Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness

Speaker 1 You're an actor, you're looking for work,

Speaker 1 your agent or somebody calls you and says, We'd like you to play Jesus.

Speaker 1 What's that like?

Speaker 1 It was an answered prayer.

Speaker 1 The person who made that call was

Speaker 1 a friend and a colleague by that point, a guy by the name of Dallas Jenkins, who created The Chosen.

Speaker 1 And I had played Jesus for him for his church's Good Friday service in these little vignettes

Speaker 1 three times over the course of four years

Speaker 1 between

Speaker 1 2014 and 2017. Just literally in a church.
In a church. So we'd go and shoot out on a farm, these vignettes, whatever built sets into this.
And his church has like a little studio.

Speaker 1 And so we would, but mostly on location, we would film these little films that would be in the spirit of Good Friday or illustrate a particular gospel passage or scripture scene. And that was

Speaker 1 in line with the theme of

Speaker 1 the service for that year.

Speaker 1 And yeah, so the first time I played Jesus in one of those short films

Speaker 1 was the crucifixion.

Speaker 1 I was in it for five minutes.

Speaker 1 The film itself, it's called The Two Thieves. You can actually find it, I think, on Amazon still.

Speaker 1 And it was about,

Speaker 1 it was a what-if story about the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ.

Speaker 1 Who were they? How did they get there? How do you go in like

Speaker 1 one of the Gospels, in one paragraph from, you know, he was being mocked and reviled even by the thieves next to him to all of a sudden the penitent thief, as he's referred to, gives his life basically to Jesus in that moment and said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Speaker 1 And Jesus says, truly, today you will be with me in paradise. And he basically, it's like the first confession on the cross.
And he grants him access to the kingdom.

Speaker 1 And so how does that, how do you go from

Speaker 1 being one of the mockers, revilers, to this sudden conversion on the cross? And so he tries to, Dallas tries to answer that question in the course of this 25-minute film.

Speaker 1 I actually read for The Penitent Thief because he's got this

Speaker 1 fantastic narrative arc.

Speaker 1 And then, and I thought I'd had a great audition. It was in L.A.
at the time.

Speaker 1 And I knew it was an opportunity to like, you know, get paid a nominal stipend for some work in another city, in this, in this case, suburban Chicago.

Speaker 1 And I thought, man, I would audition for this short film. I don't care if it's for a church.
It's all, it's, it's a great story. Its script is great.

Speaker 1 So I, so I go and I audition, I had a great audition. I'm like, I think I nailed it.

Speaker 1 A couple of days later, I get a call back. to come back in,

Speaker 1 but this time to read for Jesus.

Speaker 1 And I thought to myself, ah, man, I didn't get the first role. And then I looked again at the script.
I'm like, wait, so Jesus got like five lines in the whole thing.

Speaker 1 But I had happened to have played Jesus six months prior for another completely independent project up in Washington State at a studio for this Catholic company called St.

Speaker 1 Luke Productions about this saint in the early 20th century named St. Faustina,

Speaker 1 who was considered a mystic. She had these visions.
She wrote an entire diary that was sort of dictated to her by Christ himself in these visions.

Speaker 1 And so I played Jesus in the vision aspect of that story for this traveling one-woman show where it was an actress playing the saint, a screen behind her, a couple of rudimentary set pieces.

Speaker 1 And then all of the other characters in the show, in the play, including these visions of Jesus, was projected on a screen that she would choreographically time out her scenes with for 90 minutes.

Speaker 1 So fast forward six months later, I get this audition for the two thieves.

Speaker 1 I didn't get the penitent thief. I go and I audition for Jesus because I'm like, you know what? I enjoyed playing Jesus six months ago.

Speaker 1 Like, this would be cool if I got, if I got anything, it would be cool because I wasn't working steadily or consistently.

Speaker 1 And the way Dallas tells the story about 10 seconds into the audition, he's like, that's Jesus. That's my Jesus for this show.
And so we did that film and it was screened.

Speaker 1 He brought me back to view it like a month later at the Good Friday service with his church, about seven services. It was like 15,000 people saw this thing in a matter of a day and a half.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it was remarkably well received. It was...

Speaker 1 so beautiful and it was it was the essentially the foundational bones of the concept of the chosen which is this um this sort of Ignatian spirituality, this Ignatian insight into the Gospels, which is basically you put yourself in the Gospel,

Speaker 1 in the Gospels, you ask yourself a series of questions, and that's how you meditate on the Gospels through this form of spirituality. And so this

Speaker 1 process of filmmaking was kind of like a living example of that on celluloid or digital celluloid.

Speaker 1 And so we did it again the following year for a different kind of scene. And then we skipped a year.
And then in 2017, the spring of 2017, I did one more film with him for his church.

Speaker 1 And then it was in probably the summer of 2018 where he called me and said, hey, want to put the sales back on? I think we're going to do this four episodes of a crowdfunded TV show.

Speaker 1 Probably not going to go anywhere, but it'd be some consistent work. And I jumped at the chance.
I thought, okay,

Speaker 1 had now played Jesus for him a few times. I was getting really comfortable with the role.
I was also pulled in during that time between like 2016 and 2019.

Speaker 1 I started doing these passion plays, being involved in these passion plays that a friend of mine was directing.

Speaker 1 And then I helped co-direct and then I co-wrote a version of the passion that we would put on for our church.

Speaker 1 And so,

Speaker 1 for whatever reason, like

Speaker 1 God was putting me in these situations, in these, um,

Speaker 1 in these stories about Jesus so often in such a short, I mean, a relatively short period of time. In a few years, I'd played Jesus like five, six, seven times.

Speaker 1 And I started to think, like, well, there must be something to this. Like,

Speaker 1 I don't know what it is yet. And then, when I got the call for the chosen,

Speaker 1 the penny dropped. And it was like,

Speaker 1 oh,

Speaker 1 all of that was preparation for this.

Speaker 1 And it became much more than

Speaker 1 anyone thought it would be.

Speaker 1 I would say so. Yes.

Speaker 1 The four episodes that probably wouldn't go anywhere became eight episodes of a first season of the show that was crowdfunded by selling shares to fund the show and then

Speaker 1 released in the fall of 2019,

Speaker 1 re-released for free because we were charging, I think, $15

Speaker 1 for the season, the entire eight episodes on DVD and streaming.

Speaker 1 And then when the pandemic hit,

Speaker 1 the folks at the chosen said, we want to do something to kind of ease people's burdens and give the show away for free.

Speaker 1 And it exploded after that, like beyond anyone's imagination. And since then, it's always been free on the app, the chosen app.

Speaker 1 And then now we just did a deal with Amazon. Amazon is going to be our exclusive window for the streaming of the show after its initial theatrical run, which for season five will be March 28th.

Speaker 1 It'll be in theaters for about a month. Then it'll go to Amazon for 90 days exclusively.
And then it'll go to the app where it will remain free.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's turned into the biggest thing in that genre, maybe ever. Yeah.
Yeah. They don't often,

Speaker 1 nobody really releases figures in streaming for viewership and any of that kind of data, but we do because we're like, well, we don't care. We want to tell people.

Speaker 1 Like, it's been estimated right now that about

Speaker 1 280 million people have seen the show globally.

Speaker 1 340 million in the United States total. So that's

Speaker 1 pretty deep penetration, as we see it in TV. I would say so.
That's amazing.

Speaker 1 So the reason I asked the question, and you didn't flinch, was that I think some people would feel like that's a pretty heavy role. I mean, it's Jesus,

Speaker 1 basis of the world's largest religion,

Speaker 1 God himself, according to Christians. Did you ever feel that on you? Like, that's a lot.

Speaker 1 In the first season, I did.

Speaker 1 There was this moment, especially,

Speaker 1 which I've kind of talked about at times, where,

Speaker 1 and it's still, I think it still sort of

Speaker 1 affects me. I actually like telling the story because it's a reminder

Speaker 1 for me to

Speaker 1 remember

Speaker 1 what it's all about and who I'm serving

Speaker 1 as I endeavor to portray this role. And so we were about midway through the first season.

Speaker 1 And the time came for me as Jesus to start preaching, you know,

Speaker 1 full-on sermons. And

Speaker 1 we started filming.

Speaker 1 And then as I was going through these words, I suddenly, it's like I kind of felt I was outside of myself, listening to myself preach to a crowd outside the doors of, in our story, Zebedee, James, and John's father, Zebedee's house.

