David Marchese

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 had with the characters that they played. Sure. And that's not even taking into account playing Jesus. Do you have any concern about the industry typecasting you in that role? Yeah. Are you getting any clues out there in the world about that or—

After the break, I call Jonathan Rumi back, and he tells me why he thinks that shows should make Hollywood less wary of religion.

Thank you for taking the time to do this again.

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?

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?

You talked about the idea of surrendering to God. And I think that for non-believers...

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 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.

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

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

But give me the nitty gritty.

Yeah.

Jonathan, thank you and happy holidays.

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

Special thanks to Rory Walsh, Renan Borelli, Afim Shapiro, Jeffrey Miranda, Nick Pittman, Matty Macielo, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dolnik. 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.

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. I'm David Marchese, and this is The Interview from The New York Times.

From The New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm David Marchese. Unexpected connections sometimes arise in this job. As it happens, I had two of them with this week's guest, the Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton. Both of them shaped my feeling about the conversation you're about to hear, though in very different ways. Let me tell you about the first one.

From The New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm David Marchese. Unexpected connections sometimes arise in this job. As it happens, I had two of them with this week's guest, the Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton. Both of them shaped my feeling about the conversation you're about to hear, though in very different ways. Let me tell you about the first one.

In a book of sketches by the British writer John Berger called Bento's Sketchbook, one drawing has always mesmerized me. It's of an androgynous face, almost alien, and it exudes this deeply human curiosity and compassion. That sketch is labeled, simply, Tilda.

In a book of sketches by the British writer John Berger called Bento's Sketchbook, one drawing has always mesmerized me. It's of an androgynous face, almost alien, and it exudes this deeply human curiosity and compassion. That sketch is labeled, simply, Tilda.

I hadn't really thought about who it was based on until, that is, when in preparation for my interview with Swinton, I watched a documentary she co-directed about Berger. In it, she mentioned Bento's sketchbook, and a light bulb went on. Despite being a longtime admirer of that sketch and Swinton's acting, I'd never put together that I'd been entranced by the same person the whole time.