Happy Easter everyone! In this episode we sit down with the creator of Amazon Prime’s wildly popular series “The Chosen,” Dallas Jenkins. Jenkins tells his story of how and why he decided to bring the story of Jesus Christ to life in a scripted streaming series. Jenkins talks about the criticism and praise he’s received for taking creative licenses with the Bible for context, understanding and entertainment purposes. Jenkins also tells us why he believes his series has found such incredible success with both believers and non-believers alike.
The Chosen Season 6 premieres on Prime Video November 15th.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey there, everybody, Happy, Happy Easter. It is Sunday, April fifth,
and we have a very special treat for you on
this Easter edition of Amy and t J.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I miss this. This is something we used to do
regularly in our previous lives. We would make sure every
week we talked to some a faith leader of some kind.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
It is just, really it's a.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Relief to be able to do this, to talk to
somebody who could give us all just a little encouragement
or a little better I don't know, some sense of
comfort and some really challenging times.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yes, we need that now more than ever before. We
have discussed about trying to revitalize a version of that
having a faith leader, and we're working on that. I
want to let you know, those of you who listen
to us faithfully every day or at least maybe every weekend,
we are working on trying to find some one who
can guide us through these tough times. So today, on
(00:54):
this Easter Sunday, we found someone. The creator, executive, producer, director,
and writer for Amazon Prime's wildly popular series. I don't
know if you all have heard of it. It's called
The Chosen, but three hundred million of you have watched
it around the world. Were you even aware of this series? Ah?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yes, because three hundred million around the world. I am
very attuned to pop culture and what's happening rogues.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
All right, I'm so sorry I even asked you that. No,
So if you are not familiar with it, here's what
it is. It's a historical drama based on the life
of Jesus Christ, but it's told through the narrative, through
the eyes of those who knew him. It's a really
cool creative direction that has never been taken before. We've
(01:42):
never had a series based on the life of Jesus Christ.
So the man who created it all is now with us.
Please everyone welcome Dallas Jenkins. Dallas, congratulations, by the way,
on all of your incredible success spreading the word. Why
do you think what you've managed to pull off has
(02:03):
resonated so much with so many folks?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, I think I think the concept of me pulling
it off is interesting because the show has and I
hope this comes across the right way. The show has
reached a level of success objectively that's far beyond my capability.
Meaning I know I'm not this good, and I'm not
(02:27):
just saying that it's not just like a platitude. I
think I've made a good show. I'm proud of it,
but the reach that it's had and some of the
barriers it's broken down are not something that I'm quite
capable of. That said, when you ask why do I
think it's happened, besides, I think some just God and
some other things that I can't even control. When people
(02:50):
recognize me and want to thank me for making the show,
I would say, and I'm not exaggerating when I say this,
eighty to ninety percent of them all will make make
some comment about humanity or authenticity. The Bible genre, the
genre of Biblical storytelling throughout the years. But you know,
movies based on stories from the Bible and Jesus have
(03:12):
been done for one hundred years, all the way back
to the twenties, nineteen twenties, and there's a formality to them,
a reverence that often lends itself to a distance, like
it feels like, you know, stained glass windows, even when
you're watching a movie that Jesus and the Disciples feel
like stained glass windows or statues. So there's something about
(03:33):
our emphasis on humanity and making, you know, kind of
reminding you of the viewer that this really happened, that
these people were walking around as human beings just like
we were, that they had questions and doubts and struggles
and the normal everyday issues that we still face today.
Something about that has seemed to unlock or you know,
(03:54):
crack a code for people, that has kept what would
normally just be a Bible story that not everyone is
really into, and it makes it feel like a normal
TV show, and then by definition, makes it feel like
these were real human beings, which which doesn't always isn't
always the case when you watch a Bible movie or
(04:15):
a Bible limited series.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Dallas, you mentioned humanity, and I want to ask humanity
versus Christianity, is this is your success or a part
of it? It do in great part. So this is
a human story and it's not just because of a
lot of Christians are following this show. I know it's
based on what it's based on, But how much of
(04:37):
the success is really attributed to going beyond Christianity and
hitting on humanity?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Oh yeah, no, that's a huge thing, you know. I don't.
On one hand, you could say it's the most Christian
show ever because it's literally it's about Christ. On the
other hand, well over a third of our viewers are
non believers. In fact, over half our cast and crew
are not believers or traditional believers. Obviously they believe Jesus existed,
but not all of them would would believe Jesus was
(05:04):
God or the son of God or whatever. I think
the fact that it just it doesn't feel like a
church service. It doesn't feel like it's it's got an agenda,
because it doesn't. I'm not. I'm trying to capture the
character and intentions of Jesus and the Gospels and the
best way I can. I am, of course a believer,
but I don't sit down and write or direct the
(05:24):
show thinking, you know, how do I bring people to church?
How do I convert people? It's it's how do I
capture this story as best I can? And then the
rest will take care of itself and the viewer is
left to to to respond how they want. And and
you know, there are plenty of stories that I watch
movies and TV shows that I don't necessarily agree with
(05:45):
or believe the worldview of the creator of the show
or the movie, But I still am enjoying the world
that's been created. You know my big fat Greek wedding
Shindler's list. You know, I don't watch those movies going oh,
those aren't for me. They're from a different faith tradition,
or a different religion or whatever it is, or a
different culture. I'm still able to really appreciate it, and
I think that's been a huge part of the show.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I mean, this is described as a historical drama based
on the life of Jesus Christ as seen through or
experienced by the people who knew him. And congratulations by
the way, on the sixth season, So that's incredibly cool.
Three hundred million plus viewers, and you point out that
(06:26):
not all of them are necessarily of faith or believers
in the traditional sense.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Who is this show for?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
So again, I'm not trying to be cheeky with the
answer to this question, but when I'm writing with my
co writers or when we're directing, I'm not thinking about
the viewer per se. Now, of course, as a filmmaker,
you always want your work to be seen, you want
it to be understood, So there's obviously traditional storytelling techniques
that are meant for the viewer. But I'm not trying
(06:58):
to think, well, well, this will us offend somebody, or
can I gain more praise with this choice or avoid
criticism with this choice? That would cripple me, especially when
you're talking about the story of Jesus, which even within
the Christian community is wildly there's a wildly diverse array
of opinions and feedback, So I can't write it thinking
who's most going to appreciate this? So I would argue
(07:21):
that it's for everybody that wants to see. You know,
what I would contend is a good historical drama, and believers,
of course, have a certain response to it. For a
lot of them, it's a it's a confirmation of something
they believe. But then maybe their eyes are opened even
more to certain realizations. Like again, a lot of traditional
believers will say, I've never considered X, I've never considered why.
(07:41):
I've never thought about how the disciples would have reacted
to Jesus saying this. That's really fascinating. That makes me
even more passionate about what Jesus said. Then you've got
non believers who watch it going, I enjoy this in
the same way that I enjoy Harry Potter. I don't
necessarily believe in the story itself necessarily, but I'm enjoying
the drama I'm in during the storytelling, and it is,
by many accounts, the greatest story ever told. It's got
(08:04):
a It's a beautiful, beautiful story, regardless of where you
stand on the in your faith. So I think that's
that's really you know, you don't you oftentimes don't want
to say, well, this is for everybody, because sometimes if
it's for everybody, it's for nobody. But I really think
that that's the case in this in this show, which
is there's no religious litmus test for you to to
(08:26):
watch it, and that and and I'm saying that as
the person who makes it, and and and we found
that to be true.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
That was cool.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I never made the comparison. Really, Jesus, Harry Potter, I
get it now, Jesus ride at Universal Studios.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
I really hope no one just exerts this clip and says,
the creator of the Chosen, But.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
You speak like a guy who's been in the media
or been in the public eye for a while, you know,
I know.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
You guys have never experienced any kind of misunderstanding.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
No, no one's ever misrepresented what we said or what
we've done. We know nothing about that.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's a very good point tells what this might seem.
