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On Monday, the Vatican had a Hollywood feel to it. The crew of the hit American series The Chosen was invited with great fanfare to the tiny state to present Episode 4 of its fifth season, with a press conference followed by a screening at the Filmoteca Vaticana. For the occasion, the series' creator Dallas Jenkins was accompanied by the actor who plays Jesus, Jonathan Roumie, as well as Elizabeth Tabish (Mary Magdalene), George Xanthis (the apostle John), and Vanessa Benavente (Mary).
The episode they presented is that of the Last Supper, Christ's last meal with his disciples. As they spoke, the actors seemed to find it difficult to return to this episode, which they filmed a year ago.
This is all the more so as they have just finished filming Season 6, which will recount the Passion of Christ, and therefore his crucifixion. The three-week shoot took place not in Texas, as in previous seasons, but in the “city of stone” of Matera in southern Italy. This is where Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004), Francesco Rosi's Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979), and Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) were filmed.
A grueling shoot
“Those three weeks in Matera have been the most challenging and difficult we had in filming,” says director Dallas Jenkins.
He explains that everyone on his film crew truly “lived” the biblical episode. Jenkins emphasizes how filming outdoors, in an atmosphere heavy with spices, added authenticity and emotional depth to the scenes at Golgotha.
So much so that they often found themselves overcome with emotion at the end of the Way of the Cross. “Not all the tears were played out,” he adds. A video released by The Chosen's communications team attests to the genuine emotion of some of the actors at the end of filming.
“I think it was particularly brutal for me, for all of us,” says Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus.
He considers Season 6 to be both emotionally and physically “more difficult” than other seasons of the series, which launched in 2017.
“It's still difficult for all of us to talk about it,” he says. He explains that he had long put off the prospect of filming it in order to remain immersed in “the ordinary life of Jesus among his friends.”
Many of his co-stars are still in shock, including Elizabeth Tabish (Mary Magdalene), who says she is “overwhelmed” by her friend Jonathan Roumie's portrayal of Jesus' suffering.
“It's a film shoot, of course,” she emphasizes. But she explains that she and the other actors have “identified” so strongly with their roles over the past several years that Jesus' death was experienced by all as a real “personal struggle,” but also as true “spiritual time.”
