Actor, director, producer, and voice-over artist Jonathan Roumie shared that the most difficult scenes for him to film in Season 5 of “The Chosen” were the Last Supper and the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jonathan Roumie Talks to ChurchLeaders About Season 5 of ‘The Chosen’
In an interview, ChurchLeaders asked Roumie, who plays the role of Jesus in the critically acclaimed series that has been viewed more than 800 million times across 175 countries, if the filming of Season 5 impacted him differently from previous seasons.
“Yeah, I think for me, Season 5 was probably the hardest and most challenging season to film. I think it’s true for all of us. There was a lot of preparation for two of the seminal scenes, which were the Last Supper and the Garden of Gethsemane,” Roumie replied. “And when you see those in Scripture, and think, ‘I gotta portray these somehow with some sort of authenticity and impact, and I don’t quite know what I’m going to do,’ it can be a little bit daunting.”
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Roumie shared that he had a team of people specifically praying for him, and he was praying for himself, as he prepped for and acted out the scenes in Season 5.
He then reflected on what it was like portraying Jesus flipping the market tables in front of the temple, a scene depicted in Episode 2.
“It’s important to remember within the righteous anger is God’s version of tough love,” Roumie explained.
“And I think this was a moment for him to remind the leaders that were running the temple who were in charge of overseeing various kinds of extortion against the poorest of the poor as they came up to celebrate Passover once a year,” he said, “that what they were doing was inherently wrong and heretical and sacrilegious, to an extent to the point where Jesus saw fit to cleanse the temple—which he did.”
Recognizing that it wasn’t just some kind of random, violent outburst, where Jesus lost his temper, the actor then said, “No, this was motivated. And it was something that he had observed for some time and witnessed, you know, these sort of acts of wrongdoing perpetrated against the poorest in their community.”
“And so by doing so,” said Roumie, “he knew he was also setting himself up to ensure that he could get to the cross and fulfill his mission and his destiny, which was sacrificing himself.”