Speaker 1 And there was a crowd of people that was a growing crowd of onlookers, you know, and our wonderful background actors that participate in the show and many of them, who have participated for years,

Speaker 1 this crowd starts growing outside the house as Jesus begins preaching. And the scene's not specifically about Jesus.

Speaker 1 It's about other stuff that's happening in the background that becomes the foreground of the story. And in the background, Jesus is preaching.
But I still have to preach.

Speaker 1 I still have to say these lines from scripture convincingly and try to mesmerize and galvanize the people that are listening to me and get get their attention.

Speaker 1 And they seemed really attentive, so much so that it made me really self-aware. Yeah.
And I thought,

Speaker 1 what am I saying? What are these words? Like, these are holy, holy words said by the holiest being that ever walked the face of the earth. I shouldn't be doing this.
This feels wrong.

Speaker 1 And so I would have those feelings and then, you know, we would stop and then move on to the next setup and put the camera in a different place.

Speaker 1 And then as it went on, I just had to stop the production for a moment to talk to the director to Dallas Jenkins. And I said,

Speaker 1 can we just slow down a second? And he said, what's going on? And so I took him aside. I said, listen, man,

Speaker 1 I'm having a hard time right now.

Speaker 1 I was starting to feel panicked and overwhelmed, almost like I've only had one panic attack in my life.

Speaker 1 And it started to feel like it was creeping into that. And I didn't know what, why, or how, well, I kind of knew, I thought I knew why, and

Speaker 1 what was going on, but I just said,

Speaker 1 can we slow it down? And he said, what's going on? And I said,

Speaker 1 I'm saying these words, and it's and hearing them, hearing myself say them, I don't feel worthy to be saying them.

Speaker 1 This is why I tell this story, because

Speaker 1 it drives home the point

Speaker 1 of the gift that I've been given in playing this role.

Speaker 1 And he puts his hand on my shoulder, and he says, brother, none of us are truly worthy,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 here we are. I mean, it's you and me.
Here we are. We're doing this so that the world may know his story, those who haven't heard his story,

Speaker 1 may know the impact that he's had on the world and on our lives personally. And I'm slightly paraphrasing because it's been many years since we shot that, but

Speaker 1 that was the essence.

Speaker 1 And it settled my spirit.

Speaker 1 And I thought, you know, he's right. He's right.

Speaker 1 For whatever reason, God saw fit to put,

Speaker 1 for whatever reason,

Speaker 1 God saw fit to put me in that role

Speaker 1 and not somebody else.

Speaker 1 Nobody else auditioned.

Speaker 1 There weren't auditions for the role. He had just called me up and said, do you want to do this again?

Speaker 1 And I said, yes, of course. I didn't hesitate.

Speaker 1 But then when we got to that moment,

Speaker 1 it started to dawn on me the weight of what it was that I was being given to do.

Speaker 1 And would then inform the encounters and the experiences that I would have

Speaker 1 as the show progressed and as we now arrive here at season five, the dawn of season five.

Speaker 1 When you started the series,

Speaker 1 did you believe it? Did you believe in the gospel?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I was raised Christian. I was baptized Greek Orthodox.

Speaker 1 We lived in New York City. And then when my family moved into the suburbs, there weren't really Greek Orthodox options.

Speaker 1 So my dad, having gone to Catholic school in Egypt, and my mom being Catholic from Ireland and raised in the faith as well,

Speaker 1 were more than happy to just go down the street to the local Catholic church. It was familiar to my dad and part of my mom's

Speaker 1 upbringing.

Speaker 1 And for myself and my sisters it just it didn't feel different it just felt right

Speaker 1 and uh so i made my first communion and my confirmation as catholic and

Speaker 1 probably when i got into my early 20s i was revisiting the idea of my orthodox roots as as

Speaker 1 cousins and family members were getting married in the orthodox church and

Speaker 1 I so admired the beauty and the sanctity with which they approach the liturgy,

Speaker 1 which is quite different than Catholicism for the most part. I mean, there's Eastern Catholic rites which are more similar to Greek Orthodox, but

Speaker 1 it was different, but

Speaker 1 it didn't draw me to go back completely.

Speaker 1 Because I think I just felt like, no,

Speaker 1 this feels like the truth as I understand it

Speaker 1 in God's eyes. This seems true.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it's the church that Christ himself ultimately started. And for

Speaker 1 the reasons God knows,

Speaker 1 and despite

Speaker 1 every

Speaker 1 effort to thwart it, especially the largest empire in the world at the time, despite the Roman Empire's attempts to stamp it out.

Speaker 1 Through murder. Yeah.
It didn't happen. It's still going.

Speaker 1 And that means something to me.

Speaker 1 And so doing this show,

Speaker 1 playing the character of Jesus, working with the Halloween,

Speaker 1 doing all these prayer and meditation challenges with them, learning more about other stories of faith, other people of faith through like the challenges that we have coming up for Lent here.

Speaker 1 I've grown deeper in my faith. It's drawn me closer to the church, to want to know more about the aspects of the church that I didn't necessarily grow up learning.

Speaker 1 You know, I went to public school, so I had

Speaker 1 Tuesday afternoon catechism or whatever the day was where you went to catechism out. CCD.
CCD after school.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I didn't learn any of the things that I've learned in the last several years because

Speaker 1 that's just not designed that way. And

Speaker 1 the church has such a rich history and tradition. It's so vast.

Speaker 1 It's such a storehouse. There's so much to know and to learn.

Speaker 1 And through the experiences of

Speaker 1 playing Christ and getting to force myself to

Speaker 1 go into

Speaker 1 prayer and meditation prior to every season

Speaker 1 through these

Speaker 1 periodical prayer challenges, like we just did one in Advent for Halloween, and now we're doing the Pray 40, which starts

Speaker 1 today, Ash Wednesday.

Speaker 1 It's forced me to just spend more time in the presence of God. And it wants me to get closer to Him.
What is Lent?

Speaker 1 Lent is... Begins today.

Speaker 1 Begins today is 40 days of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving leading up to Good Friday, the Friday before Easter, the day Jesus Christ died on the cross and gave his life for humanity.

Speaker 1 Two days later, three days later, we say, if you include Friday,

Speaker 1 Easter Sunday, Jesus resurrects from the dead and original sin

Speaker 1 on,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 the stain on mankind is lifted through our belief in Christ. And so

Speaker 1 Lent, you know, for me, Lent is a time to, I think,

Speaker 1 simplify and it's a time to sacrifice, and it's a time to draw myself closer

Speaker 1 through,

Speaker 1 you know, the way of the cross. Basically, the theme of Hal's Pray 40 challenge this year is called the Way, and it's the way of surrender, you know, the way of

Speaker 1 Christ, basically,

Speaker 1 and everything that he did.

Speaker 1 leading up to his passion, death, and resurrection. It's something for us to meditate on in that 40 days.
Typically,

Speaker 1 we try to make some sort of meaningful sacrifice. Some people say, oh, it's a time to give up chocolate.
Well, if

Speaker 1 chocolate is something that gives you joy and happiness, then yeah, that might be a good thing for you to give up. for 40 days.
And it can be really hard. For some people, like me, it'd be coffee.

Speaker 1 For some people, it's alcohol. For some people, it's cigars or cigarettes or something.
Do asparagus every year.

Speaker 1 It's not the toughest Lent program.

Speaker 1 Does asparagus give you joy? Because if it doesn't, just kidding. Tucker, I would think you may want to revisit.

Speaker 1 Lent is here, the period before Easter, the 40 days, and it's a unique chance to get closer to God. That's the point of it.
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Speaker 1 Joining their Prayer 40 Challenge. It's a great way to connect with Christians all over the world and unite in preparation for for Easter, which is the payoff of this season.
It's called The Way.

Speaker 1 It helps participants focus on how Jesus is the way to heaven. If you join the challenge, you'll embark on a spiritual journey with some of America's most convicted Jesus followers.

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Speaker 1 This year is going to be the best Lent ever.

Speaker 1 Thousands of people praying together all over the world, and you can be part of it it through Hallow, which by the way is in use in my house and a nightly topic of conversation.

Speaker 1 So you can sign up at hallow.com slash Tucker when you join. Check out thousands of guided prayers, meditations, music, and everything.