It seems a little silly to even say it out loud.
What was your source material? And by that, I mean
do you literally sit down and write a script or
try to lay out your show? And how the Bible
opened next to you? And how do you go about
getting the material for your show? Is it literally taken
(09:20):
right from the Bible and then you put it in
whatever form you wanted to be in.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Well, yeah, we of course start with that. So even
back in twenty seventeen when my co writers and I
got together in my basement to Illinois and we're sketching out,
you know, what we want this show to be, and
how many seasons and what's the beginning, middle, and end
and all of that. And we were treating it like
any writers of the show. Would you know, You've got
character profiles, you've got key moments, You've got you know,
(09:48):
where do we want to end? How do we want
to get there? All that ord of stuff. Now, of
course we start with the Bible because that's the primary
source of truth and inspiration for a show like this. Now,
you start with a Bible and you go Okay, I'll
just give you a quick example. You take a moment
from the Gospels, such as Jesus and Nicodemus meet on
(10:08):
the roof under cover of darkness in secret to talk
about who Jesus is and why he's here. This is
John chapter three. This is the most famous chapter in
the Bible. This is the verse you see at football
games John three sixteen. So typically you see that that
chapter played out in a movie, a Jesus movie, and
it's literally just word for word. You know, Jesus said this,
(10:31):
Nicodemus said this. Sometimes it's even narrated and it's just
played out like that. Well, we say, okay, we know
that happened. That scene's going to be in our show.
How do we get there. What do we know about Nicodemus,
What do we know about this time period? What do
we know about the religious leaders that you know that
Nicodemus represents. There's a lot of people who've read John
three sixteen or seen the verse at football games and
(10:52):
have no idea who Jesus was talking to. Right, so
we go, let's let's like any good traditional TV show,
you want to care about the characters, and so if
you see it just totally out of context, and we're
just relying on the Bible verse by verse. You really
don't get a sense of who these people are, why
they're asking these questions. The Bible, you know, the Gospels
(11:15):
weren't written for a television show. They were written as
essentially Jesus's greatest hits to prove that he was the Messiah.
So for a TV show, we're thinking, all right, so
we know that Nicodemus was a religious leader. Okay, the
Bible doesn't get into some of the traditions and some
of the rules and some of the personality types of
(11:35):
religious leaders. Then we go to other sources for that. Right, then,
why would they have been meeting in secret? Oh, because
a religious leader wouldn't have typically believed in Jesus. He
would have had to be under in secret if he
believed in Jesus, because he wouldn't have wanted to get
in trouble with his fellow religious leaders. So those are
the kinds of things that aren't specifically mentioned in scripture,
(11:55):
but we know that they were true. So we use
cultural context, history, racal context, historical sources of course, the Bible.
And then there's this element the human element, How would
a human being like that react in this scenario? What
would take place after this moment in scripture that we
don't see in scripture. So it's a variety of sources
(12:15):
that we use, starting with the Bible.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Look, I cannot even imagine the undertaking of something like that,
because it's one thing to tell a story that's been
told that a lot of people are familiar with, but
then to take the creative licenses that you have to
take to make it a television production that's entertaining, that
brings you in, and that provides context that you're having
to fill in. I know you say that you're not
(12:43):
writing it and you're not producing it based on what
people will think, because everyone's got their opinions, But my god,
you have to piss some people off and upset people
with choices you've made and it's not what they think happened,
And you actually really focus a lot on the why,
not just the what. So there is there is an
(13:03):
interpretation there that you're choosing what has been some of
the feedback that you haven't necessarily loved hearing, and how
have you incorporated that, if at all, into other episodes
or later seasons.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
We want to hear the hate.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah, I mean, because you know, obviously you've got to
have a lot incoming, good and bad.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Oh, yeah, I mean it's yes. You can just do
a simple goog you know, YouTube search for my name
and you'll find, you know, dozens of videos with hundreds
of thousands, if not millions, of yous calling me a
heretic and a dangerous person. Then you've got plenty of
videos as well calling me the greatest thing who's ever lived,
and you know they were. Neither one of those is true,
(13:46):
and I can't. I can't, you know, seek to gain
or avoid either either response. Now I'll say this, I
do have a bit of a superpower. And the superpower
came to me back in twenty seventeen when I had
a huge career failure. A movie that I'd made that
was released nationwide completely bombed, and I genuinely didn't know
(14:07):
if I was ever going to make another movie or
television show. And for the first time in my career,
I was genuinely okay if I didn't. I had this
experience with God where it was clear to me, And
this is why the name of my studio is five
and two Studios. Five loaves and two fish, the story
of the Feeding of the five thousand, famous story from
(14:28):
the Gospels, where I was reminded by someone I didn't
even know, it's not your job to feed five thousand,
it's your job to provide five loaves and two fish.
And so that concept, which in I think mainstream culture
would be like, don't focus on the results, focus on
the process. But I genuinely, for the first time in
my life, who you know, as someone who used to
(14:49):
be a narcissist and someone whose drug of choice was
validation and affirmation, I really gave all that up and
I just thought, all I need to focus on is
five loaves and two fish, whatever those are. If I
hand them to God, he deems them worthy of acceptance,
the transaction is over. And so I got to a
(15:09):
place where I genuinely don't care what the response is
from any one other than God or my wife. And
when you get to that point, it is a superpower.
And so that applies to not only the criticism. I mean,
I'm just not going to base my life or my
beliefs in Christ or my understanding of scripture on a
(15:30):
YouTube comment. I don't think a single YouTube comment is
going to settle two thousand years of debate on some
of these theological concepts that caused so much controversy. I
know people believe that, but I don't. So I'm not
going to base my value or my worth or my
confidence in what I'm doing you on YouTube comments, and
(15:51):
so that applies not only to the hate but to
the praise. So it's lovely. I love it, of course
when someone comes up to me and says my life
has changed because of this show, or you know what,
I'm not a believer, but I love your show. I mean,
I just had a podcast with a famous atheist who
is a huge fan of the show, watches watched all
five seasons and obsessed that even though he doesn't believe,
(16:12):
you know, in the story. So I love hearing that.
It means something to me. But it's not what I seek,
it's not why I do it. And when you get
to that place where you really are just focused, you know,
on five loaves and two fish, and if God multiplies them,
then that's great, but it's not up to you. It
it really is a it really is a game changer.
(16:33):
And so that's been my life and I hope that
I continue to maintain that regardless of the level of
success or the level of criticism downs.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
What is the reception you've gotten from God and your wife?
You said that's the only audience of the matters.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Well, I'll know for sure from God when I when
I pass away, and I hope that when I face him,
I I I get a I get a well done,
good and faithful service for servant, and not a what
were you thinking that? Or you know, hopefully it's like
you did really well. There was that one moment in
episode four of season five where I don't know where
you got that, but uh, but so far it seems
(17:09):
to be going fairly well. The response around the world
seems to indicate that that people aren't just replacing the
Bible with my show, which would be a problem. It
seems to be drawing more people towards learning more about
who Jesus was, uh, which which is of course the
biggest success I think from you know my wife, of course,
she's gone through this with me. I'll say this, from
(17:31):
from the moment we started doing this show, it's probably
been the hardest eight years of our lives ever. You
know that, from medical crises to to to family issues,
all of those things. Our family has gotten closer to
closer than ever, but a lot of it's trauma bonding.
It's just been a you know, it's just been the
hardest thing we've ever done. It's brought in lots of challenges,
lots of criticism, of course, but it's also brought in
(17:52):
lots of beauty and uh and and all over the
world and every you know, just just you know. A
couple of weeks ago, we broke our own Guinness Book
of World records for the most translated show in history,
right over one hundred and twenty six languages. This show
has been translated into and it plays in every country
in the world. So those are the kinds of things
where you go, it seems like God is pleased, my
(18:15):
wife is pleased. Everything else is gravy.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
You said, it's not supposed to replace. Obviously it's to
replace the Bible. But do you find this is for
some and maybe even a culture that has an attention
span of a net. Do you find that maybe this
is would you recommend this as a more for some
digestible Bible to a certain degree.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Well, I definitely wouldn't call it a Bible. I make
it very clear, I'm not God. Jonathan Rumy who pleads
Jesus is not Jesus and the Chosen is not the Bible.
