‘The Chosen’ Creator Dallas Jenkins on That ‘Conflicted’ Jesus-Judas Scene and Feeling ‘Overwhelmed’ Filming the Upcoming Crucifixion

When you’re telling the story of Jesus Christ (Jonathan Roumie) and you’re following Scripture as closely as possible — as “The Chosen”has been doing for five seasons — a viewer even with a loose understanding of Jesus’ story knows what’s coming. However, that doesn’t mean that the events we see in the series don’t pack a punch of Biblical proportions. That was definitely the case as Season 5 came to an end in the June 29 finale when, following the Last Supper he had with his apostles, Jesus was finally captured by Roman soldiers, Jewish Temple guards and officials leaving the audience with a cliffhanger that will lead into next season’s inevitable crucifixion.

With Episodes 6, 7 and 8 dropping on Prime Video on Sunday, there was much to discuss with series creator Dallas Jenkins, who spoke with Variety while in Italy preparing to start filming next season’s crucifixion scenes. During the chat, Jenkins talked about bringing back several familiar faces we haven’t seen since earlier in the series, how he characterized iconic betrayer Judas (Luke Dimyan) so he didn’t come off simply as a full-on villain — and how Roumie prepares for these big moments that are played out in the drama.

Starting with Episode 6, it was great to see Nicodemus (Erick Avari) return for the first with a surprising reveal since we didn’t know who Mary (Elizabeth Tabish) was being lead to meet up with him. Can you talk about his return?

Erick’s amazing. So at the end of Season 1, he told me that he was leaving the show to pursue another project that he had been working on. I was very disappointed, of course, but then I realized this presents a couple of opportunities. No. 1, in Scripture, he shows up at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry like he does in our show, and then we don’t hear from him in Scripture until he he’s mentioned in the Sanhedrin when the religious leaders are debating what to do with Jesus. So I thought, “OK, if I can convince him to come back, this actually works for the scriptural story.”

It also provides us a unique opportunity to have a really cool TV moment like what you experienced. So many shows have moments of great surprises, shocking deaths, twists and turns and really cool cliffhangers — but a Bible show doesn’t typically have that, because the story is so well known. And there’s actually never really been a multi-season Bible show, so I was excited about the opportunity. Over the years, I kept in touch with Erick, and when we talked before this season, I finally convinced him to come back. He did say, “This is one of the greatest characters I’ve ever played, and I would love to end my career doing this role.” I think he was really proud of the show and thought, “I don’t want to miss out on this.”

Also in Episode 6, we see Judas negotiating with Caiaphas (Richard Fancy) for payment in his helping with the capture of Jesus. But Judas is conflicted, and not completely villainous. Can you talk to that?

He’s not a mustache-twirling villain, for sure. I would argue very strongly that our portrayal of Judas is extremely likely — meaning, that even though the Scriptures don’t explicitly say all of the things that we say took place, we do know that he was with Jesus for three years. We do know that, like in the show, he had moments where he was healing people and casting out demons and preaching, and so the notion that all of those things took place with him all along planning to be a villainous traitor is irrational.

Now, Jesus knew from the beginning what Judas would do, but I don’t think Judas knew from the beginning what Judas would do. Judas saw all the miracles. He did some miracles himself. So what is very rational is that Judas, like many Jewish people, expected Jesus to conquer the oppressors, be a traditional Messiah that they were all waiting for and have victory over all of their enemies and lead them to this dominant role in the world. And Jesus made it clear that He wasn’t going to do that, that it was all about people’s hearts. And when he said – and this is from Scripture and from our show – “Pay to Caesar what is Caesar’s, pay to God what is God’s, you’re supposed to love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, turn the other cheek,” all of those things bothered quite a lot of people, so I think it makes sense that it would also have bothered Judas.

