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Episode: 'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.

Author: The New York Times
Duration: 00:42:36

Episode Shownotes

The star of “The Chosen” discusses his early struggles in Hollywood, fans who conflate him with his character and how his own faith informs his work.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and

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Full Transcript

00:00:04 Speaker_00
From The New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm David Marchese. It's common, maybe even natural, for audiences to blur the lines between actors and their famous roles.

00:00:15 Speaker_00
To assume that a beloved on-screen doctor might know something about medicine, or that an action hero is a tough guy off-screen too. But Jonathan Rumi is dealing with an unusually charged version of this dynamic in his role as Jesus Christ.

00:00:30 Speaker_00
And yes, this is our version of Christmas season programming. Since 2017, Rumi has been the star of the global hit series The Chosen.

00:00:39 Speaker_00
The series takes a prestige TV approach to the story of Jesus, full of sharp dialogue, interpersonal drama, unexpected humor, and high production values.

00:00:48 Speaker_00
That slickly appealing modern style, centered on Rumi's warm and relatable portrayal, has helped the show to become a massive success.

00:00:56 Speaker_00
It's been watched by more than 250 million people, and will return for its fifth season under creator Dallas Jenkins next year. That success has also helped turn Rumi, a devout Catholic, into a kind of public faith leader.

00:01:10 Speaker_00
At public events for The Chosen, he's swamped by fans looking to, as it were, touch the hem of his garment.

00:01:17 Speaker_00
He gets asked to speak at faith-based events, and in the online world, he has a partnership with the prayer app Hallow, where listeners can hear him read scripture and lead meditative reflections.

00:01:28 Speaker_00
As Rumi is well aware, his is a complicated and just plain unlikely situation for an actor to be in, but it's also, he believes, part of a greater plan.

00:01:38 Speaker_00
And for me, as someone who is sincerely curious about faith, and even if I'm being honest, a little envious of those who have it, his belief is something I wanted to understand. Here's my conversation with Jonathan Rumi.

00:01:57 Speaker_00
So you've been playing Jesus on The Chosen for five seasons now. What sort of conversations did you and Dallas have about the kind of Jesus that you wanted to show?

00:02:10 Speaker_00
Because your Jesus, it's a very different portrayal than Jim Caviezel's Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, or Willem Dafoe's in The Last Temptation of Christ, or you know what else is a good one, but also very different than yours is,

00:02:25 Speaker_00
Max von Sydow, you know, the greatest story ever told. Very austere. But all of those Jesuses or G's I, I don't know what they are, would... There's a solemnity to them. And your Jesus is a much more, in some ways, contemporary feeling Jesus?

00:02:43 Speaker_01
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

00:02:58 Speaker_01
You're seeing 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. So, theology aside.

00:03:14 Speaker_01
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?

00:03:24 Speaker_01
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.

00:03:36 Speaker_01
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 ourselves.

00:03:45 Speaker_00
Did you have any apprehension about showing a version of Jesus that isn't one that's typically shown?

00:03:52 Speaker_01
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

00:04:03 Speaker_01
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?

00:04:18 Speaker_01
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.

00:04:27 Speaker_00
Just in my head, I was thinking of the sort of cliche of an actor saying, oh, what's my motivation? In your case, they answer, well, you gotta bring about the salvation of the world. Play it like that. Saving souls, I gotta save more souls.

00:04:42 Speaker_00
And so the decision was made that you were gonna do The Chosen. Before that, maybe scuffling is too strong of a word, but you were just sort of a jobbing actor.

00:04:52 Speaker_01
Struggle bussing.

00:04:53 Speaker_00
Struggle bussing. How does it happen that a struggle-bussing actor makes it big playing Jesus?

00:05:02 Speaker_01
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.

00:05:26 Speaker_01
I had moved to LA and then I struggled for eight years in Los Angeles only to realize that 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.

00:05:45 Speaker_01
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.

00:06:04 Speaker_01
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.

00:06:20 Speaker_01
And then three months later, The Chosen comes along and I thought, okay, I just needed to submit.

00:06:28 Speaker_00
I know that you're a practicing Catholic.

00:06:30 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:06:30 Speaker_00
What does your faith allow you to give to the role that a non-believer or a non-Catholic might not be able to give?