Speaker 1 There's a ton on Hallow, all designed to help you find peace and closeness to God. Download the Hallow app and jump onto the Lent Pray 40 challenge right now.

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Speaker 1 So, how do you observe it?

Speaker 1 Well, I start typically by going to mass,

Speaker 1 getting ashes, which I have not yet done,

Speaker 1 and then fasting on, well, especially Ash Wednesday, but typically,

Speaker 1 and it's not an obligation, but I like to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. Sometimes it's nothing but maybe water.
Sometimes it's just no meat.

Speaker 1 Fridays in Lent, especially, no meat,

Speaker 1 fish,

Speaker 1 soups, broths are even okay. It's like fasting from the flesh.
You're denying the flesh. You're denying yourself.
It's about denial, you know.

Speaker 1 And it recalls Christ's 40 days in the desert prior to the start of his ministry when he denied himself everything, food, water,

Speaker 1 the temptations that he was faced with in the desert.

Speaker 1 He held steadfast and

Speaker 1 came out ready to basically start his ministry. And

Speaker 1 the practice of fasting is, spiritually speaking, is super powerful. I mean,

Speaker 1 if there's obstacles or challenges that you're experiencing in your life that just don't seem to be resolved through traditional prayer,

Speaker 1 you know, Jesus himself was confronted by the disciples at one point. I think they were trying to cast out these demons

Speaker 1 of these in this in their community, and it wasn't working. And they had been given the power to do that.
And

Speaker 1 he comes up on them and

Speaker 1 they basically said, we tried everything. We tried, you know, cast them out in your name.
It didn't work. Why didn't it work? And he said,

Speaker 1 paraphrasing, some demons can only be cast out through prayer and fasting.

Speaker 1 And so that's that there's an extra, it's like an extra superpower level that you get given when you you commit to denying yourself the things that the body needs with the intention that you are offering something out to God.

Speaker 1 Have you experienced that? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 There have been decisions that in my life that

Speaker 1 I'd really been, or not even people,

Speaker 1 I'll go, I'll go even more personal.

Speaker 1 People that I prayed for that were

Speaker 1 sick, were in like

Speaker 1 a comatose state

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 through prayer and fasting

Speaker 1 remarkably on a particular day that I did this

Speaker 1 came out of it

Speaker 1 and they for like weeks just unresponsive. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's it's a game changer. Fasting.
Yeah. In fact, in fact, so to tie to

Speaker 1 part of the reason why I'm here today, it's

Speaker 1 on Fridays in this prayer challenge on Hallow, Mark Wahlberg and Chris Pratt handle the fasting portion of the challenge.

Speaker 1 So you go through this challenge seven days a week, and on Fridays, which is the day we typically fast for meat, they get into the spirituality and the psychology of fasting, but the potent spirituality of denial and what that means.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it's super powerful, man.

Speaker 1 It affects change like few things do.

Speaker 1 Really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And that's like a true fast, not eat.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean,

Speaker 1 it's something that I would pray about.

Speaker 1 Like if

Speaker 1 for some people, having just bread and water is extremely difficult.

Speaker 1 Or even just like a bowl of soup or water, or like, you know, there's the church, the Catholic Church has

Speaker 1 sort of

Speaker 1 suggested guides. So it's essentially one meal and like partial meals, not a full second meal, I believe, is one meal a day.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 if that's,

Speaker 1 if that's too easy for you and you're like, well, that's not,

Speaker 1 I don't feel like I'm sacrificing anything by just one meal. Like, I want to go no food at all, and maybe just some water or a couple of pieces of bread, you know, bread and water,

Speaker 1 then that becomes your fasting. So I think it depends, but it's always something that

Speaker 1 I take to in prayer first. Lord,

Speaker 1 how do you want me to approach this fast?

Speaker 1 How can I deny myself?

Speaker 1 What do you need from me

Speaker 1 in this fast?

Speaker 1 And how can I serve you better through this fast?

Speaker 1 It's funny. Fasting is the one piece of religious observance that has pretty much disappeared in

Speaker 1 public conversations about religious observance. I mean, fasting sounds like a medieval practice.
Well, especially here in the West, you go to the Middle East. It's like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 1 Of course I'm fasting. Where's a full month? Yeah.
We're at at it right now.

Speaker 1 Yeah. No food or water or tobacco or sex during the day period.
Wow.

Speaker 1 No water.

Speaker 1 But there, you know, it's considered like a celebration,

Speaker 1 as you know. But

Speaker 1 well, I also find like even the

Speaker 1 Middle Eastern Christians, like the Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, they're

Speaker 1 much more culturally rigorous when it comes to fasting.

Speaker 1 Not just meat, but no dairy. And the same thing with Muslims, no dairy,

Speaker 1 they believe no meat, no dairy,

Speaker 1 no oils. Like there's a there's a number of different levels, but the same thing with the Christians and my family, like, wow,

Speaker 1 we don't do, like, Catholics don't do the no dairy thing, but

Speaker 1 yeah, you're right. I mean, here in the West, it's...
It does make you wonder if... You say you're fasting, people say, why?

Speaker 1 Then you got to explain, you know, it's foreign. I mean, it's all, it's all over the New Testament references to fasting.
Yeah. And

Speaker 1 as you just said, it's, it's not simply Christianity. It's like, it was just a feature of religious observance like from the beginning of time.
Yeah. And it's gone.
And you

Speaker 1 in the mainstream, it's gone. So you wonder, like, is there a connection between

Speaker 1 eating and spiritual awareness? Clearly there is.

Speaker 1 Is there a connection between overeating and spiritual dullness?

Speaker 1 maybe there is and if you wake up and everyone's fat which is true including me from time to time so i'm not joking um

Speaker 1 there's just there's like a spiritual component there yeah or am i playing well i mean it's a crazy suggestion one of the seven deadly sins is gluttony yeah

Speaker 1 doesn't have to be food but it can be like how are you being gluttonous in your life?

Speaker 1 Is it or are you hoarding things?

Speaker 1 Is it food? Like, is it just not putting any kind of boundaries on your satiety? Like, just like, you know what?

Speaker 1 And, and, and I think it's, it's something that

Speaker 1 can

Speaker 1 fuel other sort of

Speaker 1 leeches into breaking that spiritual connection to the divine. I mean, there's no doubt.

Speaker 1 One of the most striking things about having grown up and living in the modern West is realizing things later in life that are like glaringly obvious.

Speaker 1 And you think to yourself, like, how did I not notice that?

Speaker 1 Of course, gluttony is bad, right? Greed is bad. Worstering money is bad.
These are all violence is bad. These are all the things that I've realized in the last couple of years.

Speaker 1 It never occurred to me at one time. Well, then you see movies.
I mean, here's the power of entertainment. You see a movie like Wall Street.

Speaker 1 You got Michael Douglas, who was a superstar at that time, his height of his career. Greed is good.
I mean, isn't that the phrase from that movie?

Speaker 1 Yeah, but the funny thing is, like, I'm old enough to remember when that came out, which I think was in the late 80s.

Speaker 1 And it was used, it became political immediately. And it was like, this is what the Reagan era is like, and they're all greedy and whatever.

Speaker 1 And so, of course, you know, I was not a liberal. So I was like, oh, shut up.

Speaker 1 But I do think that was the, it's been almost 40 years. That was the last time I remember anybody in the United States saying greed was bad.
That was the last time.

Speaker 1 Have you ever heard anybody say that?

Speaker 1 Maybe some like far out wacko protester or something, but no one you'd ever meet. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say greed is bad since then.
Have you? No, no. It's, it's, I mean, it's, yeah,

Speaker 1 but it's everywhere too. Yeah.
It's everywhere, which is maybe why eating every day so you get fat. Also bad.
Again, not judging. I've been greedy and I've been a glutton.

Speaker 1 So like, I'm not, again, not judging,

Speaker 1 but it's bad. Like, why not say, I don't know.
I'm sorry. I'm just

Speaker 1 coming to these very obvious conclusions. Well, I mean, I think luckily we have, I mean, that's what repentance is for, you know, in the Christian life.
It's, it's, you know,

Speaker 1 becoming aware of your faults and the way that you've hurt people or hurt yourself, even. Yes.

Speaker 1 And if the body is truly a temple of the Lord, a reflection of the creation and of the creator or God, and you're hurting yourself, then it's like, it's an affront.

Speaker 1 to God, which is why things like gluttony are sinful because it's. But it also dulls you.