And the folks who will say you're not supposed to
add to the Bible, you guys are doing something wrong.
I've got very good news. If you go to your
local store and you pull out a Bible and you
open it up, you're not going to find some of
(19:00):
the characters from our show that we've added to the story.
The Bible has not been changed. The Bible has not
been attitude not been added to. We're not the Bible. Now.
When you talk about digestible, I would put it this way.
I would say that the Bible, for sorry, our show,
for many people, has cracked a code that has allowed
(19:21):
them to see the Bible, the actual Bible more clearly.
There's a lot of people who've read the stories and
they just haven't been able to see it, haven't been
able to fully understand it, because so many of these
stories are kind of out of context. So for some
people that's why they read a book where they go
to a church near a sermon, or they listen to
music where it can provide some context, provide a spotlight
(19:43):
on some of the parts of Scripture that maybe they
haven't fully understood or connected with. So I don't think
I would say that the Chosen is a digestible Bible.
I would say that the Chosen makes the Bible more digestible,
maybe more more understandable to them in a way that
may they hadn't before. But we've not heard from pretty
much anybody who says, well, because of the Chosen, now
(20:05):
I don't have to read my Bible because I've got
the Chosen. I think that would be a problem, at
least for me. Unfortunately we're not hearing that.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I'm curious for you personally, has your faith your perspective
on religion changed at all by doing this series? How
have you grown or evolved as a Christian producing this?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Yeah. I mean when you're telling a story about Jesus
and you're tasked with what is now probably considered kind
of the definitive media account of the story of Jesus,
you should know who he is, you should understand it, right,
and so over the last eight years, I mean I've
been I've been in Christian circles and schools and my
(20:55):
family my whole life. I would say the thing that
has really changed the most for me is the realization
when you read scripture of the intimacy of Jesus. Jesus
was an intimate god. I think we sometimes see him
as like preaching to the masses, and a lot of
times in visual depictions, he's very pious. He's he's got
(21:18):
almost got a halo around him, and he's he's very formal,
and he's he's giving these truth bombs that that are
for everybody, which which I think there's there's truth to
that in some ways. But in the Gospels, you the
overwhelming majority of encounters that he has with people are
very personal, and whether he's healing you, rebuking you, or
(21:38):
calling you to follow him, Uh, it's always specific to
your heart need, right, It's it's so many stories in
the Gospels are him speaking specifically to the to the
needs or to the to the to the experience of
the person he's talking to. And so that for me
has been a real game changer. Is I think I've
always known that but not really experience. It is just
(22:01):
how personal and intimate of a god Jesus is, and
I think that's different from a lot of other portrayals
depictions understandings of who Jesus is. And I think that's
been key for a lot of people watching the show,
is that they've they're like, I felt like Jesus was
speaking to me. I felt like he was, you know,
he was addressing my questions or my struggles or my doubts.
(22:21):
And I think by telling the story through the eyes
of those who met him, including his detractors, I think
that's been a key factor in allowing the viewer to
see Jesus in that way as opposed to just this
distant figure. Right. I think that's a key thing, and
a religious figure, right, I think I think there's a
big difference between religion and relationship. I wouldn't consider myself
(22:43):
actually very religious. I've always seen religion is man's attempts
to reach God, you know, humankind's attempts to reach God.
And I think I think my faith is about God's
attempts to reach man, to preach humanity. And I think
that's I think that's a key part of the show too.
Jesus came and he's pursuing you, as opposed to you
trying to pursue him, and hope you achieved some level
(23:03):
of connection that if you just work hard enough, and
you just do enough good, you'll get there. That's not
how I see it, and I think that's been helpful
through the in my own personal life as well.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Dallas, how difficult was it to cast Jesus?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
So here's what's an interesting story that I'll tell quickly.
Is I actually cast Jonathan Rumy well before the show.
So over ten years ago, I was doing a short
film for my church or Good Friday services. I'd come
up with this idea of telling the story of the
two Thieves on the Cross. I'd heard a sermon from
(23:41):
someone who in Louisville's name is Kyle Eidelman. I was
visiting this church and he was talking about how in
the Gospels, in the story of the two thieves on
the Cross, one of them goes from mocking Jesus to
believing in him and wanting to be with him in
Paradise within like three verses. And so he's like, what
and in those hours that they were on the cross
(24:02):
that the Gospels don't really share where he goes from
mocking him to believing in him. And I just thought, Wow,
that's really fascinating, you know. So I made this short
film my co writer, and I wrote this short film
about what the two thieves on the cross might have
experienced before they got there. So Jesus shows up in
the short film in the last five minutes. So I'm
casting for this short film. And because Jesus is the
(24:24):
is not the main character of the short until the
last five minutes, all the people who were auditioning, all
the best actors were auditioning for the two thieves, and
the people who are auditioning for Jesus were just awful.
And so I cast the two thieves and I'm like,
I need I need someone to play Jesus who's halfway decent.
And so Jonathan Rumy had had auditioned for one of
the thieves, and I said, I'd like to see him
(24:44):
play Jesus. He's got a really cool quality to him,
let's see. And so within ten seconds of his audition
for Jesus, I saw what so many people have seen
from watching this show. I'm like, oh my gosh, this
guy is extraordinary. And so then when we film this
short film in a rock in Elgin, Illinois, uh his performance.
He shows up for the last five minutes and I'm like,
(25:06):
while I'm directing him, I'm like, this guy captures the
like both the masculinity and the gentleness right that the
that there's there's a you know, so many portrayals or
one or the other. It's either he's he's a hippie
or he's this distant figure or you know, he kind
of fits into one one one kind of personality trait.
(25:26):
And Jonathan's portrayal and I think, which fits with our writing,
kind of captures the wide spectrum of Jesus's personhood. And so, uh,
then we started doing a couple more short films than
yettes every year, and so it was like training ground
in many ways. And uh, and then when it came
time to that we had the opportunity to do this show.
(25:47):
I reached out to him like, hey, you want to
put the sandals back on? We got it. We got
an opportunity to do this on a on a bigger scale.
We've been We've been funded through through crowdfunding for four episodes.
Let's see how this goes. And so I think his
portrayal is you know, just objectively speaking as a as
a viewer myself, is is a is a game changer.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Dallas, did you really say to him you want to
put the sandals back.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
I did, I did. He will very that's his story
as well.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Oh my goodness that I love that showed up to
be a thief.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
You're Jesus.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
You're Jesus, and you're going to stay Jesus for several seasons. Now,
I'm curious, Dallas, in a world where we have become
more secular, where there are obviously so many different competing religions,
and you've got these big streaming services choosing what type
of edgy programming they want to bring their their viewers
(26:43):
and their audience. Was it hard getting Prime Video, Amazon
Prime to sign up for this? Like? How did you
get something that was a passion project up to actually
be seen on such a huge streaming service and have
obviously the success it's had. But I'm curious what the
process was like. Was was it David versus Goliath?
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Or was this something that actually made sense to big
media giants?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
It was nice?
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Yeah you like what I did there?
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah, that's very nice. So when it first started, nobody,
I mean, look, I'm coming off a career failure. No
one's lining up around the block to do a Jesus show.
The idea came to me while I was doing another
short film for my church's Christmas Eve service. So this
comes after my big failure. I don't think. I don't
know if I'm ever going to make another movie. But
(27:31):
I did have this script that I had written with
my co writer a year and a half previously, about
the short film about the Birth of Christ from the
perspective of the shepherds, and so we kind of pulled
that off the shelf figuratively, and I went to my
church again, I'm like, what do you guys think of
something like this? They think it's a great idea. So
on my friend's farm in Illinois, twenty minutes from my house,
(27:51):
we filmed this short film about the birth of Christ.
