“I’m walking through land mines every day,” Dallas Jenkins, the writer and director of “The Chosen,” said to Lee Cowan, a journalist for CBS.
Jenkins was featured in a program about the show that was broadcast on CBS’s “Sunday Morning,” which also included actor Jonathan Roumie. Jenkins shared his thoughts on what it is like to recount the story of Jesus, and Roumie talked about how he feels about portraying Jesus. Both of these are explored there.
“The different ideas that people have in their head of who Jesus was is fascinating,” Jenkins told Cowan, adding that he isn’t “trying to avoid land mines” when telling the story. Jenkins wants to bring the characters “down from stained-glass windows.” This is his stated objective.
“We’re gonna take them down from stained-glass windows. We are going to remove them from the statues,” Jenkins stated in an interview with CBS News. “And we are going to remind ourselves that these individuals had the same questions, struggles, and doubts that we have,” the speaker continued.
Jenkins has stated in the past, during an interview with the Deseret News, that he makes an effort “to remove the veil that we sometimes have and just say, this is what it would have looked like.”
“I believe that the authentic Jesus is first and foremost, of course, found in scripture,” Jenkins said, adding that there’s context to unravel. He stated that although he has a deep appreciation for the stained-glass portrayals of Jesus, there are moments when they prevent him from being who he truly is.
In an interview with CBS News, Roumie, who portrays the part of Jesus in the drama, discussed what it has been like to play the role. “Man, it’s kind of humbling. I am the kind of guy that shows up and reads lines and then says them to another person who is reciting lines that they have memorized. I don’t know whether I’ve ever encountered somebody who was so emotionally detached that they believed that I was genuinely Jesus.
Previously, Roumie has described playing Jesus as “the honor of (his) life.”
“I love Jesus and it is the honor of my life to get to portray him,” he said to the Deseret News. “As long as God keeps bringing me stories that I can honor him with, to me, it doesn’t matter what genre they may or may not fall into. It just happens to be that at this stage, there is a lot for me to mine and relate to that are in sort of the faith-minded genre.”
Both Jenkins and Roumie completed filming of Season 4 earlier this summer. The filming took place in Midlothian, Texas, and Goshen, Utah.
Season 4 will release in theaters on Feb. 1 and the show is expected to pick back up filming for Season 5 sometime in April.
In between seasons, Jenkins has been making his dream movie: “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” Filming of the movie is taking place in Canada. Judy Greer and Pete Holmes have been announced as cast members.
“This is a dream come true and the movie I’ve most wanted to make my whole career. And I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone other than Lionsgate and Kingdom, who make great movies while supporting filmmakers,” Jenkins told Deadline.
As the cast and crew gear up for filming Season 5, Roumie has continued his partnership with Hallow, the prayer app. He and actor Liam Neeson narrated an Advent challenge reflecting on the writings of C.S. Lewis this Christmas season.
Roumie has also continued his nearly four-year sponsorship of the organization Unbound. The mission of the organization, per its website, is to partner “with families living in poverty on their path to become self-sufficient and fulfill their inherent potential.”
