pray a specific prayer, chances are I've recorded it and you can hear me pray it. Or for any of the challenges like the Pray 40 challenge, I will be guiding people through this challenge, telling people about Takashi Nagai's story.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And I'm also kind of a creative advisor as well and come to them with ideas and work with them on different things that they're doing. And yeah, I love working with them. They've been such great partners. And I think the reason is that... They're believers themselves. You know, they're doing this. I mean, you had Alex on the show and you heard his story.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I mean, he originally created the app for himself. And, you know, God took that desire and that intention in his heart and then amplified it. And now it's the largest prayer app in the world.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Amazon is going to be our exclusive window for the streaming of the show after its initial theatrical run, which for season five will be March 28th. It'll be in theaters for about a month. Then it'll go to Amazon for 90 days exclusively. And then it'll go to the app where it will remain free. I mean, it's turned into the biggest, you know, thing in that genre maybe ever. Yeah. Yeah.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Thank God for my wife.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
They don't often, nobody really releases figures in streaming for viewership and any of that kind of data. But we do because we're like, well, we don't care. We want to tell people like it's been estimated right now that about 280 million people have seen the show globally.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
In the first season I did, there was this moment, especially, which I've kind of talked about at times where, and it's still, I think it's still sort of affects me. I actually like telling the story because it's a reminder for me to remember what it's all about and who I'm serving as I endeavor to portray this role. And so we were about midway through the first season.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
So we'd go and shoot out on a farm, these vignettes, whatever built sets into this. And his church has like a little studio. And so we would... But mostly on location, we would film these little films that would be in the spirit of Good Friday or illustrate a particular gospel passage or scripture scene. And that was in line with the theme of the service for that year.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And the time came for me as Jesus to start preaching, you know, full on sermons. And we started filming sermons. And then as I was going through these words, I suddenly, it's like I kind of felt I was outside of myself, listening to myself preach to a crowd outside the doors of, in our story, Zebedee, James and John's father, Zebedee's house.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And there was a crowd of people that was growing, a crowd of onlookers, you know, our wonderful background actors that participate in the show, and many of whom have participated for years. This crowd starts growing outside the house as Jesus begins preaching, and the scene's not specifically about Jesus, it's about other stuff that's happening in the background,
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
that becomes the foreground of the story. And in the background, Jesus is preaching, but I still have to preach. I still have to say these lines from scripture convincingly and try to mesmerize and galvanize the people that are listening to me and get their attention. And they seemed really attentive, so much so that it made me really self-aware. And I thought, what am I saying?
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
What are these words? Like, these are holy, holy words set by the holiest being that ever walked the face of the earth. I shouldn't be doing this. This, this feels wrong. And so I would have those feelings and then, you know, we would stop and then move on to the next setup and put the camera in a different place. And then as it, as it went on, I just had to stop
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
the production for a moment to talk to the director, to Dallas Jenkins. And I said, can we just slow down a second? And he said, what's going on? And so I took him aside. I said, listen, man, I'm having a hard time right now. Like,
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I was starting to feel panicked and overwhelmed, almost like they'd be, I've only had one panic attack in my life and, and it started to feel like it was creeping into that. And I didn't know what, why, or how, well, I kind of knew, I thought I knew why and, and what was going on, but I just said, can, can we slow it down? And he said, what's, what's going on?
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And I said, I'm saying these words and it's, and hearing them, hearing myself say them, I don't feel worthy to be saying them. This is why I tell this story, because it drives home the point of the gift that I've been given in playing this role. And he puts his hand on my shoulder and he says, brother, none of us are truly worthy. But here we are. I mean, it's you and me. Here we are.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
We're doing this so that the world may know his story. Those who haven't heard his story. me know the impact that he's had on the world and on our lives personally and i'm slightly paraphrasing because it's been many years since since we shot that but that that was the essence and it settled my spirit and and i thought you know he's right he's right for whatever reason god saw fit to put
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
for whatever reason, God saw fit to put me in that role and not somebody else. Nobody else auditioned. There weren't auditions for the role. He had just called me up and said, do you want to do this again? And I said, yes, of course. I didn't hesitate. But then when we got to that moment, it started to dawn on me the weight of what it was that I was being given to do
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
and would then inform the encounters and the experiences that I would have as the show progressed and as we now arrive here at season five, the dawn of season five.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
Oh, yeah. I was raised Christian. I was baptized Greek Orthodox. We lived in New York City. And then when my family moved into the suburbs, there weren't really Greek Orthodox options. So my dad, having gone to Catholic school in Egypt, and my mom being Catholic from Ireland and raised in the faith as well, were more than happy to just go down the street to the local Catholic church.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It was an answered prayer. The person who made that call was a friend and a colleague by that point, a guy by the name of Dallas Jenkins, who created The Chosen. And I had played Jesus for him for his church's Good Friday service. in these little vignettes three times over the course of four years between 2014 and 2017. Just literally in a church. In a church.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
And yeah, so the first time I played Jesus in one of those short films was The Crucifixion. I was in it for five minutes. The film itself, it's called The Two Thieves. You can actually find it, I think, on Amazon still. And it was about... It was a what-if story about the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ. Like, who were they? How did they get there?
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
It was familiar to my dad and part of my mom's upbringing. And for myself and my sisters, it just didn't feel different. It just felt... Right? And so I'm in my first communion and my confirmation as a Catholic. And probably when I got into my early 20s, I was revisiting the idea of my Orthodox roots as cousins and family members were getting married in the Orthodox Church.
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Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
I so admired the beauty and the sanctity with which they approach the liturgy, which is quite different than Catholicism for the most part. I mean, there's Eastern Catholic rites, which are more similar to Greek Orthodox, but it was different. But it didn't draw me to go back completely. Because I think I just felt like, no, this feels like the truth as I understand it, in God's eyes.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness
This seems true. And it's the church that Christ himself ultimately started. And for... for the reasons God knows, and despite every effort to thwart it, especially the largest empire in the world at the time, despite the Roman Empire's attempts to stamp it out.