Speaker 1 It's like a bong head or you know three beers or something it like keeps you from experiencing anything beyond yourself kind of yeah yeah you're you're you're now creating a a wall around the ability to be to be

Speaker 1 uh connected to from from the divine you know it's like you're you're walling yourself off from from god

Speaker 1 it puts cheesecloth over your whole life that's right

Speaker 1 experience you know what i mean i love that you used food as a reference to know

Speaker 1 something that kind of dulls the camera and makes the the edges softer and you sort of don't fully perceive what's happening you eat two big macs um

Speaker 1 you know you're not as aware of anything oh my gosh it's like

Speaker 1 talk about comatose you're just a head injury right yeah 100

Speaker 1 and so fasting is the opposite you're hyper aware that's right

Speaker 1 and your mind is just like you you you sense everything

Speaker 1 interesting it's and the longer longer you do it, it starts to, you know, I once, I tried, I know people who have done like

Speaker 1 40-day water fasts. I don't, like with electrolytes and stuff that's not, you know, where they're, it still sounds dangerous, but I don't know how.
I tried it for a week one Lent.

Speaker 1 I got through four days of it and I'm like, this isn't going to work.

Speaker 1 Your body starts to do stuff that you have no control over. You're like,

Speaker 1 and it's like, I think we're dying. So let's just get rid of everything.
I'm like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm at work. This isn't, I'm on a, I'm on a set.
This doesn't work.

Speaker 1 I can't keep running to the.

Speaker 1 So I said, Lord, please forgive me. I can't continue this if I'm going to work for the rest of the week because I just,

Speaker 1 unless you make it stop, it's not stopping. So I got to.

Speaker 1 Neither am I, but

Speaker 1 last winter who was coming off a three-week fast, he's a very spiritual man. And I happened to be at his house when he broke his fast.
And he, the first course was soup.

Speaker 1 And he put, he hadn't had one thing in his mouth for three weeks other than water. That's it.

Speaker 1 Three week water. Three weeks, 21 days.
And he puts the spoon in the soup and he holds it. He's talking and he holds it in front of his mouth.
He's making a point. And I'm watching this.

Speaker 1 Everyone's looking at it. And then he puts it down.

Speaker 1 And then he does it again. And he's making this point.
And then he puts it down again.

Speaker 1 I like to eat the soup. That's self-control.
Yeah. So as you at that point, I would think you almost don't want to break it.
You're like, how long can I go? That's totally right.

Speaker 1 How far can I go with this? So funny, though, people go like, you know, climb, you know, pay to climb Everest or,

Speaker 1 you know what I mean? Or go, you know, participate in some radical sport or,

Speaker 1 and they take these crazy risks and they push themselves to, you know, past obvious boundaries. And I'm not criticising.
I admire that. It's great.

Speaker 1 But no one ever thinks to just like not eat for a week and see what happens.

Speaker 1 That is a pretty bold thing to do. And maybe worth trying.

Speaker 1 I think everybody should try fasting. If they've never fasted, everybody should try fasting.
I mean, you know, if you've got medical conditions, I'm not a doctor.

Speaker 1 But I think discern it, pray about it. And like,

Speaker 1 I've only found it helpful. And I think it just, even if it's just like for a day,

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 see what denial, denying yourself food, what does that do for your mind, for your spirit? You know, I mean, if I don't know, if you don't have a sense of spirituality, it might not mean anything.

Speaker 1 It might just be like a challenge, like, I wonder if I can do it, you know, but I think

Speaker 1 the point is not to do it for the sake of doing it. I think

Speaker 1 to do it for the sake of

Speaker 1 depriving yourself and offering up the pain and the discomfort. And

Speaker 1 for some people, the suffering that that might cause.

Speaker 1 Taking that pain and suffering and discomfort through the fast and offering it towards an intention, a sick person,

Speaker 1 the decision to move to a new home,

Speaker 1 problems that a child is having in school. Yes.

Speaker 1 Any kind of obstacles or challenges that seem insurmountable, fast. Fast about it.
Pray and fast about it and see what the Lord can do with that and

Speaker 1 with your heart, because then it's what you're doing is you're opening up your heart. You know, it's not about, well, if I do this exactly, X, Y, and Z.
I mean,

Speaker 1 Jesus' whole thing, issue with the Pharisees. You know, you cleanse the outside of a cup, but then

Speaker 1 the stuff that's already inside you is just rotten. Your thoughts and your heart is rotten.
So it doesn't matter that you wash your hands before you eat this and you eat that.

Speaker 1 Like he was calling out the Pharisees at one point for being so

Speaker 1 specific and attentive to the law, but meanwhile he could see in their hearts that they just had malice and they had evil and they weren't doing the right thing for the priests

Speaker 1 of the time, what they should have been doing. The same thing.
It's like fasting just to see if you can get through it doesn't really serve anyone other than your own ego. That's right.

Speaker 1 But offering up the pain that comes with the fasting, the denial that comes comes with fasting, the hunger pains, that then gets applied in a spiritual way. That then

Speaker 1 assigns spiritual rewards

Speaker 1 to you by offering that for somebody. Yeah, that's right.
And it's, by the way, just for in point of fact, I know because I've done a lot of fasting, actually,

Speaker 1 and I love it.

Speaker 1 But it's not. What's been the biggest thing that you've seen? It's not an effective weight loss approach

Speaker 1 at all.

Speaker 1 In fact, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, who's Muslim who said, I always get fat during Ramadan, you know, because the second the sun goes down, you know, you're, you're pounding a dozen dates and going crazy with the hummus,

Speaker 1 which is awesome. But I don't think

Speaker 1 I'm not, don't ever go to me for medical advice, of course, but I, you know, I don't think going to fasting to lose weight is like effective at all. But I do think,

Speaker 1 I think this way, it's like, if they're pushing on you weed, Xanax, and endless bread baskets,

Speaker 1 maybe there's an agenda which is to make you duller and less aware of what's going on around you. And I think sicker.

Speaker 1 And of course, sicker. That's exactly right.
But

Speaker 1 I must say I'd rather be dead than dull.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? It's like sick is bad, but unaware is worse. Yeah.
In my opinion. Yeah.
There are a lot of really enlightened sick people out there, actually. You know, joyful sick people.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 1 Okay, so you said you made reference to Jesus's exchanges with the Pharisees. I'm reading Matthew right now.
I'm really struck this time by the intensity of his rage at the Pharisees.

Speaker 1 He's pretty gentle with everybody else,

Speaker 1 including

Speaker 1 the Roman officer, the occupying army pagan worshiping the stars or whatever.

Speaker 1 Jesus is really kind to him. Pharisees, I mean, it is just, Matthew goes on for like five pages.
Like he's mad. Yeah.
What do you make of that?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I think you have to ask yourself, well, why is he mad? Yeah. And what is he mad about? And who are the Pharisees to him?

Speaker 1 And I think it's,

Speaker 1 it goes back to what I was referencing in that here you have

Speaker 1 who are people that are supposed to be

Speaker 1 models of God's law and rule and

Speaker 1 grace.

Speaker 1 The Pharisees, like the priests, the people that

Speaker 1 the people look up to for spiritual advice and wisdom and guidance.

Speaker 1 And because Jesus can read souls and read their, know what's in their hearts, he sees

Speaker 1 they're probably the worst of them.

Speaker 1 And he knows

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 they have ill will towards him and

Speaker 1 they don't have the interests of the people.

Speaker 1 in their hearts because they're so enraptured by the letters of the law. As he said, you're so concerned about the letter of the law that

Speaker 1 you're not even concerned about the heart of the law, which is God's mercy and justice.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 how are you treating these people? I mean, the fact that they would go every year on Passover,

Speaker 1 the poorest of the poor, trying to bring their offerings and sacrifices

Speaker 1 that through extortion were getting charged 500%,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 probably more than what they should have. I don't know the exact numbers, but like the point was that they were being extorted every step of the way by their own leaders, these Pharisees.

Speaker 1 And that for him was the straw that broke the camel's back. And the next day, he's

Speaker 1 clearing the temple.

Speaker 1 Flipping the tables, flipping tables, whipping, you know,

Speaker 1 using a whip to clear money changers' stands and,

Speaker 1 you know, just outraged God's righteous anger. Yeah, it's not the gentle Jesus at all.
No.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Excuse me. No, it's not.

