The actor Jonathan Rouumie, who plays Jesus in the successful “The Chosen” series, said Monday that visiting the Vatican is “an honor that moves” and a confirmation that the mission of the program to bring Jesus Christ to the world continues in force.
Rouumie, several actors in the series and the creator and project director, Dallas Jenkins, are this week in the Vatican after having completed three weeks of filming in southern Italy, where they filmed the scenes of the crucifixion for the sixth season, which will be released next year.
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“The fact that we are here now, sitting in the Vatican … is a testimony of how God wants to continue promoting this mission of bringing more people to Jesus, and taking Jesus to them,” Rouumie said during a press conference held on Monday, June 23 in the Vatican.
That same day in the afternoon, the fourth episode of the fifth season will be screened in the film library, entitled The Same Coin (the same coin)as prelude to the complete premiere of the season in Italy in July.
Roumie will also deliver a gift from “The Chosen” to Pope Leo XIV during the general audience of Wednesday, June 25, a meeting that qualifies as “extraordinary for many reasons.”
“When I was chosen (Pope Leo XIV), I cried, because I never thought I would see an American Pope in my life. Being able to communicate with him this week in our native language is something that I never imagined to live,” confessed the Catholic actor.
For his part, Dallas Jenkins, a Protestant evangelical, said that being in the Vatican was “an immense honor.” He added that being surrounded by the sacred art of Rome and the Vatican reminds him of how much he wants the series to make the characters and events portrayed in religious art feel real.
“Jesus is more than a painting, and the church is more than a building. Jesus and the apostles are not just showral: Jesus became man … and these men and women really lived, they really had a relationship with Jesus … and that is something we can also have today,” Jenkins said.
Elizabeth Tabish (María Magdalena), George Xanthis (the apostle John) and Vanessa Benavente (the Virgin Mary) also participated in the press conference, who talked about the emotional impact of interpreting their characters, showing their humanity and evolution throughout the five seasons.
Roumie recalled that at the beginning of the project they did not know if they would even complete four episodes of the first season.
“And now, seven years later, with thousands of testimonies about how God has used this series to transform lives – and in some specific cases, to save them – ‘moving’ is not enough to describe what we feel. It is something deep,” he says.
On June 22, the team concluded the filming of the Crucifixion of Jesus in Matera, Italian region of Basilicata, the same place where “The Passion of Christ” of Mel Gibson was filmed.
Jenkins described those three weeks as “the most difficult and challenging we have lived”, and that led him to deliver everything to Christ.
Roumie confessed that, since the beginning of the project, many asked if he was looking forward to recording the scenes of the crucifixion. “I always replied: ‘I can’t think of that, I can’t think of the cross, because we are not there yet.”
He preferred to focus on the present, in the Public Ministry and active of Jesus, and in privacy with his followers. “And if there was someone in the history of the world who was present at all times, that was Jesus Christ,” said the actor.
Talking about the fifth season, focused on the events of Holy Week, is relief against the emotional intensity of recent weeks, Jenkins told journalists.
This season includes some of the best known scenes of the Scriptures, such as the betrayal of Judas, the moment when Jesus expels the merchants of the temple, his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and, above all, the last dinner and the institution of the Eucharist.
The director expressed his hope that this season is “an opportunity for new spectators to approach the series, recognizing these emblematic moments.”
Translated and adapted by ACI Press. Originally published in CNA.
Hannah Brockhaus
Hannah Brockhaus is correspondent in Rome by Catholic News Agency. He grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from the State University Truman in Missouri.