What You’ll Learn About These Biblical Figures from HOUSE OF DAVID
By Movieguide® Contributor
While speaking with Movieguide®, the cast of HOUSE OF DAVID explained the lessons they learned while working on the show that they hope audiences will take away as well.
“In a way, I guess we have to forget about the grandness of who we’re playing and just look at them as human beings and bring them down to our level,” Michael Iskander, who plays David, told Movieguide®. “In the end, these were real people that lived, and so we have to look at them like that and not make them larger than they are.”
The show sees “The once-mighty King Saul fall…victim to his own pride, as an outcast shepherd boy, David is anointed as the second king.”
“I grew up with the story of David…” Iskander added. “The [show] just provided so much context into what it was to be a young teenage boy who was a shepherd and a musician going up against a man of war and a giant. It’s truly terrifying and it takes so much courage to be able to do something like that. It takes so much love…I think that’s something that I took for granted before, the amount of love that David had for his people and for his God.”
David isn’t the only character that the cast believes audiences will better understand after watching the show. Martyn Ford, who plays Goliath, believes his character will be seen in a new light as well.
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“The ultimate goal for any actor to to ask the audience, ‘What would you do in that situation.’ And that was powerful for me with playing Goliath. So many people see him as just a bad guy, brute, with no heart and potentially no brain — which is probably why I was cast for it,” Ford joked. “So to try and bring that in and to give people to question, ‘Is he all bad or is there a reason for him being how he was?’”
The cast hopes viewers will see the prophet Samuel in a new light, too. He was not simply a grumpy, old prophet, but a man who cared deeply about his country and wanted what was best for it.
“When I think, or when we think of the Old Testament, I think we tend to furrow our brow and see a lot of retribution and a lot of swords, a lot of battling and just a lot of heavy duty stuff,” Stephen Lang, who plays Samuel, said. “There’s a reason we do that, because that’s what is in there. [The Old Testament] is a tough story of very tough-minded people going through some very tough times.”
“But what I was not prepared for, I did not anticipate was the feeling of absolute joy and even levity that I felt when I was in David’s company. I think it becomes apparent from the minute I set my eyes on him,” he continued. “And I wasn’t looking for that at all. That was not a planned thing… David just brings out this relief and pleasure and happiness that Samuel feels. And that wasn’t planned, that was unlooked for.”
The series comes from Jon Erwin, who’s worked on recent hits like THE UNBREAKABLE BOY, THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER and JESUS REVOLUTION.
“Every other project led to this one,” Erwin said of HOUSE OF DAVID. “All these other films that I’ve had the privilege to be involved in, really, were about trying to get good enough at this filmmaking thing to tell this epic story.”
He continued, “It’s kind of the story I’ve always wanted to tell…so I was just trying to wait patiently and develop enough skill to tell the story and really do it justice.”
HOUSE OF DAVID is now available to stream on Prime Video.
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