00:06:41 Speaker_01
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.

00:06:57 Speaker_01
And I think I struggle to follow Jesus like anybody else who considers themselves a Christian. But the struggle is part of it. And I think God knows what we struggle with, but we're still challenged to do what he would do in those situations.

00:07:16 Speaker_01
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.

00:07:30 Speaker_00
You know, it's interesting because you're saying that who you are allows you to play the role of Jesus with a particular authenticity. Do you feel that someone who is a non-believer could credibly and authentically play that part?

00:07:46 Speaker_01
I think they could. 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.

00:08:00 Speaker_01
But they would have to, I mean, in layman's terms, you'd have to do your research and drop into the character and, you know, go Daniel Day-Lewis on it and for three months, you know, go live as a rabbi in a kibbutz or something like that.

00:08:12 Speaker_01
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. He becomes a sandaled hippie in a lot of, you know, people's minds.

00:08:27 Speaker_01
They're like, oh, you know, he said some cool stuff and he did some cool things. And it's like, I think it was a little more than that.

00:08:33 Speaker_00
Yeah. Yeah. He came to be a sword.

00:08:36 Speaker_01
Yeah. Yeah.

00:08:36 Speaker_00
Yes. When I watch videos of you giving talks for crowds, you come out and very often it seems a wave of applause, like really an overwhelming response. And the idea that you're getting that sort of attention

00:09:00 Speaker_00
Combined with the fact that you're getting it for playing Jesus, strikes me as a potentially psychologically and spiritually combustible situation. Does it feel that way to you?

00:09:18 Speaker_01
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!

00:09:35 Speaker_01
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.

00:09:50 Speaker_01
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,

00:10:07 Speaker_01
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.

00:10:20 Speaker_00
You're saying essentially that you become a human icon for people. The thing that I don't quite understand is how you separate the idea that, as you said, you're nothing here.

00:10:34 Speaker_01
You don't matter. Dust in the wind.

00:10:36 Speaker_00
But then also feeling like you've been put here for a reason. You're saying there is something special about you. Those seem to me like somewhat contradictory ideas. How do you reconcile them?

00:10:47 Speaker_00
And then also, there was never some small part of you that's like, oh, I am special. None of that little sort of ego gratification temptation ever creeps into your head?

00:10:57 Speaker_01
I think if I said there wasn't anything at all, I'd be lying. 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.

00:11:13 Speaker_01
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 what this experience is in playing this role when I meet fans who come out. I was just in the Philippines and it was nuts, man.

00:11:31 Speaker_01
I've never seen anything like it. They were tremendous. They're just so intense and everywhere I go they're like giving me stuff and little articles and notes and things like that.

00:11:44 Speaker_01
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.

00:12:01 Speaker_01
And I'm also one of them in that I have a relationship. 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.

00:12:20 Speaker_00
So, you know, you go to these events, and like you described, thousands of people are cheering, they're coming up to you, and you also are asked to come and speak at things like the National Eucharistic Congress, or you gave a commencement address at the Catholic University of America, you spoke at the March for Life in Washington last year, these sort of demands on your

00:12:46 Speaker_00
time and on your being. Do you feel like you're being asked to give more than you have to give?

00:12:53 Speaker_01
It can be draining.

00:12:54 Speaker_01
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.

00:13:14 Speaker_01
That takes time and it takes energy and a lot of the times it's emotionally charged and you know better or worse that catches up with you after 700 encounters.

00:13:29 Speaker_00
Was there a particularly difficult encounter that comes to mind?

00:13:37 Speaker_01
I was at a

00:13:39 Speaker_01
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.

00:14:03 Speaker_01
Is it okay? She wants to know if she can say hello. I came outside and I met the lady and her son and she was already overwhelmed.

00:14:16 Speaker_01
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.

00:14:35 Speaker_01
And she says, so I just thought, wouldn't it be great if the same thing happened to my son? And I said, yeah, that would be amazing, but I gotta be honest with you, as far as I know, I don't have that gift.

00:14:59 Speaker_01
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 and I walked away and then I just burst into tears.

00:15:15 Speaker_01
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.

