It’s common, maybe even natural, for audiences to conflate actors with the roles they play. To assume, for example, that an onscreen action hero is tough offscreen too, or that a rom-com star is a real-life charmer. That blurring of lines is probably a sign that an actor is doing something right, but it doesn’t make the dynamic any less strange or confusing. Especially if the character you’re famous for playing is Jesus Christ.
Since 2017, Jonathan Roumie has starred as Jesus on “The Chosen,” a hit series that takes a prestige-TV approach to the story told in the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Neither piously solemn nor portentously heavy-handed, “The Chosen,” which was created by Dallas Jenkins (son of the author Jerry Jenkins, a co-writer of the hugely popular “Left Behind” books), instead displays snappy dialogue, tense interpersonal drama, unexpected humor and high production values.
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That slickly modern style, which allows the show to appeal to a curious nonbeliever like me, is centered on Roumie’s warm and relatable portrayal, and it has helped the show become a gigantic success. To date, “The Chosen,” which is available for streaming on Amazon, Hulu and other platforms and will return for its fifth season next year, has been watched by more than 250 million people. All that positive attention has nudged Roumie, a Catholic, toward being a kind of faith leader. At public events for “The Chosen,” he can be swamped by fans looking to, as it were, touch the hem of his garment; he gets asked to deliver high-profile speeches at faith-based events attended by thousands; and in the online world, he has a partnership with the prayer app Hallow, where subscribers can hear him read scripture and lead meditative reflections. It’s safe to say these opportunities were not on his radar before playing the son of God.
Roumie, who is 50 and was struggling in his career before landing “The Chosen,” is well aware that he’s in an emotionally and psychologically complicated situation for an actor. But it’s also a situation that — he believes, anyway — is all part of a greater plan.
What conversations did you and Dallas [Jenkins] have initially about the kind of Jesus that you wanted to show? Because your Jesus is very different from Jim Caviezel’s in “The Passion of the Christ” or Willem Dafoe’s in “The Last Temptation of Christ.” It’s more contemporary-feeling, more colloquial. What we have, that all those other portrayals didn’t have access to, was long-form storytelling. You’re seeing the nuances of his character, his quirks. Nobody 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 journey, part of the struggle. 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.