Now, we don’t know exactly Judas’ motivation, but I think ours makes sense. So when Judas says to Caiaphas, “I’ve seen too much,” I thought that was an interesting way to say, “I’m not willing to give up on Him as the Messiah because I have seen miracles. I have seen so many things that prove He is clearly from God, but I haven’t seen enough to believe He is truly the Messiah and is going to do what I want Him to do and what we need Him to do.” So what we portray is Judas is essentially making a gamble on only two outcomes. One is Jesus overcomes the oppressors and He defeats the religious leaders. If He’s truly the Messiah, there’s nothing I can do to stop Him, and then this is great. Second, if He gets arrested and crucified and never does anything in response, well, then He clearly wasn’t the Messiah anyway, and we can get on with our lives and not follow a false prophet. Judas doesn’t anticipate option three, which is what we see play out in Season 6, which is that Jesus is the Messiah, but He’s just got a different plan.

Jumping ahead, since we’re talking about Judas, the very last moment of the season is where Jesus is about to be taken and Judas kisses Him on the cheek with tears in his eyes and he doesn’t appear happy about what’s happening.

That’s where the phrase “Judas kiss” comes from. That’s a moment in Scripture that Judas kissed Jesus on the cheek so that the soldiers would know who Jesus was. They didn’t have wanted posters back then, so he kisses Him on the cheek. And in Scripture, Jesus calls Judas “Friend” and Judas calls Him “Rabbi” when they greet each other. I don’t know all of the psychological elements at play in Scripture but Judas is still conflicted. And we know in Scripture, and I hate to spoil this for you, Jim, but it’s pretty famous that he commits suicide before Jesus resurrects. He’s having regrets and trying to return the money, and when they don’t accept his money, he commits suicide. I think he was clearly overwhelmed and conflicted the whole time.

When you’re filming these iconic moments, is the hair standing on your arm and you can’t really believe this is happening? How is it for you to actually experience some of these?

A lot of that happens after we’re done with the episodes and we’re presenting them to the world and the response is as strong as it is. People come up to me in public and start crying because they’re so impacted. I’m in Italy right now about to spend three weeks filming the crucifixion [for Season 6], and there’s certainly moments like that. It wasn’t that long ago that in Season 1, we were on a little set in the middle of nowhere, Texas, or even before that, I was doing a short film on my friend’s farm in Illinois. So how far we’ve come is extraordinary.

This may sound like an inappropriate metaphor, but when you hear people talk about filming sex scenes and their people are like, “It’s not a turn on, and it’s very functional with all the logistics, so we’re not caught up in the moment”’ I don’t know if our fans would appreciate that metaphor, but when I’m doing this, I’m not caught up in the moment of 2000 years of history. I’m thinking “We really need to get it right, and Judas needs to kiss him right here on the cheek because the camera’s angled this way, and the lights coming from the back.” And we’ve got 100 crew members who are all waiting and making sure that we get this done on time. So I have work to do when we’re filming.

In Episode 7, we start seeing the series of black and white sequences of almost everybody at the start of this journey with Jesus. What was the intention of those sequences?

That’s a great question. For the audience, it reminds us that they’re about to experience the worst consequences of following Jesus, and we wanted to remind the audience of where their optimism was before they met Him. Nathanael [Austin Reed Alleman] wanted to be an architect. Little James [Jordan Walker Ross] wanted to be a great singer. Thaddeus [Giavani Cairo] had a job in construction, and that was his career. Simon the Zealot [Alaa Safi] was fighting the Romans. And all of these people gave up all of those dreams in order to follow the Messiah, and we are being reminded that what’s happening is way worse than anything that they could have experienced if they had stuck with their original plans.

I think the characters themselves would have been thinking the same thing. Passover is a remembrance to this day. When Jewish people celebrate Passover, it’s in remembrance of their history and so remembrance is on their mind. But it’s also of note that something is hanging in the air. There’s something’s ominous, and they’re about to be with Jesus for the last time, which they may not know that or understand it, but I think they would be thinking, “We’re in hiding. Things are not going very well. We don’t understand everything.” They would be thinking about what got them here in the first place.