00:15:33 Speaker_01
Once I got through that line of thought, I recognized that I said, OK, I can't be what she maybe wanted me to be. I can only be who I've been made to be.

00:15:47 Speaker_00
There's a way in which experiences like that call to mind for me a kind of, you could almost call it like a category error about the position that you find yourself in, where you're an actor.

00:16:00 Speaker_00
And because you play this role, you are put into positions that probably an actor shouldn't be. put into. And it seems like increasingly you are becoming a figure of authority.

00:16:16 Speaker_00
When you're asked by people to come talk to groups of Catholics, what do you think they want from you in that setting? And is there a part of you that thinks, this is messed up, I'm an actor. Why ask me? Ask a theologian, ask a priest.

00:16:34 Speaker_01
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.

00:16:49 Speaker_01
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.

00:17:02 Speaker_01
And so in many ways, you have a gift for humanity that you might not even be considering in that light. You know what I mean?

00:17:11 Speaker_00
Oh, I 100% agree with everything you just said. No, but it's true.

00:17:16 Speaker_01
But 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 if we have a conversation and some sort of fruit

00:17:35 Speaker_01
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.

00:17:44 Speaker_01
They learned 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.

00:17:58 Speaker_01
I don't give my political opinions out publicly.

00:18:02 Speaker_00
Well, not quite true. I mean, talking at the March for Life.

00:18:05 Speaker_01
Well, here's what I'll say about that.

00:18:08 Speaker_00
Which I should explain is a pro-life, I'll also call it anti-abortion rally that happens every year in Washington.

00:18:14 Speaker_01
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.

00:18:33 Speaker_00
Tease that out for me.

00:18:35 Speaker_01
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.

00:18:51 Speaker_01
That's what we believe as Catholics and Christians. And so for me, 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.

00:19:11 Speaker_01
It becomes completely about right or left, conservative or liberal. I don't understand it. That wasn't politics, that was spirituality. You can't cherry pick the aspects of your faith you like and dispense with the things you don't like.

00:19:34 Speaker_01
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.

00:19:45 Speaker_01
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. It's going to be really hard and people will hate you. Get used to it.

00:19:59 Speaker_00
Why is abortion the issue where you chose to make your voice public and not other things that are central to Jesus's teachings like in treatment of the poor, for example?

00:20:11 Speaker_01
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.

00:20:26 Speaker_01
A year before The Chosen, I found this charity called Unbound and I saw the work that they were doing and they were They were changing not just the children's lives through sponsorship, but entire families.

00:20:41 Speaker_01
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. 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.

00:21:02 Speaker_01
It's a lot for me physically and emotionally. It can get really, really taxing at times. 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.

00:21:21 Speaker_01
But you know, sleep when you're in the ground, right?

00:21:25 Speaker_00
I realize you just made a comment about trying to find relaxations, peace of mind, but I have another question about the March for Life.

00:21:34 Speaker_01
Well, let's see how this goes.

00:21:37 Speaker_00
There's one moment in the speech you gave there where you sort of pivot and say, you know, you know about the world of entertainment. I'm paraphrasing all of this, so if I'm misremembering, just correct me. I'll help you.

00:21:48 Speaker_01
It's super dark.

00:21:49 Speaker_00
Yes, and you're sort of diagnosing the cultural landscape, and you say, you know, there's just sort of an increase in, you know, occult imagery, depictions of witchcraft. And you say some of this is even subliminal, and you know it when you see it.

00:22:06 Speaker_00
And I don't know exactly what you mean. Can you give me examples of the kind of stuff you're talking about?

00:22:14 Speaker_01
I think we've reached a point now in culture where

00:22:21 Speaker_01
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.

00:22:41 Speaker_01
You just, I think your mind just filters it like, oh, I've seen that so many times now, it doesn't even register. If you go back a couple of decades ago, you would never see anything like that. I've seen it more, I think, in the music industry.

00:22:57 Speaker_01
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,

00:23:17 Speaker_01
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

00:23:36 Speaker_01
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.

00:23:49 Speaker_00
You know it's funny because I said you know I don't see it and of course you know it's like I enjoy the music of Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, you know what I mean?

00:23:57 Speaker_01
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.