And while I'm making it is when I came up
with the idea for this show. I was binge watching
the wire at the time, the HBO's show from years back,
The WHI, which is an extraordinary show, not a very
Jesus he show. They say the word Jesus a lot,
but not in a respectful way. And so I'm watching it,
(28:11):
I'm going, this is really fascinating. There's never been a
multi season show about Jesus before. There's been movies There's
been mini series, but never a show where you can,
you know, follow these characters from episode to episode, season
to season. And The Wire has this really unique approach.
You see the people on the streets, you see the criminals,
you see the cops, you see the mayor's office, you
see the press from all these different angles. I thought
(28:37):
that'd be cool to tell a story from the perspective
of the followers of Christ, but also the enemies people
in the Roman you know, the Romans, the Pharisees, the
religious leaders. So, like I said, there's no one lining
her up around the block to do that, and I'm
coming off a career failure. Well, that short film was
used as a became essentially a pilot episode. We put
(28:57):
it on social media and did crowdfund because I knew
no one, no studio was going to fund this, and
so we gets crowdfunded and I'm thinking, this isn't going
to work. It was an idea from another small streaming
platform at the time, Angel Studios. They had the idea
for this, and I thought, this isn't going to work.
You know, it's an eighteen minute short film and the
all time crowdfunding record was five and a half million
(29:19):
dollars from projects that had huge fan bases already, I
had no fan base but five loaves, two fish. I'm
not worried about the results. We'll see what happens. Well.
Fast forward a few months later, ten million dollars comes
in from sixteen thousand people all over the world based
on this little short film that I did on my
friend's farm, shattering the all time crowdfunding record, giving us
(29:41):
the opportunity to do season one. So we just did
it own, on our own right then we put it
out there and no one shows up at first, and
we had a hard time getting viewers. And finally when
covid hit and we decided to do eight episodes, you know,
one at a time on YouTube live streams, and I
just said, look, we're just going to give it to
you for free for a few weeks. It's covid. You know,
(30:03):
we're all scared. Let's just watch this show for free.
And here's the thing. If you if you love this show,
and if you want us to keep going, you know
you can you can give in this way, but it's
free for now. A couple of nights into it, we
had quadrupled our income, and I just said my wife
and I just said, you know what, we just need
to make this show free forever, and we'll just trust
the outcome. So we decided to make the show free.
(30:26):
It explodes, that's when it's that was kind of the
first tipping point. So that's when Prime and and all
of the platforms they start to see it. And at
each company, in this case at Prime Video, there's a
woman named Tracy Blackwell who had just joined the Amazon
and they had said to her, you know what, you know,
what are you What are some of your ideas and
(30:46):
you have any big ideas? And she's like, the chosen
you had got to see this show. We have got
to get this show. So eventually all the platforms, all
the bit you know, the major streamers, we had seen
the audience we'd built, seen the success of the show.
So uh no, it was not David and Goliath by
the time they came to us saying we want to
I mean, by by that point, it was an easy conversation. Yes,
(31:11):
so uh and and that's I don't even say that
as a criticism. I mean, you know, I'm a nobody
that there's no reason to pursue a show like mine.
But by the time that the streamers were interested. We
had had, you know, over one hundred million viewers and
and the show now Tracy at Amazon, she had seen
it from the beginning. She knew this was going to
(31:32):
be big, but but it was. It was a very
easy conversation after after that point.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Not a David versus Glide ended up being Goliath versus Goliath. Yes,
you build it. That's actually yeah, if you build it,
they will come.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I want to ask.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Rose and I when we were in our ABC days,
we used to do a segment every week called Faith Friday,
and we loved it and without question, Rose, I'm not
overstating here, it was our favorite segment every We brought
on faith leaders every single week, all different denominations and
just ask them about what's going on in the world
and to just give words of encouragement to our viewers
(32:10):
on a frighting when it's always a difficult time, difficult week.
And I'm kind of asking you and putting you in
that position. I know you're not a pastor and you're
not here to convert anybody, but you're someone who is
very steeped in faith in what you do, and you're
a believer, and so I would just ask you if
you can for a moment. I know you've thought about
what's going on in the world, from what we're seeing,
(32:31):
at the difficult everybody's having, Just could you pass along
just from whatever is in you and in your heart,
from what you know, just words of encouragement in times
that are so difficult. And I know it's for you
to tell people to turn to God, but maybe turn
to God, and maybe not just I'm always curious to
talk to We are always curious and to hear from
folks who are that steeped in faith, to just give
(32:53):
some words or encouragement at a time that can be
discouraging for us.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
All absolutely going through now tribalism, whether it's all over
the world or even here in the United States. We're
conditioned right now to find ourselves into these insular tribes,
and we're conditioned now to immediately, if not hate, strongly
(33:20):
distrust and dislike anyone who's not in our tribe. And
that has created in ourselves an inherent dislike or distrust
of others, but it's also created a dislike or distrust
towards us. There's a lot of people who I don't
who I know would prefer not to just be in
in some tribe where they're only friends or family are
(33:43):
the people who agree with them, because for a lot
of people, they don't have a lot of friends or family,
and so times like this are extraordinarily challenging, they're confusing. Well,
two thousand years ago, it was the exact same situation.
People were divided into tribes. There was a lot of hatred,
there was a lot of oppression, and Jesus came in
(34:04):
the midst of all of that, and he came to
a group of people who were like, Okay, great, now
you're here, the Messiah's here. We're going to conquer our oppressors.
We're going to defeat our enemies. We're going to win right,
and we're gonna instead of being oppressed, we're now going
to be able to dominate. We're going to be able
to have the victory and freedom and all of that.
(34:26):
And he said, yeah, no, actually, that's not why I'm here.
You actually will probably still suffer. In fact, because of
following me, you might suffer even more than others. You're
going to be persecuted, there will be wars, there will
be persecution. That's always going to be here. At one
point he even said, there will always be the poor.
So he talked about that until he comes back, until
(34:49):
we're you know, on this side of heaven, on this
side of eternity, there will be suffering. And so he said,
I'm here for your hearts. I'm here for you to
actually love your enemies, be kind to those who who
persecute you, turn the other cheek. There is a way
of responding to what we're going through that, on the surface,
(35:12):
makes no sense. That seems to be in contrast to
how we would typically choose to be. We want to win,
we want to get revenge. And I think a good
question to ask all of us is how's that working out? Right?
It's not working very well. It hasn't been working for
thousands and thousands of years, And so I would encourage you,
whether you're a believer or not, the teachings of Jesus
(35:35):
might actually be the only answer. They might be the
only way because winning, overcoming, defeating is you know, fighting
is just doesn't seem to be working very well. And
even when people finally do win and they do get
the power, they always tend to screw it up. They
always tend to be impacted in some way by their
(36:00):
own flesh, by their own ego, and so service to others,
love of even your enemies might just be the answer
that that might conflict with our own egos and flesh,
but it is a it is a game changer, I believe,
and I think that the story from two thousand years
(36:20):
ago might be the answer to the story today.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
That's beautiful. That's beautiful, Jenkins. You might if the producing
thing doesn't work out, I could see you in a
pulpit one day, one day soon.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
So well, fortunately for for for people in the congregants,
the producing thing is working out. I'm not going to
be in the pulpit any.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
We want to wish you all. I know that you
don't want to take the personal congratulations for the success
of the show, but certainly you are telling a story
in a way that has resonated with people around the world.
Your bringing a story to them that maybe they're seeing
for the first time, or they're seeing from a much
more relatable perspective. So, Dallas Jenkins, thank you. So it
(37:09):
was such an honor to get to talk with you,
to get to meet you and to hear and see
what you're doing and how you're changing the world for good.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
We need more.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Thank you so much more well, and I appreciate and
I appreciate you amplifying those voices for good as well.
