'The Interview': Jonathan Roumie Plays Jesus to Millions. It Can Get Intense.
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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, 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. And yes, this is our version of Christmas season programming. Since 2017, Rumi has been the star of the global hit series The Chosen. The series takes a prestige TV approach to the story of Jesus, full of sharp dialogue, interpersonal drama, unexpected humor, and high production values.
That slickly appealing modern style, centered on Rumi's warm and relatable portrayal, has helped the show to become a massive success. 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. At public events for The Chosen, he's swamped by fans looking to, as it were, touch the hem of his garment. He gets asked to speak at faith-based events, and in the online world, he has a partnership with the prayer app Halo, where listeners can hear him read scripture and lead meditative reflections. 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. 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.
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? 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... Max von Sydow.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
You know, the greatest story ever told. Very austere. But all of those Jesuses or Jizai, 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.
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. 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.
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.
Did you have any apprehension about showing a version of Jesus that isn't one that's typically shown?
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. 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.
Just in my head, I was thinking of the sort of cliche of an actor saying, oh, what's my motivation? In your case, the answer was, you've got to bring about the salvation of the world. Play it like that. Saving souls. I've got to save more souls. And so the decision was made that you were going to do The Chosen.
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