00:24:05 Speaker_00
But to me, you know, that kind of imagery, it feels benign to me. it's on the same level as like science fiction movies or horror films. You know, it's like, this is entertainment.

00:24:16 Speaker_01
So my question for you is- But you're also referencing like rock and the imagery from those bands in that time are different than some of the more modern. I'd like if certain, I think it's much more graphic and sexualized, like sexuality.

00:24:37 Speaker_01
is so much more prevalent in the media, especially in music. The display of sexuality and the dark images connected to sexuality are so much more blatant than they ever were 30, 40 years ago.

00:24:51 Speaker_00
But do you think the kind of iconography you're talking about is the natural outcome of corroded culture, or do you think it's the intentional result of darker forces?

00:25:08 Speaker_01
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

00:25:33 Speaker_01
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.

00:25:48 Speaker_00
And I think it doesn't seem like there's a shortage of politicians talking about, but not without a negative connotation to it.

00:25:55 Speaker_01
Put it this way. I'll speak for myself. I had a conversation several years ago about the discussion of faith in the workplace.

00:26:10 Speaker_01
There 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.

00:26:27 Speaker_01
they went on to carefully admonish me like, hey, you know, just be careful. You really shouldn't talk about these kinds of things because a lot of people are biased against, you know, Christians in this industry.

00:26:39 Speaker_01
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

00:26:49 Speaker_01
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.

00:27:07 Speaker_01
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, I'm not.

00:27:22 Speaker_01
I've never once said, do me a favor, you should convert. I just live out my mission here. I be who I am.

00:27:31 Speaker_01
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.

00:27:44 Speaker_01
Like with the march, I didn't even, the weeks leading right up to it, I didn't want to do it. I thought, this can't be good for an actor.

00:27:57 Speaker_01
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.

00:28:21 Speaker_01
And it was like this wave of peace just kind of swept over me. And he said, just speak from the heart.

00:28:29 Speaker_00
if you think about the work you're doing in terms of mission, how much of that mission feels to you evangelical in nature?

00:28:36 Speaker_00
Like if somebody watches the show and is merely entertained and nothing more, do you feel that something has been left on the table?

00:28:45 Speaker_01
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.

00:29:03 Speaker_01
It's based on Scripture, it's 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.

00:29:13 Speaker_01
But if the vehicle of this story is anything less than top quality, if it's not a great TV show first,

00:29:22 Speaker_01
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 gonna matter. You know what I mean?

00:29:33 Speaker_01
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 and be like, no, get lost. Nobody's gonna wanna even touch it. They'll just walk by it.

00:29:48 Speaker_01
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.

00:29:57 Speaker_01
So yeah, it still has to be a great TV show first, and then everything else from that can flow.

00:30:04 Speaker_00
You know, actors who have been on successful TV shows, I think it's not uncommon for them to have been typecast because of the familiarity that people have with the characters that they played. And that's not even taking into account playing Jesus.

00:30:23 Speaker_00
Do you have any concern about the industry typecasting you in that role? Are you getting any clues out there in the world about that?

00:30:31 Speaker_01
Yeah, no, I'm not. And it's really true, David. Like, whatever happens, man, whatever is meant for me will be mine. Do you know what I mean?

00:30:45 Speaker_01
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.

00:30:59 Speaker_01
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.

00:31:19 Speaker_00
After the break, I call Jonathan Rumi back, and he tells me why he thinks The Chosen should make Hollywood less wary of religion.

00:31:26 Speaker_01
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.

00:32:03 Speaker_00
Thank you for taking the time to do this again.

00:32:04 Speaker_01
Of course, it's my pleasure.

00:32:10 Speaker_00
So, let me just ask a seasonally appropriate question. Okay. At this point in American culture, Christmas is sort of like a secular holiday. Yeah. Do you have feelings about how secular Christmas has become?

00:32:27 Speaker_01
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.

00:32:49 Speaker_01
It says, keep Christ in Christmas. And especially now, any movie that comes out during the season that's about Christmas. There's no trace of Jesus in it at all.

00:33:01 Speaker_01
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

00:33:14 Speaker_01
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 everything that comes with that.

00:33:32 Speaker_00
And you told this interesting anecdote about a discussion with a crew member about how discussing faith at work was sort of a no-go. What might account for why faith is tricky for Hollywood?