And like Nicodemus, it was great to see Gaius (Kirk B.R. Woller) again and see that earlier, contentious part of his relationship with Matthew (Paras Patel).  

I loved “Lost,” and I loved when they would play with time and go back and just to see who these people were before they got on the plane. It’s just entertaining, and it’s fun. So to see Gaius as mean and somewhat heartless, and Matthew when he’s first wrestling with his decision and understanding his decision to betray his people, some of those things are just fun to revisit.

We don’t see those moments for everyone, though. Like Simon Peter (Shahar Isaac) doesn’t have a moment. Why was that?

We’ve spent a lot of time with some of those characters before they met Jesus. But no one had ever seen Thaddeus or Little James’ experience before. We had seen only glimpses of Nathanael and Andrew [Noah James]. But also some of the specific things that we show from Philip [Yoshi Barrigas] and Andrew, for example, are related to what’s happening in the present. They are with John the Baptist [David Amito], who is saying the Messiah is coming and here’s what He’s going to do. And we couldn’t do all 12 of them anyway, so some of it was service that also happened to say something important about the present.

I feel like Jonathan Roumie knows the character of Jesus so well. But was there different preparation for these last few episodes of Season 5, since there’s so much more weight than we’ve seen in the past given what’s coming?

When we’re doing scenes such as the Garden of Gethsemane and the Crucifixion and the Last Supper, they are so emotionally exhausting and weighty. But physically, the Garden of Gethsemane in the Bible talks about how he was so upset and so burdened that he felt like he was going to die. He was sweating what some scriptures interpreted as blood, like drops of sweat. In those moments, Jonathan is still an actor and we’ve still got a job to do, and it’s no more important than any of the other things as we’ve done in previous seasons. We always want to get Jesus right but there is definitely some preparation that requires him to inhabit this place of desperation.

Jonathan had a personal spiritual adviser with him who he’s also got with him in Season 6 just to help prepare his heart and his mind for emptying himself of his own ego and as much of his own humanity as possible to try to even. He can never fully inhabit Jesus, the Son of God, but what can he do in these moments to come close? It definitely is a different atmosphere when we’re doing scenes that significant.

When he’s walking through the space with all the skeletons, he says, “Can the bones live?” What’s the importance of that moment and those words specifically?

We always want to make sure that the show can make sense for people who don’t know Scripture. Whether you know Scripture or not, that scene is somewhat ethereal, mysterious and will have more consequences later. You will get more clarity in a future season, but there is a passage of Scripture in the Old Testament where Ezekiel has a conversation with God and a vision of a valley of dried bones. It’s called the Valley of Dry Bones, and he says “Can these bones live?” Scholars believe that it’s a metaphor and a prophecy about Israel, and about how they as a people at that time were suffering and were dying spiritually. And he was saying, “Can my people live? Can we resurrect?” And there’s this beautiful passage in Ezekiel where that question is answered, and we will see more of that later.

As we’re talking the end of Season 5, you’re about to shoot the crucifixion. Are you scared or excited to shoot it, or a little bit of both?

I’m never excited to shoot anything. Filmmaking is very hard. I don’t love it. I always love having done it. So I’m excited to bring it to the world when it’s done, because I think that we’ve written something and are about to film something very special and unprecedented in any portrayal of the crucifixion ever done. And Amazon just announced that we’re releasing the finale of Season 6 as a standalone feature film that I’m very excited about that. But until we film it and it works, I’m overwhelmed and nervous.

But filming it in Italy in the same location where Mel Gibson filmed “The Passion of the Christ” and the same location where “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” was filmed, it’s just an unbelievable location, very special — and it’s an extraordinary opportunity. It’s going to be very difficult and very uncomfortable for Jonathan, but it is the opportunity of a lifetime and I certainly am not going to complain about it. It’s a beautiful thing that millions of people around the world are anticipating.

This interview has been edited and condensed.