Speaker 1 It's the fury of the Lord really come to visit them.

Speaker 1 It's not, you know, fire from heaven, but it's fire on earth in this man's eyes. Yes.
And

Speaker 1 also, you know, the precursor to what sets him up for the crucifixion. I mean, I think on some level, he knows,

Speaker 1 number one,

Speaker 1 he has to make an impression and he is

Speaker 1 vindicated through his actions

Speaker 1 because of who they are, who the Pharisees truly are deep down inside.

Speaker 1 But also, that this will then continue the chain of events that have been set into motion that will put him on the cross so that he can redeem mankind.

Speaker 1 It seems like all of his anger is reserved for hypocrites.

Speaker 1 They get singled out repeatedly.

Speaker 1 He seems to really hate that.

Speaker 1 And the people in charge, the powerful.

Speaker 1 That's my read. I mean, I'm the opposite of a theology.
I mean,

Speaker 1 I think, you know,

Speaker 1 with

Speaker 1 power, you know, there's greed, there's

Speaker 1 hurting people

Speaker 1 at someone else's expense. Yes.

Speaker 1 There's taking advantage. When you have all of these forces that try to,

Speaker 1 I think, take control over a society and the people

Speaker 1 through power, through influence,

Speaker 1 and there's nothing that those people can do.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 it's the definition of injustice. Yes.
And God is about justice.

Speaker 1 Blessed are those who thirst for righteousness, who thirst for justice, basically.

Speaker 1 It was one of the things that was most important to him that people experience you know, to have justice and feel human and be seen and be not discounted because of their status, because of their, you know, financial

Speaker 1 situation, because of

Speaker 1 what family they were born into, or

Speaker 1 what caste, for lack of a better term, that they were born into.

Speaker 1 So I think

Speaker 1 it was something that

Speaker 1 it was a last stand for him, basically,

Speaker 1 when he cleared the temple. And all the preaching and the teaching

Speaker 1 didn't have enough of an effect on the Pharisees for them to change what they were doing. No, it didn't.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 he had to show a don't tell.

Speaker 1 He had to show a not tell.

Speaker 1 So when you're reading your scripts, when you're preparing,

Speaker 1 you're basically reading the gospel.

Speaker 1 Yeah, gospel plus, I'll say. It's, you know, because

Speaker 1 as a TV show,

Speaker 1 It's not always, you know, the scriptures as they are don't always give us the full picture of a conversation

Speaker 1 of a character, of a person.

Speaker 1 So we have to, through, you know,

Speaker 1 biblical,

Speaker 1 a group of biblical scholars

Speaker 1 and advisors that help us and give insight into the things that we're writing, we, we

Speaker 1 have to craft these plausible, hopefully authentic backstories that create believable characters that could have existed in the first century that

Speaker 1 augment the world that the gospels give us a glimpse into.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 a lot of it is scripture, yes, but then there is some creative license taken just to be able to make a good TV show. Because at the end of the day,

Speaker 1 this isn't the Bible. We're not.
saying this is the Bible.

Speaker 1 We have a TV show first and foremost that is based on the Gospels and hopefully is compelling enough for you to really, you know, get hooked into it and binge it just like you would binge any other TV show.

Speaker 1 And then start asking yourself, well,

Speaker 1 what did Jesus really say? Did he say these things?

Speaker 1 Is this character really like this? Like, let me, I want to explore. And then if you can get people to read the Bible and then

Speaker 1 want to have a relationship or even explore what it means to have faith if you've never had faith or even be curious about Christ.

Speaker 1 I mean, inevitably, that is the relationship in a person's life that will change their life irrevocably, I mean, forever.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 if we can create an entertaining story that is based on the truth of the gospels and who Jesus and the disciples were,

Speaker 1 maybe it'll introduce people to Christ in a way that the audience is introduced to him,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 maybe they'll want to follow him too.

Speaker 1 How did it change your life, the gospel? I think

Speaker 1 the more I read the gospels,

Speaker 1 the more I discover

Speaker 1 the Bible is alive. It's the living word, right? They say the Bible is alive.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 at any given time, you can read a passage from scriptures, from the Gospels, even from the Old Testament, the letters of Paul, the Acts,

Speaker 1 that somehow will apply to your own life,

Speaker 1 especially when you're struggling with something. You know, if I'm struggling with something

Speaker 1 and I just... I just can't figure it out.
I just don't. I have no ideas about where to go to resolve it.

Speaker 1 Inevitably, there's the answer somewhere in the book. And it's a matter of sitting down with it

Speaker 1 and reading it. And

Speaker 1 I mean, it's remarkable the amount of times, like

Speaker 1 I've had something in front of me that I just didn't know how to deal with it.

Speaker 1 And then I would flip to a random page. And it's like the answer is right there.
It's right there.

Speaker 1 So I I stopped being surprised about it.

Speaker 1 I just like,

Speaker 1 of course, that's this is,

Speaker 1 yeah. And I take

Speaker 1 notes.

Speaker 1 Sincere Christians never seem surprised by anything. I've noticed that.
It's amazing. It is amazing.
And

Speaker 1 I've met those people where,

Speaker 1 and we kind of talked a little bit about this at one point,

Speaker 1 where

Speaker 1 the craziest things are happening

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 they kind of already had an intuition was going to happen. Like,

Speaker 1 I don't even know what's a good example. There have been so many times where it's like somebody

Speaker 1 wanted to

Speaker 1 trying to get rid of their house or something like that, try to sell their house. And

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 you know, they had like, a certain amount of time. It's just an example, like they had like a week to get out of their house for somebody to buy their house.

Speaker 1 And, and, you know, somebody just comes knocking on the door and says, Hey, you got a beautiful house. You, you're not selling this by chance, are you?

Speaker 1 And you're like, well, as a matter of fact, I am. And it just so happens that they're like, Lord, just let us find somebody that wants this house.
Like, we didn't even put it on the market yet.

Speaker 1 But, and then somebody knocks on their door like an hour later, or, you know, like, I mean, crazy, crazy stories. And they're they're like yeah i just god just did it i'm like but

Speaker 1 how what

Speaker 1 you you don't seem phased and yes and that to me even

Speaker 1 is just i totally agree remarkable and to flip it over they they never seem shocked by how screwed up the world is

Speaker 1 I'm shocked every single day. Like, I can't believe they're committing abortion outside the DNC, or I can't believe this, that, the other thing.

Speaker 1 I'm always like, I can't believe the persecution of Christians. Why would you persecute Christians? Yeah.
They're like, they've never mugged anybody.

Speaker 1 They're like the nice, even if you think their religion's silly, they're like the most peaceful people in the world. Their religion commands them to be.

Speaker 1 Why are we hating on them and

Speaker 1 banning their apps in Europe or whatever we're doing, putting them in jail for praying?

Speaker 1 But sincere Christians, like, well, yeah, I mean, what did you think was going to happen? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Do you know what I mean? Yeah, because he kind of, Jesus kind of set it up that way. Kind of did.
He kind of told us 2,000 years ago, you know, you'll be hated because of me, persecuted because of me.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 1 he lays it all out 2,000 years ago. But just know,

Speaker 1 it's okay.

Speaker 1 I overcame the world.

Speaker 1 You're good. Just remember that you're good

Speaker 1 when

Speaker 1 things hit the fan. Just remember that.
Well, I still find it infuriating. Sure.
Sorry. I'm obviously not a good person.
No,

Speaker 1 it's a natural response. There's a lot of persecution of Christians, and I'm really bothered by it.

Speaker 1 Your family, at least on one side, is Arab Christian.

Speaker 1 Awful lot of Arab Christians get killed in a bunch of different countries all the time.

Speaker 1 And no one says a word about it.

Speaker 1 Do you notice this? I do. Yeah, I do a lot.

Speaker 1 Christian persecution is something really close to my heart. In fact, I just executive produced an animated short film called The 21,

Speaker 1 which came out

Speaker 1 towards the end of February on the 10th anniversary of the martyrdom of the 21 martyrs in Libya, and who were all, well, 20 of them were Coptic Christians from Egypt.