00:33:48 Speaker_01
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.

00:34:03 Speaker_01
But I think maybe because for so long there has been

00:34:08 Speaker_01
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.

00:34:35 Speaker_01
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. Like, that's a lot.

00:34:45 Speaker_01
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.

00:35:00 Speaker_01
And so I don't really know why Hollywood would be afraid of that.

00:35:06 Speaker_00
You talked about the idea of surrendering to God. And I think that for non-believers,

00:35:15 Speaker_00
the idea of surrender and what that actually means in practice, I think, you know, it can just sound like a well-meaning cliche, I think, you know, in the way that, you know, when you hear an athlete talk about, oh, you know, we're just start taking it one game at a time and giving it 110%, you know, it's not untrue, but it's not really helping you to understand what's going on.

00:35:36 Speaker_00
And I wonder if you can try to, explain a little bit more concretely about what it actually looked like for you to surrender and sort of let go.

00:35:49 Speaker_00
Because you're still a person walking around with ideas and you know you're trying to accomplish things and you have judgments about things. So what does it mean in practice to let go?

00:35:59 Speaker_01
I think that's a great question. I think the simplest way to describe it

00:36:09 Speaker_01
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.

00:36:32 Speaker_01
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.

00:36:48 Speaker_01
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.

00:37:08 Speaker_01
And then it's like he said, okay, I've given you these gifts, I've given you these talents, do something with them. And I'm kind of like, oh, okay, let me go do something with them.

00:37:20 Speaker_01
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.

00:37:33 Speaker_01
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.

00:37:45 Speaker_01
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.

00:38:04 Speaker_01
but it hasn't worked 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 for my life.

00:38:19 Speaker_01
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.

00:38:35 Speaker_00
You're so firmly on your path now, but are there ways in which your faith is still being tested?

00:38:43 Speaker_01
Constantly. God willing, I'm on the path. But that's part of the mystery of faith. God ultimately is unknowable.

00:38:53 Speaker_00
Give me the nitty gritty.

00:38:56 Speaker_01
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.

00:39:08 Speaker_01
Three times he said, I asked the Lord to take this thorn from my side, and that God said, no, I'm not gonna take that from you, because my grace is sufficient. In other words, he needed Paul

00:39:21 Speaker_01
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.

00:39:39 Speaker_01
But we all deal with something, right? We're all suffering and struggling with something. 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.

00:39:51 Speaker_01
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.

00:40:07 Speaker_01
I started praying live on my social media accounts. And I thought, what am I doing? This is career killer. Because it was like,

00:40:18 Speaker_01
it would, first of all, out me 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.

00:40:33 Speaker_01
There are, but, you know, I don't know that they're all here in America, in most of my audience.

00:40:41 Speaker_00
The current president, a Catholic.

00:40:44 Speaker_01
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.

00:40:51 Speaker_01
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.

00:41:03 Speaker_01
So, you know, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to go where I'm led, man.

00:41:13 Speaker_00
Jonathan, thank you, and happy holidays.

00:41:16 Speaker_01
Thank you, likewise, David Koblitz.

00:41:24 Speaker_00
That's Jonathan Rumi. Season 5 of The Chosen comes out next year. This conversation was produced by Seth Kelly. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by Sophia Landman. Original music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, and Marion Lozano.

00:41:40 Speaker_00
Photography by Philip Montgomery. Our senior booker is Priya Matthew, and our producer is Wyatt Orr. Our executive producer is Allison Benedict.

00:41:49 Speaker_00
Special thanks to Rory Walsh, Renan Borelli, Afim Shapiro, Jeffrey Miranda, Nick Pittman, Maddie Masiello, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dolnik.

00:41:59 Speaker_00
If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to The Interview wherever you get your podcasts. To read or listen to any of our conversations, you can always go to nytimes.com slash theinterview.

00:42:09 Speaker_00
And you can email us anytime at theinterview at nytimes.com. Next week, we're off for the holidays, but we'll share a conversation with Jeff Bezos from the New York Times Dealbook Summit. And we'll be back with more interviews in the new year.

00:42:23 Speaker_00
I'm David Marchese, and this is The Interview from The New York Times.