It really means a lot. I appreciate you guys having
on your show. Thank you.
Hey there, everybody, Happy, Happy Easter. It is Sunday, April fifth,
and we have a very special treat for you on
this Easter edition of Amy and t J.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I miss this. This is something we used to do
regularly in our previous lives. We would make sure every
week we talked to some a faith leader of some kind.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
It is just, really it's a.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Relief to be able to do this, to talk to
somebody who could give us all just a little encouragement
or a little better I don't know, some sense of
comfort and some really challenging times.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yes, we need that now more than ever before. We
have discussed about trying to revitalize a version of that
having a faith leader, and we're working on that. I
want to let you know, those of you who listen
to us faithfully every day or at least maybe every weekend,
we are working on trying to find some one who
can guide us through these tough times. So today, on
(00:54):
this Easter Sunday, we found someone. The creator, executive, producer, director,
and writer for Amazon Prime's wildly popular series. I don't
know if you all have heard of it. It's called
The Chosen, but three hundred million of you have watched
it around the world. Were you even aware of this series? Ah?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yes, because three hundred million around the world. I am
very attuned to pop culture and what's happening rogues.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
All right, I'm so sorry I even asked you that. No,
So if you are not familiar with it, here's what
it is. It's a historical drama based on the life
of Jesus Christ, but it's told through the narrative, through
the eyes of those who knew him. It's a really
cool creative direction that has never been taken before. We've
(01:42):
never had a series based on the life of Jesus Christ.
So the man who created it all is now with us.
Please everyone welcome Dallas Jenkins. Dallas, congratulations, by the way,
on all of your incredible success spreading the word. Why
do you think what you've managed to pull off has
(02:03):
resonated so much with so many folks?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, I think I think the concept of me pulling
it off is interesting because the show has and I
hope this comes across the right way. The show has
reached a level of success objectively that's far beyond my capability.
Meaning I know I'm not this good, and I'm not
(02:27):
just saying that it's not just like a platitude. I
think I've made a good show. I'm proud of it,
but the reach that it's had and some of the
barriers it's broken down are not something that I'm quite
capable of. That said, when you ask why do I
think it's happened, besides, I think some just God and
some other things that I can't even control. When people
(02:50):
recognize me and want to thank me for making the show,
I would say, and I'm not exaggerating when I say this,
eighty to ninety percent of them all will make make
some comment about humanity or authenticity. The Bible genre, the
genre of Biblical storytelling throughout the years. But you know,
movies based on stories from the Bible and Jesus have
(03:12):
been done for one hundred years, all the way back
to the twenties, nineteen twenties, and there's a formality to them,
a reverence that often lends itself to a distance, like
it feels like, you know, stained glass windows, even when
you're watching a movie that Jesus and the Disciples feel
like stained glass windows or statues. So there's something about
(03:33):
our emphasis on humanity and making, you know, kind of
reminding you of the viewer that this really happened, that
these people were walking around as human beings just like
we were, that they had questions and doubts and struggles
and the normal everyday issues that we still face today.
Something about that has seemed to unlock or you know,
(03:54):
crack a code for people, that has kept what would
normally just be a Bible story that not everyone is
really into, and it makes it feel like a normal
TV show, and then by definition, makes it feel like
these were real human beings, which which doesn't always isn't
always the case when you watch a Bible movie or
(04:15):
a Bible limited series.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Dallas, you mentioned humanity, and I want to ask humanity
versus Christianity, is this is your success or a part
of it? It do in great part. So this is
a human story and it's not just because of a
lot of Christians are following this show. I know it's
based on what it's based on, But how much of
(04:37):
the success is really attributed to going beyond Christianity and
hitting on humanity?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Oh yeah, no, that's a huge thing, you know. I don't.
On one hand, you could say it's the most Christian
show ever because it's literally it's about Christ. On the
other hand, well over a third of our viewers are
non believers. In fact, over half our cast and crew
are not believers or traditional believers. Obviously they believe Jesus existed,
but not all of them would would believe Jesus was
(05:04):
God or the son of God or whatever. I think
the fact that it just it doesn't feel like a
church service. It doesn't feel like it's it's got an agenda,
because it doesn't. I'm not. I'm trying to capture the
character and intentions of Jesus and the Gospels and the
best way I can. I am, of course a believer,
but I don't sit down and write or direct the
(05:24):
show thinking, you know, how do I bring people to church?
How do I convert people? It's it's how do I
capture this story as best I can? And then the
rest will take care of itself and the viewer is
left to to to respond how they want. And and
you know, there are plenty of stories that I watch
movies and TV shows that I don't necessarily agree with
(05:45):
or believe the worldview of the creator of the show
or the movie, But I still am enjoying the world
that's been created. You know my big fat Greek wedding
Shindler's list. You know, I don't watch those movies going oh,
those aren't for me. They're from a different faith tradition,
or a different religion or whatever it is, or a
different culture. I'm still able to really appreciate it, and
I think that's been a huge part of the show.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I mean, this is described as a historical drama based
on the life of Jesus Christ as seen through or
experienced by the people who knew him. And congratulations by
the way, on the sixth season, So that's incredibly cool.
Three hundred million plus viewers, and you point out that
(06:26):
not all of them are necessarily of faith or believers
in the traditional sense.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Who is this show for?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
So again, I'm not trying to be cheeky with the
answer to this question, but when I'm writing with my
co writers or when we're directing, I'm not thinking about
the viewer per se. Now, of course, as a filmmaker,
you always want your work to be seen, you want
it to be understood, So there's obviously traditional storytelling techniques
that are meant for the viewer. But I'm not trying
(06:58):
to think, well, well, this will us offend somebody, or
can I gain more praise with this choice or avoid
criticism with this choice? That would cripple me, especially when
you're talking about the story of Jesus, which even within
the Christian community is wildly there's a wildly diverse array
of opinions and feedback, So I can't write it thinking
who's most going to appreciate this? So I would argue
(07:21):
that it's for everybody that wants to see. You know,
what I would contend is a good historical drama, and believers,
of course, have a certain response to it. For a
lot of them, it's a it's a confirmation of something
they believe. But then maybe their eyes are opened even
more to certain realizations. Like again, a lot of traditional
believers will say, I've never considered X, I've never considered why.
(07:41):
I've never thought about how the disciples would have reacted
to Jesus saying this. That's really fascinating. That makes me
even more passionate about what Jesus said. Then you've got
non believers who watch it going, I enjoy this in
the same way that I enjoy Harry Potter. I don't
necessarily believe in the story itself necessarily, but I'm enjoying
the drama I'm in during the storytelling, and it is,
by many accounts, the greatest story ever told. It's got
(08:04):
a It's a beautiful, beautiful story, regardless of where you
stand on the in your faith. So I think that's
that's really you know, you don't you oftentimes don't want
to say, well, this is for everybody, because sometimes if
it's for everybody, it's for nobody. But I really think
that that's the case in this in this show, which
is there's no religious litmus test for you to to
(08:26):
watch it, and that and and I'm saying that as
the person who makes it, and and and we found
that to be true.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
That was cool.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I never made the comparison. Really, Jesus, Harry Potter, I
get it now, Jesus ride at Universal Studios.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
I really hope no one just exerts this clip and says,
the creator of the Chosen, But.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
You speak like a guy who's been in the media
or been in the public eye for a while, you know,
I know.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
You guys have never experienced any kind of misunderstanding.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
No, no one's ever misrepresented what we said or what
we've done. We know nothing about that.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's a very good point tells what this might seem.
It seems a little silly to even say it out loud.