Speaker 1 One of them was non-Christian initially from Ghana. And they just rounded up all these guys.
The ISIS came and rounded them up and

Speaker 1 tried to force them to deny their faith. They're just migrant workers, like, just like, we're just trying to, they went off to work for a few weeks to try to make some money.
And

Speaker 1 they got rounded up, just captured. And

Speaker 1 ISIS was like, yeah, deny your faith and we'll let you go. Don't deny it.
We'll kill you. They're like,

Speaker 1 oh, well, we're not going to do that. So

Speaker 1 and they tortured them for months. And

Speaker 1 even the guy from Ghana,

Speaker 1 said to him, like, you can go. You're not, you're okay.
You're not Christian. You're not one of these guys.

Speaker 1 And he's like, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Their God is my God.

Speaker 1 And so they say he converted and he died with them.

Speaker 1 And so six years ago,

Speaker 1 this producer, a friend of mine named Mark Rogers,

Speaker 1 he was in Egypt and he saw, he knew about the story and he saw.

Speaker 1 the image of one of these martyrs who had

Speaker 1 who had like a lazy eye uh and it reminded him of the image which actually is on this little medallion of uh christ the pantocrat or like you know basically it's that figure of christ that it's got two both sides of his face have uh one one side of him represents the divinity of christ one side represents the humanity of Christ.

Speaker 1 And in one of the sides, oh, his eye and one side is kind of drooped and it reminded him of this image of Christ.

Speaker 1 And he got this idea to create this animated short film about the martyrs and their story. And it turned out to be stunning.

Speaker 1 21film.com, people want to see it.

Speaker 1 It's an extraordinary short film.

Speaker 1 Beautiful, beautiful, that implements Coptic iconography into the animation. It was actually on the Oscar shortlist.

Speaker 1 It didn't get nominated, but it found its way onto this shortlist of 15 selections, and then they whittled it down to the top five. It had no marketing, had no advertisement, nothing.

Speaker 1 But somehow I think enough people saw this, like, no, this is amazing. And it tells their story and

Speaker 1 the mystical nature of their experience and of actually

Speaker 1 their captors, what they experienced with these, you know, while they had these guys in captivity and like

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 divinely mystical experiences that they had. Are captures? Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1 are represented in the short film.

Speaker 1 If you haven't seen it, I'll send you a link, but it's gorgeous. And at the end of the day, what people walk away with is that these guys had the opportunity to say,

Speaker 1 No, no, I'm not Christian, and then live.

Speaker 1 But none of them did it.

Speaker 1 They went to their graves, literally. And they were just random micro workers? Migrant workers.
Not evangelists, just people.

Speaker 1 Christian migrant workers, poor migrant workers, I think construction or farming or something. And

Speaker 1 they wouldn't deny their faith. And so I got a chance to screen this film for the first time with the families of the martyrs 10 years later.
Oh, my God. Which was

Speaker 1 words fail me because it was such an overwhelmingly powerful experience to be there with them

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 kind of have them sort of reliving this experience. But when you talk to them,

Speaker 1 full of joy, full of joy. And they,

Speaker 1 more than one of them, thanked

Speaker 1 their captors. because

Speaker 1 they they

Speaker 1 they feel and and you know as christians we believe this, that because they died for their faith, they got a straight shot right to the divine, right to God.

Speaker 1 They're like, we thank them because they sent them right to heaven. So the Coptic Church declared them saints.

Speaker 1 And then very recently, the Catholic Church, it's the first time it's happened, Catholic Church also considered them saints because they died for the faith in the way that they die. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's so inspirational. It's unbelievable.
And so right now I'm trying to get the film film out for more people to see and get it out there so people are aware of that these stories exist.

Speaker 1 Like this is a reality for people, for Christians in the Middle East. This is a reality, you know, that

Speaker 1 their lives are on the line for their beliefs. That's for sure.
You know? Time for another True Life ALP story.

Speaker 1 I got a call from a friend of mine yesterday, honestly, true story, who said his girlfriend had just broken up with him over Alp. He wouldn't stop.
And I thought to myself, that's kind of sad.

Speaker 1 And he said, no, it's not sad. Imagine if I'd married her.

Speaker 1 Now I know I was saved. Then the next day, this same friend is driving at twice the speed that went through a major American city, pulled over by a cop in a speed trap.

Speaker 1 Cop takes his license registration, goes back to the patrol car, runs him, comes back, looks in the window, and sees a tin of Alp on the dashboard, pauses, stunned, says to my friend, you use Alp?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I do, says my friend. So do I, says the cop.
We all do. He looks at my friend thoughtfully and goes, drive safely, sir, and hands back his license and registration.
No ticket.

Speaker 1 So in two days, he's saved from a tragic marriage to a girl who doesn't like Alp and a speeding ticket. All true.
It's more than a nickel.

Speaker 1 In an age to 350 million, people are guessing there are about 350 million Alp stories. Email us yours.

Speaker 1 We want to know and read it on the air. Email tellall at alppouch.com.
Tellall at alppouch.com. Give us your Alp story.

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Speaker 1 You must learn a lot from playing this role. I have.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I've learned how much I have to learn. It's just, I don't know how often we think of Jesus as fully a man, though, as you pointed out, he was.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 What's that like trying to get inside the head of Jesus?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 i don't think i can ever do it successfully like completely i can the only thing that i i mean i i can't do it successfully at all the only thing that i can do

Speaker 1 believing jesus was fully go and fully man

Speaker 1 but sinless in his humanity

Speaker 1 the only thing that i can relate to

Speaker 1 is the humanity part

Speaker 1 and my own flawed humanity at that deeply flawed deeply deeply flawed humanity

Speaker 1 but luckily I I don't have to rely on me

Speaker 1 I don't rely on me I rely on him

Speaker 1 and so my job is to simply

Speaker 1 show up

Speaker 1 come with a an open heart

Speaker 1 I do a lot of praying and fasting before the every season.

Speaker 1 I pray before every scene

Speaker 1 and then

Speaker 1 do the best that I can to

Speaker 1 simply be, for lack of a better term,

Speaker 1 a mirror of the divine. So I'm like, I just show up and I'm like, I'm just trying to

Speaker 1 mirror the divine, reading the words that I have,

Speaker 1 being a vessel for which the Holy Spirit can use me to

Speaker 1 reach the truth of the gospel to the people that watch this show.

Speaker 1 And if it goes beyond entertainment for some people,

Speaker 1 awesome.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 between

Speaker 1 the show and between the Hallow app, the amount of feedback

Speaker 1 and changed lives

Speaker 1 that have occurred.

Speaker 1 the stories that we get

Speaker 1 about people that, you know, that are,

Speaker 1 were they were atheists all their life and somebody gave them the show and all of a sudden they something

Speaker 1 tweaked in their heart and they're like why do i feel this way about this guy like i want to i want to know this guy

Speaker 1 or people who have been haven't been to church in 30 years

Speaker 1 lapsed Catholics, like, I haven't been to church in 30 years. I started going back to church.
Went to my first confession in 30 years. Went to my first confession in 15 years.

Speaker 1 Like I've heard all of these things.

Speaker 1 I even went,

Speaker 1 I was in confession once myself and a guy came out of the confessional and

Speaker 1 he recognized me. He's like, oh, yeah.
And so he starts talking to me. And then he

Speaker 1 starts to tell me what he was telling the priest in the confessional. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
No, no, you see you. Anything interesting? You keep it in there.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't let him get that far.

Speaker 1 No, I said, that's not for my ears.

Speaker 1 Save it for the confessor. So it's.
I'm not Catholic, but I've always thought that

Speaker 1 confession is the coolest thing they do.

Speaker 1 It's a gift, man. It's a life.

Speaker 1 Of course.

Speaker 1 When it became psychotherapy and you put like an atheist with bad judgment on the couch across from you, it I think we lost something.

Speaker 1 Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But the human need to connect, to unburden yourself, you know what's wrong, by the way. Most people know.

Speaker 1 You don't need to be a Christian to know what's wrong. Everyone knows inside you, you know, when you're doing something wrong.
Yeah. And to say it out loud, to articulate it in words,

Speaker 1 is to rid yourself of it to some extent, I think. Yeah.
And then

Speaker 1 for

Speaker 1 the sacramental part of it,

Speaker 1 that's where the healing comes in. That's where the spiritual healing comes in.
So it's like

Speaker 1 it's like if you're a cheesecloth full of holes, right? And you go into confession and you receive the sacrament of reconciliation from the priest.

