Jonathan Roumie says filming Jesus crucifixion changed his faith journey

Actor Jonathan Roumie opened up about the grueling process of filming the crucifixion for Season 6 of “The Chosen,” at this year’s ChosenCon, revealing how stepping into the footsteps of Jesus during his final hours has left a permanent mark on his life and faith.

“It was a one-of-a-kind experience,” Roumie told Fox News Digital at the fan event in Charlotte, North Carolina this month. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life — both professionally and personally as a human being.”

Roumie, who portrays Jesus in the hit faith-based drama, depicted the events of Palm Sunday and Holy Week in Season 5, released last year. The highly anticipated Season 6, which will be released in the fall, centers on the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Christ as depicted in the Gospels. 

For Roumie, a devout Catholic, portraying these moments took a heavy physical, emotional and spiritual toll.

To prepare for the role, he said he asked God to let him experience just a hint of what Jesus experienced on the cross to authentically bring the pages of the Bible to life.

“I spent a lot of time asking the Lord to show me what he wanted people to see and what he wanted them to experience and if it was at all possible for me to try to experience a fraction of a fraction of what he went through,” Roumie said. “I was willing to offer myself in that way, and he gave me some really challenging experiences on set, physically and emotionally.”

On the first day of filming, Roumie suffered a painful shoulder injury after a fall.

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“Oh, that’s the shoulder I’m going to be carrying the cross on. Okay, you got my message,” Roumie quipped during a conversation with Fr. Mike Schmitz at ChosenCon.

Another scene resulted in a head injury that left “cervical issues” for months afterward, he said.

Roumie explained how he offered up this pain to God and prayed it would touch others and be used for God’s glory.

“I can act less … and offer all the pain and the sufferings,” Roumie told Schmitz. “What we do is bring it to the altar of sacrifice and say, ‘Lord, if you can use this for souls … I offer this pain and suffering … My goal throughout that was to offer that for the benefit of souls and people that are suffering and by that happening, it can be sanctified and used for God’s glory.”

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The intensity of the production extended beyond Roumie himself. He described the entire cast as becoming “trauma-bonded” through the emotional weight of the crucifixion scenes, noting that the experience felt akin to “PTSD.”

“It continues to affect me in ways that I did not anticipate,” he admitted.

Roumie, who is currently partnering with actors Mark Wahlberg and Chris Pratt for the Hallow prayer app’s Lent challenge, told Fox News Digital that this Easter feels different than any before it after filming the Passion.

“I think there’s a lot more of Christ’s experience in my own consciousness than I now bring into the season,” he reflected. “It’s probably going to be an intense Holy Week for me … the first Holy Week that I will have experienced since recreating the Passion. That was a deeply intense experience for me, one which I’m still processing … everything that I experience and go through, I offer to the Lord.”

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Despite the darkness of the scenes he filmed, Roumie’s ultimate goal is to point viewers toward the character of God. 

He told Fox News Digital that he wants people to walk away from his portrayal knowing that Jesus is not disinterested in their lives but loves them deeply and wants a relationship with them.

“He is accessible to people, that everything he went through, he went through on behalf of all of humanity, and that ultimately he is love at its core and forgiveness and mercy and compassion,” Roumie said. “So I think if people have this idea of him as this, solely as this judge or this, you know, dispassionate God, it’s completely wrong. It’s the inverse of that. He’s nothing but love and compassion, and he’s worth getting to know because your life will only be better by knowing him deeply.”

Roumie’s passion for the role is rooted in a personal “rock bottom” moment that occurred just months before he was cast. Before “The Chosen,” the actor was struggling to find work, facing a negative balance in his checking account and a life spiraling into chaos.

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Things turned around once he surrendered his struggles to God.

“I got on my knees, and I prayed,” Roumie told Fox News Digital in 2024. “I said, ‘Look, God, I give everything to you. If you want this to work, you’re going to have to help me figure out a way to survive, to find food for tomorrow. And I’m not going to worry about it anymore.'”

He describes this as the moment he finally stopped trying to control his own destiny. 

“The point was that I committed to not having control over it anymore,” he explained. “And when I did that, I think that’s the thing that changed for me. My life, from that moment, has never been the same.”

About three months after this act of surrender to God, Roumie was cast as Jesus Christ in a role that has reached at least 250 million viewers worldwide.

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Fox News’ Alba Cuebas-Fantauzzi and Christine Rousselle contributed to this report.

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