What was your source material? And by that, I mean
do you literally sit down and write a script or
try to lay out your show? And how the Bible
opened next to you? And how do you go about
getting the material for your show? Is it literally taken
(09:20):
right from the Bible and then you put it in
whatever form you wanted to be in.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Well, yeah, we of course start with that. So even
back in twenty seventeen when my co writers and I
got together in my basement to Illinois and we're sketching out,
you know, what we want this show to be, and
how many seasons and what's the beginning, middle, and end
and all of that. And we were treating it like
any writers of the show. Would you know, You've got
character profiles, you've got key moments, You've got you know,
(09:48):
where do we want to end? How do we want
to get there? All that ord of stuff. Now, of
course we start with the Bible because that's the primary
source of truth and inspiration for a show like this. Now,
you start with a Bible and you go Okay, I'll
just give you a quick example. You take a moment
from the Gospels, such as Jesus and Nicodemus meet on
(10:08):
the roof under cover of darkness in secret to talk
about who Jesus is and why he's here. This is
John chapter three. This is the most famous chapter in
the Bible. This is the verse you see at football
games John three sixteen. So typically you see that that
chapter played out in a movie, a Jesus movie, and
it's literally just word for word. You know, Jesus said this,
(10:31):
Nicodemus said this. Sometimes it's even narrated and it's just
played out like that. Well, we say, okay, we know
that happened. That scene's going to be in our show.
How do we get there. What do we know about Nicodemus,
What do we know about this time period? What do
we know about the religious leaders that you know that
Nicodemus represents. There's a lot of people who've read John
three sixteen or seen the verse at football games and
(10:52):
have no idea who Jesus was talking to. Right, so
we go, let's let's like any good traditional TV show,
you want to care about the characters, and so if
you see it just totally out of context, and we're
just relying on the Bible verse by verse. You really
don't get a sense of who these people are, why
they're asking these questions. The Bible, you know, the Gospels
(11:15):
weren't written for a television show. They were written as
essentially Jesus's greatest hits to prove that he was the Messiah.
So for a TV show, we're thinking, all right, so
we know that Nicodemus was a religious leader. Okay, the
Bible doesn't get into some of the traditions and some
of the rules and some of the personality types of
(11:35):
religious leaders. Then we go to other sources for that. Right, then,
why would they have been meeting in secret? Oh, because
a religious leader wouldn't have typically believed in Jesus. He
would have had to be under in secret if he
believed in Jesus, because he wouldn't have wanted to get
in trouble with his fellow religious leaders. So those are
the kinds of things that aren't specifically mentioned in scripture,
(11:55):
but we know that they were true. So we use
cultural context, history, racal context, historical sources of course, the Bible.
And then there's this element the human element, How would
a human being like that react in this scenario? What
would take place after this moment in scripture that we
don't see in scripture. So it's a variety of sources
(12:15):
that we use, starting with the Bible.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Look, I cannot even imagine the undertaking of something like that,
because it's one thing to tell a story that's been
told that a lot of people are familiar with, but
then to take the creative licenses that you have to
take to make it a television production that's entertaining, that
brings you in, and that provides context that you're having
to fill in. I know you say that you're not
(12:43):
writing it and you're not producing it based on what
people will think, because everyone's got their opinions, But my god,
you have to piss some people off and upset people
with choices you've made and it's not what they think happened,
And you actually really focus a lot on the why,
not just the what. So there is there is an
(13:03):
interpretation there that you're choosing what has been some of
the feedback that you haven't necessarily loved hearing, and how
have you incorporated that, if at all, into other episodes
or later seasons.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
We want to hear the hate.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah, I mean, because you know, obviously you've got to
have a lot incoming, good and bad.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Oh, yeah, I mean it's yes. You can just do
a simple goog you know, YouTube search for my name
and you'll find, you know, dozens of videos with hundreds
of thousands, if not millions, of yous calling me a
heretic and a dangerous person. Then you've got plenty of
videos as well calling me the greatest thing who's ever lived,
and you know they were. Neither one of those is true,
(13:46):
and I can't. I can't, you know, seek to gain
or avoid either either response. Now I'll say this, I
do have a bit of a superpower. And the superpower
came to me back in twenty seventeen when I had
a huge career failure. A movie that I'd made that
was released nationwide completely bombed, and I genuinely didn't know
(14:07):
if I was ever going to make another movie or
television show. And for the first time in my career,
I was genuinely okay if I didn't. I had this
experience with God where it was clear to me, And
this is why the name of my studio is five
and two Studios. Five loaves and two fish, the story
of the Feeding of the five thousand, famous story from
(14:28):
the Gospels, where I was reminded by someone I didn't
even know, it's not your job to feed five thousand,
it's your job to provide five loaves and two fish.
And so that concept, which in I think mainstream culture
would be like, don't focus on the results, focus on
the process. But I genuinely, for the first time in
my life, who you know, as someone who used to
(14:49):
be a narcissist and someone whose drug of choice was
validation and affirmation, I really gave all that up and
I just thought, all I need to focus on is
five loaves and two fish, whatever those are. If I
hand them to God, he deems them worthy of acceptance,
the transaction is over. And so I got to a
(15:09):
place where I genuinely don't care what the response is
from any one other than God or my wife. And
when you get to that point, it is a superpower.
And so that applies to not only the criticism. I mean,
I'm just not going to base my life or my
beliefs in Christ or my understanding of scripture on a
(15:30):
YouTube comment. I don't think a single YouTube comment is
going to settle two thousand years of debate on some
of these theological concepts that caused so much controversy. I
know people believe that, but I don't. So I'm not
going to base my value or my worth or my
confidence in what I'm doing you on YouTube comments, and
(15:51):
so that applies not only to the hate but to
the praise. So it's lovely. I love it, of course
when someone comes up to me and says my life
has changed because of this show, or you know what,
I'm not a believer, but I love your show. I mean,
I just had a podcast with a famous atheist who
is a huge fan of the show, watches watched all
five seasons and obsessed that even though he doesn't believe,
(16:12):
you know, in the story. So I love hearing that.
It means something to me. But it's not what I seek,
it's not why I do it. And when you get
to that place where you really are just focused, you know,
on five loaves and two fish, and if God multiplies them,
then that's great, but it's not up to you. It
it really is a it really is a game changer.
(16:33):
And so that's been my life and I hope that
I continue to maintain that regardless of the level of
success or the level of criticism downs.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
What is the reception you've gotten from God and your wife?
You said that's the only audience of the matters.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Well, I'll know for sure from God when I when
I pass away, and I hope that when I face him,
I I I get a I get a well done,
good and faithful service for servant, and not a what
were you thinking that? Or you know, hopefully it's like
you did really well. There was that one moment in
episode four of season five where I don't know where
you got that, but uh, but so far it seems
(17:09):
to be going fairly well. The response around the world
seems to indicate that that people aren't just replacing the
Bible with my show, which would be a problem. It
seems to be drawing more people towards learning more about
who Jesus was, uh, which which is of course the
biggest success I think from you know my wife, of course,
she's gone through this with me. I'll say this, from
(17:31):
from the moment we started doing this show, it's probably
been the hardest eight years of our lives ever. You
know that, from medical crises to to to family issues,
all of those things. Our family has gotten closer to
closer than ever, but a lot of it's trauma bonding.
It's just been a you know, it's just been the
hardest thing we've ever done. It's brought in lots of challenges,
lots of criticism, of course, but it's also brought in
(17:52):
lots of beauty and uh and and all over the
world and every you know, just just you know. A
couple of weeks ago, we broke our own Guinness Book
of World records for the most translated show in history,
right over one hundred and twenty six languages. This show
has been translated into and it plays in every country
in the world. So those are the kinds of things
where you go, it seems like God is pleased, my
(18:15):
wife is pleased. Everything else is gravy.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
You said, it's not supposed to replace. Obviously it's to
replace the Bible. But do you find this is for
some and maybe even a culture that has an attention
span of a net. Do you find that maybe this
is would you recommend this as a more for some
digestible Bible to a certain degree.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Well, I definitely wouldn't call it a Bible. I make
it very clear, I'm not God. Jonathan Rumy who pleads
Jesus is not Jesus and the Chosen is not the Bible.
