Why This CHOSEN Star ‘Didn’t Worry’ About Being on THE VIEW
By Movieguide® Contributor
Controversial talk show THE VIEW usually doesn’t welcome conservatives with open arms, but THE CHOSEN actor Jonathan Roumie handled his visit with faith and grace.
“I think for a millisecond I was like, ‘Oh, I wonder how this is going to go,’ but I was never worried,” Roumie explained calmly on the “Pints with Aquinas” podcast Aug. 26. “I prayed about it, of course, and like everything else that I’ve committed to on this journey, I have to surrender it.”
Movieguide® reported about his visit on the show in February:
“Are you finding that people are having a little bit of trouble separating you from the part?” THE VIEW host Whoopi Goldberg asked Roumie.
“I try to gently just remind people that my name is Jonathan and not actually Jesus,” the actor replied.
THE VIEW hosts pointed out that brown-eyed Roumie isn’t the blonde, blue-eyed image of Jesus that many are familiar with.
Roumie explained why: “We have two other writers in addition to [director Dallas Jenkins], and they wanted to bring to the screen the most authentic portrayal of Jesus and his disciples and this story and its roots and its Jewishness and the diversity of the people and the color. And everybody that would have lived in these next to these seafaring towns, they were port cities, so you had people from all walks of life. All colors, all shades that came through this place, and so it only felt right to just depict what would have been truly authentic.”
Roumie knew that the opportunity to come on THE VIEW was God-given, and therefore, God had a reason for it.
“So I’m not I’m not going to worry about the consequences. I’m not going to worry about anything. I’m just going to go authentically be who you made me to be and just be present to people,” the Movieguide® Teddy Bear Award® and Grace Prize® winner said. “And the response was overwhelming. It was unexpected in many ways and especially for people watching the show.
“Their people were more nervous for me than I was nervous for me. I’m like, well, they’re just people and…after that segment, I had conversations with every one of the hosts, and they were lovely, and what I realized is there are so many people that are just on a journey,” he said. “They’re searching.”
Roumie learned that they were very open to what he had to say. He also gave rosaries to each of the hosts, and they happily accepted them.
Roumie did consider if they would try to trap him with anti-conservative questions about faith, but he wasn’t worried about that either.
“I didn’t worry about it…,” he said. “I felt like I think it’ll be fine…There was some kind of a question that got a little bit tricky, but I just, you know, I try to answer with as much compassion and wisdom as the Lord allows me, you know? I think you have to decide what platforms you’re willing to discuss, knowing that anything and everything might come at you in the spur of the moment and just try to [think], what would Jesus do?”
“[That] phrase it is the ultimate universal inroad into handling anything right,” he said. “If you think about any situation, if you just ask yourself that question, it kind of answers itself. Everything resolves itself if you know how to answer that question.”
But you’ve got to have the right mind and attitude to answer that question, THE CHOSEN actor says.
“And a correlative you know, disposition to Jesus’s heart that has to necessarily inform your answer when you ask that question,” he added.
This year, Roumie gave fans a glimpse into what it’s like to be him in the docuseries, JONATHAN AND JESUS.
The documentary was Pope Francis’ idea. He invited Roumie and THE CHOSEN director Dallas Jenkins to meet with him in 2021. Roumie wasn’t sure about doing it, but he prayed and got his answer.
“I thought it was a wild idea. I had never seen anything like it before. So, I prayed about it,” Roumie told Catholic News Agency in an interview. “I thought, well, maybe this is something that God wants me to do and somehow it can ultimately serve to inspire someone by hearing my stories of surrender and what God’s done in my life since more deeply surrendering to him and the success that I’ve had as a result of that commitment to Christ.”
Roumie will enter his fifth season playing Jesus on THE CHOSEN when it releases sometime next year. Season 4 just came out in June and is available for free on THE CHOSEN app.
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