Speaker 1 The priest, you know, we believe he's been given divine authority that has

Speaker 1 maybe a not visible but a tangible physical, metaphysical effect on

Speaker 1 the casing of your soul. And it's like mending the little holes.
Every confession is like you're closing up those holes and restoring that connection with God in a way

Speaker 1 that is

Speaker 1 essentially repairing your soul.

Speaker 1 That's what the sacramental part of confession is for us,

Speaker 1 which is hugely comforting and also

Speaker 1 physically tangible.

Speaker 1 For me, I feel just chemically slightly different

Speaker 1 after every confession that I go through in a way that's like,

Speaker 1 okay,

Speaker 1 I can breathe a little easier. I believe, I believe that completely.
I've never experienced it, but I believe that. It's, it's, uh, it's like nothing else.

Speaker 1 What's it like for you to be recognized on the street for playing Jesus?

Speaker 1 I know just from having dinner with you last night and telling people you were coming here,

Speaker 1 there's a lot of intensity. Like you're, I've been on television for 30 years.
I've never experienced anything like what you experienced, for example, in my house last night.

Speaker 1 People are very intense when they see you. It's bound up in their feelings for you, but also their feelings for Jesus.
Yeah. What's that like?

Speaker 1 I give God all the credit. I give Jesus the credit.
And, you know, like I'm

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 our buddy Russell Brand.

Speaker 1 Like I was once his stand-in.

Speaker 1 I feel like I'm Jesus' stand-in. Jesus is the star and I'm his stand-in.
You're Russell Brand stand-in. I was Russell Brand stand-in.
Looking at you, I'm not that surprised.

Speaker 1 If I was casting a stand-in for Russell Brand, I think it would be you. Not too bad.
It's all right. So we had a good time.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's all right. He's a good mate.
He's a good guy. He's a good man.
I love that man. I love him so much.
I totally agree.

Speaker 1 But I mean,

Speaker 1 without getting too personal, it's going to affect your life.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Like, maybe not all positive.

Speaker 1 Like, what's Whole Foods like for you?

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 depends on what part of town.

Speaker 1 Probably. Probably not too many people watching the shows in Whole Foods, but like in normal

Speaker 1 atheist grocery stores. No, but I mean, let's take Whole Foods.
So in some parts of the country,

Speaker 1 I got to go in with a hood and glasses. And in other parts,

Speaker 1 especially the coastal cities like New York and LA,

Speaker 1 it's just another day.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 it can be.

Speaker 1 They mistake you for a bike messenger, but in Michigan, they know.

Speaker 1 That's very appropriate. Yeah, that's very appropriate.

Speaker 1 It can be

Speaker 1 interesting.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 because of who I'm playing,

Speaker 1 and because there is this oftentimes this front-loaded relationship that they already have with Jesus,

Speaker 1 And then I become stand in like the face of that relationship that they now, when they read the Bible, I've been told this, my face pops into their mind as they're hearing scriptures or they're seeing, I mean, even for myself,

Speaker 1 when I'm at Mass and the priest is reading the gospel and he's talking about Peter, I'm thinking of Shahar Isaac, who plays Peter in our show. And I'm like,

Speaker 1 okay, yeah, I can't get him out of my head. And yeah, but okay,

Speaker 1 I love Shahar and he's great as Peter. And so, yeah, it's just, you try, even as an artist, like you still suffer that.

Speaker 1 You can't quite make the separation.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because you now have this relationship with these people and these characters. And so

Speaker 1 to be the face of what is often the most important relationship in a person's life. I mean, even beyond their family, it's like God first and then family then everything else.

Speaker 1 To be the face of that four people,

Speaker 1 I don't often, I try not to think about that. Yeah, it's more than being the sidekick on Seinfeld.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I think

Speaker 1 God's given me

Speaker 1 the gift and the grace of

Speaker 1 kind of being

Speaker 1 somewhat blinded to

Speaker 1 the magnitude of it and the weight of it. That's good.

Speaker 1 Sometimes I can feel it.

Speaker 1 Most of the time, I think I'm shielded from it.

Speaker 1 Because I think

Speaker 1 if I was aware of exactly

Speaker 1 what that implication was, even for a single person,

Speaker 1 it would crush me. Yeah, self-awareness is a burden.
I would not recommend it at all. I don't have any, so it's never bothered me.

Speaker 1 But I know people who are highly highly self-aware and they're like in agony all day. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, other things, I like I have a lot of that in other areas, but when it comes to playing this character, I'm glad I don't have much more.

Speaker 1 No, it's so what a that is a blessing. I yeah.
What is Hallow

Speaker 1 and how'd you hook up with it? Hallow is

Speaker 1 the world's largest, and from my money,

Speaker 1 the greatest prayer and meditation app a person can ever find.

Speaker 1 like ever. There are thousands and thousands of ways

Speaker 1 prayers and challenges and meditations

Speaker 1 that people can

Speaker 1 use in their daily life to the point of automation. They just set it up and you get reminders

Speaker 1 where you can just connect with God

Speaker 1 in the most creative ways. For me,

Speaker 1 it has been

Speaker 1 a way to keep me completely focused on God.

Speaker 1 When I'm in the middle of life,

Speaker 1 it can be, it's an opportunity for me to access

Speaker 1 my faith in a consistent way and

Speaker 1 to get through life's biggest challenges.

Speaker 1 I mean, there are so many prayers on this app that I use daily, like daily.

Speaker 1 And, you know, for instance, there's a prayer called the surrender novena. Novena just is, it's a Latin word, just means nine days.
So it's a prayer you say for nine days. And this

Speaker 1 particular prayer has been

Speaker 1 so valuable to so many people. Basically, it's very simple, but you repeat it like 10 times.

Speaker 1 And there's all, in the app, like it, it walks you through it.

Speaker 1 But the essence of it is this prayer where you simply say, Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you.

Speaker 1 Take care of everything.

Speaker 1 Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything. And you repeat that like 10 times.
And

Speaker 1 the number of people that have experienced profound grace and

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 ease of their burden, a lightness of the weight in their life.

Speaker 1 It's been,

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 I've never heard of a prayer that's had such a profound effect. Like the rosary is another one.
So there was this couple.

Speaker 1 They were trying to have their first baby.

Speaker 1 They had a miscarriage.

Speaker 1 They were in a pretty severe

Speaker 1 state,

Speaker 1 crisis, depression, everything that comes with that.

Speaker 1 They see an ad for Hallow. They download the app.
They start praying.

Speaker 1 Specifically, they start praying the surrender prayer that I was telling you about. This surrender novena and the rosary.
And they were Catholic as well. So they're familiar with them.

Speaker 1 So they pray the rosary, super powerful weapon, and the surrender novena.

Speaker 1 And they get pregnant again.

Speaker 1 And their relationship is really growing together in faith and in God, strongest that it's ever been.

Speaker 1 Five months in, they lose the baby.

Speaker 1 And they're holding their past son

Speaker 1 who had passed away.

Speaker 1 And the words that come to mind

Speaker 1 for this woman is the surrender prayer.

Speaker 1 Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you.

Speaker 1 Take care of everything. It's the first words that come to her mind.

Speaker 1 And they told us, they said that if they hadn't gotten into this

Speaker 1 consistent routine of communicating with God through prayer, if their faith hadn't been strengthened,

Speaker 1 that second miscarriage would have destroyed their marriage. But it didn't.

Speaker 1 And they kept going. A year later, they had a healthy baby boy.

Speaker 1 And the first words that came out of her mouth that time

Speaker 1 was the prayer from Numbers.

Speaker 1 Lord bless you and keep you. Lord shine his face upon you.
Be gracious to you. The Lord look kindly upon you and give you peace.

Speaker 1 I think their son's name was Jack, I think.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 the power of

Speaker 1 having that relationship, the power of prayer, the power of being in a constant dialogue with God. It's what we were made for.
We were designed to worship. We were designed for that relationship.

Speaker 1 It's in our DNA. And the more we try to ignore it or squash it or bury it or ignore it or pretend it doesn't exist or that it's not there or replace it with something else,

Speaker 1 the more we just... run in circles, the more we try to fill that hole with something else, with some other vice, some other

Speaker 1 endeavor, some other

Speaker 1 righteous indignation of something,

Speaker 1 some other effort that will never

Speaker 1 substitute, never replace our need for God. It'll never replace it.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 for me, it's

Speaker 1 like playing Jesus and the Chosen. It's one of the

Speaker 1 most important things that I've ever done artistically.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 all of this for me feels like an apostolate. It feels like

Speaker 1 I'm a media apostle. I feel like that's what I was sent here to do.
Like

Speaker 1 at this time and place to kind of be a part of this, what I see as this growing movement

Speaker 1 in film and television, in the culture that that

Speaker 1 is truly counterculture to the current culture. That's for sure.
You know?