And the folks who will say you're not supposed to
add to the Bible, you guys are doing something wrong.
I've got very good news. If you go to your
local store and you pull out a Bible and you
open it up, you're not going to find some of
(19:00):
the characters from our show that we've added to the story.
The Bible has not been changed. The Bible has not
been attitude not been added to. We're not the Bible. Now.
When you talk about digestible, I would put it this way.
I would say that the Bible, for sorry, our show,
for many people, has cracked a code that has allowed
(19:21):
them to see the Bible, the actual Bible more clearly.
There's a lot of people who've read the stories and
they just haven't been able to see it, haven't been
able to fully understand it, because so many of these
stories are kind of out of context. So for some
people that's why they read a book where they go
to a church near a sermon, or they listen to
music where it can provide some context, provide a spotlight
(19:43):
on some of the parts of Scripture that maybe they
haven't fully understood or connected with. So I don't think
I would say that the Chosen is a digestible Bible.
I would say that the Chosen makes the Bible more digestible,
maybe more more understandable to them in a way that
may they hadn't before. But we've not heard from pretty
much anybody who says, well, because of the Chosen, now
(20:05):
I don't have to read my Bible because I've got
the Chosen. I think that would be a problem, at
least for me. Unfortunately we're not hearing that.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I'm curious for you personally, has your faith your perspective
on religion changed at all by doing this series? How
have you grown or evolved as a Christian producing this?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Yeah. I mean when you're telling a story about Jesus
and you're tasked with what is now probably considered kind
of the definitive media account of the story of Jesus,
you should know who he is, you should understand it, right,
and so over the last eight years, I mean I've
been I've been in Christian circles and schools and my
(20:55):
family my whole life. I would say the thing that
has really changed the most for me is the realization
when you read scripture of the intimacy of Jesus. Jesus
was an intimate god. I think we sometimes see him
as like preaching to the masses, and a lot of
times in visual depictions, he's very pious. He's he's got
(21:18):
almost got a halo around him, and he's he's very formal,
and he's he's giving these truth bombs that that are
for everybody, which which I think there's there's truth to
that in some ways. But in the Gospels, you the
overwhelming majority of encounters that he has with people are
very personal, and whether he's healing you, rebuking you, or
(21:38):
calling you to follow him, Uh, it's always specific to
your heart need, right, It's it's so many stories in
the Gospels are him speaking specifically to the to the
needs or to the to the to the experience of
the person he's talking to. And so that for me
has been a real game changer. Is I think I've
always known that but not really experience. It is just
(22:01):
how personal and intimate of a god Jesus is, and
I think that's different from a lot of other portrayals
depictions understandings of who Jesus is. And I think that's
been key for a lot of people watching the show,
is that they've they're like, I felt like Jesus was
speaking to me. I felt like he was, you know,
he was addressing my questions or my struggles or my doubts.
(22:21):
And I think by telling the story through the eyes
of those who met him, including his detractors, I think
that's been a key factor in allowing the viewer to
see Jesus in that way as opposed to just this
distant figure. Right. I think that's a key thing, and
a religious figure, right, I think I think there's a
big difference between religion and relationship. I wouldn't consider myself
(22:43):
actually very religious. I've always seen religion is man's attempts
to reach God, you know, humankind's attempts to reach God.
And I think I think my faith is about God's
attempts to reach man, to preach humanity. And I think
that's I think that's a key part of the show too.
Jesus came and he's pursuing you, as opposed to you
trying to pursue him, and hope you achieved some level
(23:03):
of connection that if you just work hard enough, and
you just do enough good, you'll get there. That's not
how I see it, and I think that's been helpful
through the in my own personal life as well.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Dallas, how difficult was it to cast Jesus?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
So here's what's an interesting story that I'll tell quickly.
Is I actually cast Jonathan Rumy well before the show.
So over ten years ago, I was doing a short
film for my church or Good Friday services. I'd come
up with this idea of telling the story of the
two Thieves on the Cross. I'd heard a sermon from
(23:41):
someone who in Louisville's name is Kyle Eidelman. I was
visiting this church and he was talking about how in
the Gospels, in the story of the two thieves on
the Cross, one of them goes from mocking Jesus to
believing in him and wanting to be with him in
Paradise within like three verses. And so he's like, what
and in those hours that they were on the cross
(24:02):
that the Gospels don't really share where he goes from
mocking him to believing in him. And I just thought, Wow,
that's really fascinating, you know. So I made this short
film my co writer, and I wrote this short film
about what the two thieves on the cross might have
experienced before they got there. So Jesus shows up in
the short film in the last five minutes. So I'm
casting for this short film. And because Jesus is the
(24:24):
is not the main character of the short until the
last five minutes, all the people who were auditioning, all
the best actors were auditioning for the two thieves, and
the people who are auditioning for Jesus were just awful.
And so I cast the two thieves and I'm like,
I need I need someone to play Jesus who's halfway decent.
And so Jonathan Rumy had had auditioned for one of
the thieves, and I said, I'd like to see him
(24:44):
play Jesus. He's got a really cool quality to him,
let's see. And so within ten seconds of his audition
for Jesus, I saw what so many people have seen
from watching this show. I'm like, oh my gosh, this
guy is extraordinary. And so then when we film this
short film in a rock in Elgin, Illinois, uh his performance.
He shows up for the last five minutes and I'm like,
(25:06):
while I'm directing him, I'm like, this guy captures the
like both the masculinity and the gentleness right that the
that there's there's a you know, so many portrayals or
one or the other. It's either he's he's a hippie
or he's this distant figure or you know, he kind
of fits into one one one kind of personality trait.
(25:26):
And Jonathan's portrayal and I think, which fits with our writing,
kind of captures the wide spectrum of Jesus's personhood. And so, uh,
then we started doing a couple more short films than
yettes every year, and so it was like training ground
in many ways. And uh, and then when it came
time to that we had the opportunity to do this show.
(25:47):
I reached out to him like, hey, you want to
put the sandals back on? We got it. We got
an opportunity to do this on a on a bigger scale.
We've been We've been funded through through crowdfunding for four episodes.
Let's see how this goes. And so I think his
portrayal is you know, just objectively speaking as a as
a viewer myself, is is a is a game changer.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Dallas, did you really say to him you want to
put the sandals back.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
I did, I did. He will very that's his story
as well.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Oh my goodness that I love that showed up to
be a thief.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
You're Jesus.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
You're Jesus, and you're going to stay Jesus for several seasons. Now,
I'm curious, Dallas, in a world where we have become
more secular, where there are obviously so many different competing religions,
and you've got these big streaming services choosing what type
of edgy programming they want to bring their their viewers
(26:43):
and their audience. Was it hard getting Prime Video, Amazon
Prime to sign up for this? Like? How did you
get something that was a passion project up to actually
be seen on such a huge streaming service and have
obviously the success it's had. But I'm curious what the
process was like. Was was it David versus Goliath?
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Or was this something that actually made sense to big
media giants?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
It was nice?
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Yeah you like what I did there?
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah, that's very nice. So when it first started, nobody,
I mean, look, I'm coming off a career failure. No
one's lining up around the block to do a Jesus show.
The idea came to me while I was doing another
short film for my church's Christmas Eve service. So this
comes after my big failure. I don't think. I don't
know if I'm ever going to make another movie. But
(27:31):
I did have this script that I had written with
my co writer a year and a half previously, about
the short film about the Birth of Christ from the
perspective of the shepherds, and so we kind of pulled
that off the shelf figuratively, and I went to my
church again, I'm like, what do you guys think of
something like this? They think it's a great idea. So
on my friend's farm in Illinois, twenty minutes from my house,
(27:51):
we filmed this short film about the birth of Christ.
