Jonathan Roumie Recalls How He Surrendered His Career to God’s Plan
By Movieguide® Contributor
THE CHOSEN’s Jonathan Roumie recently appeared on Fox News to celebrate the five-year anniversary since his life changed through a decision that has become the crux of his testimony.
“Today is a special day,” he said. “Five years ago today, I was literally in a pit and God sort of lent a hand and brought me out of the pit. I was broke. I was in debt. I had enough food for the day to last a day.”
“I literally, as a result of having been struggling for the previous, oh, 15 to 17 years prior training to make it as an actor, I literally surrendered my entire life, my career, everything that U had and didn’t have over to God,” Roumie explained. “that day, He blessed me with a bit of a massive financial miracle that changed my relationship with Him completely and forever.”
Due to his deeper relationship with God, Roumie started to seek roles that he felt God was calling him to, rather than find jobs that he believed would further his acting career. Three months later, he was contacted by THE CHOSEN creator, Dallas Jenkins, to play a role in a project for his church. That project eventually led to the creation of THE CHOSEN.
“Everything’s been different since, so today’s five years to the day that actually happened,” Roumie said. “When I look back at all of the moments in my life that God sort of gave me these little tastes of playing [Jesus], I realized that from the time I was a kid, from the time I was about 11 years old, this I think, was sort of ordained for me.”
He recalled a time that he acted out the crucifixion after the 1977 JESUS OF NAZARETH miniseries.
“As an 11-year-old, I, after watching this, the crucifixion, I basically built my own crucifix, processed around my backyard, doing my own sort of way of the cross, and upright through the hammer, the nails in the hands and the feet and painted the blood and reenacted the crucifixion as a kid.” Roumie said. “So I guess it was –God saw something before I ever did.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Roumie’s role as Jesus:
While at a recent conference, THE CHOSEN actor Jonathan Roumie discussed how he approaches playing the role of Jesus, and the power that TV and movies have to connect viewers to God.
Given the divine mystery that Jesus was both fully God and fully human, Roumie explained how he approaches this aspect of the character when he is portraying Jesus.
“Grace is the first word that comes to mind,” he said. “Before approaching the role, before approaching each season, there’s always a substantial amount of prayer that goes into trying to take on, as best as I can in my own sort of feeble humanity, the mind or personage of God; which is impossible. So all I can do is bring the fullness of my humanity… to the role and then ask God to utilize me sort of like a mirror to reflect his grace, his mercy, his love, his compassion, in all of the scenes.”