Speaker 1 And to be a part of the ushering in of this

Speaker 1 opportunity of expression

Speaker 1 that supersedes the previous iterations of what this looked like, because it's so

Speaker 1 attentive to quality.

Speaker 1 Like The Chosen

Speaker 1 aims to be a great TV show first.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 because of that,

Speaker 1 the fact that the people making it are really invested in the subject matter

Speaker 1 make it that much more powerful. And then

Speaker 1 from a very

Speaker 1 myopically human level. And then God sees that and he takes it and he multiplies it.

Speaker 1 He multiplies the magnitude of it.

Speaker 1 The efficacy of it is then energized and multiplied globally.

Speaker 1 But even just reaching one person and changing one person's life, Dallas will tell you this as well.

Speaker 1 It's worth it just for one person.

Speaker 1 All the discomfort or whatever I may or may not feel in the world as people approach me wanting to take a selfie in the gym or

Speaker 1 in the supermarket when I'm clearly trying to get in and out. I mean,

Speaker 1 all of that discomfort for me personally, and

Speaker 1 I've been through worse, you know, like I've been through real discomfort. It's nothing, something, but it's relative, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 So all of it's worth it because one person decided to go get baptized. And now

Speaker 1 they have a whole new life. They have a whole new,

Speaker 1 they have a spiritual awakening.

Speaker 1 It's amazing to me how successful it's been. And it's amazing to me the reaction to it.

Speaker 1 Banned in China. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's not calling for the overthrow of the CCP. It's not calling for the...
Hallowap's banned in China. Hallowap is banned in China.

Speaker 1 It's also effectively banned in Europe, in effect, because Mark Zuckerberg's company, Meta, has shut down all advertising for religious-oriented, faith-based advertising. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So it can't operate in Europe. Yeah, that was a tough one.

Speaker 1 They had just launched in Polish and italian and i think german and like all these languages and and

Speaker 1 now they can't people can't know about the app because they've but why is that a threat i mean it just does tell you everything right i mean it's like

Speaker 1 it's like understanding things in reverse yeah it's like why would they be upset with that that's like the kindest least threatening

Speaker 1 you know only want to help people like why is that bad yeah exactly i'd be curious to hear the eu's answer for that. Or Rometa's answer for that.
Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg's answer for that.

Speaker 1 And China's answer for that. Like, what's wrong with that? Yeah.

Speaker 1 It tells you a lot, but you don't seem shocked by that at all.

Speaker 1 No. No, you're not.
I mean, when you read of the stories for decades of people smuggling Bibles into countries,

Speaker 1 you know, underground churches, even in our, in the story that we cover in the Pray 40 Challenge for Hello,

Speaker 1 it's a story of this guy, Takashi Nagai.

Speaker 1 I mean, he was living in Nagasaki, Japan, right around the time of

Speaker 1 the Second World War when the bomb was dropped on his town, on Nagasaki.

Speaker 1 And Japan had just come out of 300 years, basically, of Christian

Speaker 1 persecution.

Speaker 1 They had gotten rid of any, you know, they, I mean, I think in the

Speaker 1 late 16th century, they were crucifying people. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 then 300 plus years later, Nagasaki is now the largest Christian hub in all of Japan.

Speaker 1 And it wasn't the first target for the bomb. No.
They tried to drop the bomb somewhere else. This is all in the story that people hear about this length.

Speaker 1 It's an amazing story. This man's story is amazing.
Takashina guy. He's a radiologist, doctor.

Speaker 1 The first target, they tried to drop the bomb, and it was too cloudy.

Speaker 1 They couldn't see, and they didn't have the conditions appropriate to drop an atomic bomb. So their second target was Nagasaki,

Speaker 1 oddly enough, right above a cathedral.

Speaker 1 And it blew up,

Speaker 1 detonated right over the cathedral and wiped out everything. And he survived.

Speaker 1 Nobody else, else, his family, everybody died. Killed the majority of the Christians in Nagasaki, which was the Christian capital of Japan.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And

Speaker 1 I mean, it killed me. I'd love to hear an answer for why.
People are very enthusiastic about that and think it's great. I don't think it's great.

Speaker 1 And I think there should be a law that American armaments can't be used to murder Christians abroad. That's pretty simple.

Speaker 1 I agree.

Speaker 1 There is a thing that I wanted to read that he read, that he said right after the bombing, which he had converted from atheism.

Speaker 1 I he was Shinto, and then he was atheist, and then he converted to Christianity and Catholicism. And he was influenced by the writings of Blaise Pascal.

Speaker 1 So he gave a speech to his community. He was one of the very few survivors in his community.

Speaker 1 And this just goes to show you the resilience and the mindset of

Speaker 1 him and

Speaker 1 how

Speaker 1 having faith can completely change the perspective, especially when you're effectively living in hell on earth, which is what Nagasaki was after the dropping of the bomb.

Speaker 1 People were walking around asking for water while their skin is melting off, like it's literal hell on earth.

Speaker 1 He said, I have heard that the atom bomb was destined for another city.

Speaker 1 Heavy clouds rendered that target impossible. And the American crew headed for the secondary target, Nagasaki.

Speaker 1 Then, a mechanical problem arose, and the bomb was dropped further north than planned and burst right above the cathedral. It was not the American crew, I believe, who chose our suburb.

Speaker 1 God's Providence chose Urakami, the suburb, and carried the bomb right above our homes. Is there not a profound relationship between the annihilation of Nagasaki and the end of the war?

Speaker 1 Was not Nagasaki the chosen victim, the lamb without blemish, slain as a whole burnt offering on an altar of sacrifice, atoning for the sins of all the nations during World War II?

Speaker 1 Happy are those

Speaker 1 who weep.

Speaker 1 They shall be comforted.

Speaker 1 We must walk the way of reparation,

Speaker 1 but we can turn our minds' eyes to Jesus carrying his cross up the hill of Calvary.

Speaker 1 The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away.

Speaker 1 Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Speaker 1 Let us be thankful that Nagasaki was chosen for the whole burnt sacrifice. Let us be thankful that through this sacrifice, peace was granted to the world and religious freedom to Japan.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Is that not a profound perspective?

Speaker 1 That is not a normal secular perspective, I would say. No.

Speaker 1 That's amazing. That is the power of a relationship with Christ.
That's what that does.

Speaker 1 So for people who haven't heard it, tell us what you do for Hello.

Speaker 1 So I am one of the main voices on Hallow for prayers. So if you want to pray a specific prayer, chances are I've recorded it and you can hear me pray it or

Speaker 1 for any of the challenges like the the Pray 40 challenge, I will be guiding people through this challenge, telling people about

Speaker 1 Takashi Nagai's story.

Speaker 1 And I'm also kind of a creative advisor as well and come to them with ideas and work with them on different things that they're doing. And

Speaker 1 yeah,

Speaker 1 I love working with them. They've been such great partners.
And I think the reason is that

Speaker 1 they're believers themselves. You know, they're doing this.
I mean, you had Alex on the show and you heard his story. I mean, he originally created the app for himself.
And

Speaker 1 God took that desire and that intention in his heart and then amplified it. And now it's the largest prayer app in the world.

Speaker 1 It's a frequent conversation in my house. I told you yesterday, my wife's very kind, never scolds me for anything.

Speaker 1 But when she saw my schedule and saw you were coming and that we hadn't invited you for dinner, she actually did bark at me because she's like your biggest fan. What?

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 Pretty detached from my schedule. But yeah.

Speaker 1 So yes. Thank God for your wife.
Thank God for my wife. Not the first time I've thought that.

Speaker 1 Thank you. It has really been wonderful the last 24 hours to talk to you.
And it's been my honor. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Ducker.

Speaker 1 We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day. We know the people who run it, good people.

Speaker 1 While you're here, do us a favor, hit, follow, and tap the bell so you never miss an episode. We have real conversations, news, things that actually matter.

Speaker 1 Telling the truth always, you will not miss it if you follow us on Spotify and hit the bell. We appreciate it.
Thanks for watching.