And while I'm making it is when I came up
with the idea for this show. I was binge watching
the wire at the time, the HBO's show from years back,
The WHI, which is an extraordinary show, not a very
Jesus he show. They say the word Jesus a lot,
but not in a respectful way. And so I'm watching it,
(28:11):
I'm going, this is really fascinating. There's never been a
multi season show about Jesus before. There's been movies There's
been mini series, but never a show where you can,
you know, follow these characters from episode to episode, season
to season. And The Wire has this really unique approach.
You see the people on the streets, you see the criminals,
you see the cops, you see the mayor's office, you
see the press from all these different angles. I thought
(28:37):
that'd be cool to tell a story from the perspective
of the followers of Christ, but also the enemies people
in the Roman you know, the Romans, the Pharisees, the
religious leaders. So, like I said, there's no one lining
her up around the block to do that, and I'm
coming off a career failure. Well, that short film was
used as a became essentially a pilot episode. We put
(28:57):
it on social media and did crowdfund because I knew
no one, no studio was going to fund this, and
so we gets crowdfunded and I'm thinking, this isn't going
to work. It was an idea from another small streaming
platform at the time, Angel Studios. They had the idea
for this, and I thought, this isn't going to work.
You know, it's an eighteen minute short film and the
all time crowdfunding record was five and a half million
(29:19):
dollars from projects that had huge fan bases already, I
had no fan base but five loaves, two fish. I'm
not worried about the results. We'll see what happens. Well.
Fast forward a few months later, ten million dollars comes
in from sixteen thousand people all over the world based
on this little short film that I did on my
friend's farm, shattering the all time crowdfunding record, giving us
(29:41):
the opportunity to do season one. So we just did
it own, on our own right then we put it
out there and no one shows up at first, and
we had a hard time getting viewers. And finally when
covid hit and we decided to do eight episodes, you know,
one at a time on YouTube live streams, and I
just said, look, we're just going to give it to
you for free for a few weeks. It's covid. You know,
(30:03):
we're all scared. Let's just watch this show for free.
And here's the thing. If you if you love this show,
and if you want us to keep going, you know
you can you can give in this way, but it's
free for now. A couple of nights into it, we
had quadrupled our income, and I just said my wife
and I just said, you know what, we just need
to make this show free forever, and we'll just trust
the outcome. So we decided to make the show free.
(30:26):
It explodes, that's when it's that was kind of the
first tipping point. So that's when Prime and and all
of the platforms they start to see it. And at
each company, in this case at Prime Video, there's a
woman named Tracy Blackwell who had just joined the Amazon
and they had said to her, you know what, you know,
what are you What are some of your ideas and
(30:46):
you have any big ideas? And she's like, the chosen
you had got to see this show. We have got
to get this show. So eventually all the platforms, all
the bit you know, the major streamers, we had seen
the audience we'd built, seen the success of the show.
So uh no, it was not David and Goliath by
the time they came to us saying we want to
I mean, by by that point, it was an easy conversation. Yes,
(31:11):
so uh and and that's I don't even say that
as a criticism. I mean, you know, I'm a nobody
that there's no reason to pursue a show like mine.
But by the time that the streamers were interested. We
had had, you know, over one hundred million viewers and
and the show now Tracy at Amazon, she had seen
it from the beginning. She knew this was going to
(31:32):
be big, but but it was. It was a very
easy conversation after after that point.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Not a David versus Glide ended up being Goliath versus Goliath. Yes,
you build it. That's actually yeah, if you build it,
they will come.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I want to ask.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Rose and I when we were in our ABC days,
we used to do a segment every week called Faith Friday,
and we loved it and without question, Rose, I'm not
overstating here, it was our favorite segment every We brought
on faith leaders every single week, all different denominations and
just ask them about what's going on in the world
and to just give words of encouragement to our viewers
(32:10):
on a frighting when it's always a difficult time, difficult week.
And I'm kind of asking you and putting you in
that position. I know you're not a pastor and you're
not here to convert anybody, but you're someone who is
very steeped in faith in what you do, and you're
a believer, and so I would just ask you if
you can for a moment. I know you've thought about
what's going on in the world, from what we're seeing,
(32:31):
at the difficult everybody's having, Just could you pass along
just from whatever is in you and in your heart,
from what you know, just words of encouragement in times
that are so difficult. And I know it's for you
to tell people to turn to God, but maybe turn
to God, and maybe not just I'm always curious to
talk to We are always curious and to hear from
folks who are that steeped in faith, to just give
(32:53):
some words or encouragement at a time that can be
discouraging for us.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
All absolutely going through now tribalism, whether it's all over
the world or even here in the United States. We're
conditioned right now to find ourselves into these insular tribes,
and we're conditioned now to immediately, if not hate, strongly
(33:20):
distrust and dislike anyone who's not in our tribe. And
that has created in ourselves an inherent dislike or distrust
of others, but it's also created a dislike or distrust
towards us. There's a lot of people who I don't
who I know would prefer not to just be in
in some tribe where they're only friends or family are
(33:43):
the people who agree with them, because for a lot
of people, they don't have a lot of friends or family,
and so times like this are extraordinarily challenging, they're confusing. Well,
two thousand years ago, it was the exact same situation.
People were divided into tribes. There was a lot of hatred,
there was a lot of oppression, and Jesus came in
(34:04):
the midst of all of that, and he came to
a group of people who were like, Okay, great, now
you're here, the Messiah's here. We're going to conquer our oppressors.
We're going to defeat our enemies. We're going to win right,
and we're gonna instead of being oppressed, we're now going
to be able to dominate. We're going to be able
to have the victory and freedom and all of that.
(34:26):
And he said, yeah, no, actually, that's not why I'm here.
You actually will probably still suffer. In fact, because of
following me, you might suffer even more than others. You're
going to be persecuted, there will be wars, there will
be persecution. That's always going to be here. At one
point he even said, there will always be the poor.
So he talked about that until he comes back, until
(34:49):
we're you know, on this side of heaven, on this
side of eternity, there will be suffering. And so he said,
I'm here for your hearts. I'm here for you to
actually love your enemies, be kind to those who who
persecute you, turn the other cheek. There is a way
of responding to what we're going through that, on the surface,
(35:12):
makes no sense. That seems to be in contrast to
how we would typically choose to be. We want to win,
we want to get revenge. And I think a good
question to ask all of us is how's that working out? Right?
It's not working very well. It hasn't been working for
thousands and thousands of years, And so I would encourage you,
whether you're a believer or not, the teachings of Jesus
(35:35):
might actually be the only answer. They might be the
only way because winning, overcoming, defeating is you know, fighting
is just doesn't seem to be working very well. And
even when people finally do win and they do get
the power, they always tend to screw it up. They
always tend to be impacted in some way by their
(36:00):
own flesh, by their own ego, and so service to others,
love of even your enemies might just be the answer
that that might conflict with our own egos and flesh,
but it is a it is a game changer, I believe,
and I think that the story from two thousand years
(36:20):
ago might be the answer to the story today.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
That's beautiful. That's beautiful, Jenkins. You might if the producing
thing doesn't work out, I could see you in a
pulpit one day, one day soon.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
So well, fortunately for for for people in the congregants,
the producing thing is working out. I'm not going to
be in the pulpit any.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
We want to wish you all. I know that you
don't want to take the personal congratulations for the success
of the show, but certainly you are telling a story
in a way that has resonated with people around the world.
Your bringing a story to them that maybe they're seeing
for the first time, or they're seeing from a much
more relatable perspective. So, Dallas Jenkins, thank you. So it
(37:09):
was such an honor to get to talk with you,
to get to meet you and to hear and see
what you're doing and how you're changing the world for good.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
We need more.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Thank you so much more well, and I appreciate and
I appreciate you amplifying those voices for good as well.
It really means a lot. I appreciate you guys having
on your show. Thank you.
Hosts And Creators
Amy Robach
T.J. Holmes
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