Subscribe to Lemonada Premium for Bonus Content

Jonathan Roumie is a genuinely charismatic individual, which is understandable given his acclaimed portrayal of Jesus in the immensely popular Christian historical drama The Chosen. However, long before embodying arguably the most significant main character in history, Jonathan was, to borrow the familiar lyric, “just a slob like one of us.” He spent time drumming in bands, working as a location scout, and taking on voice-acting roles, navigating the balance between his divine creative calling and the practical necessity of paying the bills. We discuss the moment that he gave up and turned to God for the answers, sending him down a path where he’s become more than just Christ-like — he’s often confused for the real thing.

Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Stay up to date with Lemonada on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.

Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

David Duchovny, Jonathan Roumie

David Duchovny  00:06

I’m David Duchovny, and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Jonathan Roumie, is an actor, producer and storyteller, and if you know him, it’s probably from his portrayal of Jesus Christ and the hit TV series The Chosen, I say if you know him, because this series has been massively successful worldwide, though not because of a major streamer and the reach of its marketing. The chosen was crowd funded, eventually to the tune of $100 million in donations, and it’s reportedly been viewed by almost 300 million people worldwide, yet you may have never heard of it as a fairly secular person. Myself, I found out about the show four seasons in through an article in The New York Times. I became really curious about Jonathan, who has been steeped in the ideas of faith, miracles and a higher power throughout the production and promotion of the show, and it turns out that his own journey to becoming an actor felt a bit like a miracle itself. After many, many failed attempts to make it work, I had lots of questions for Jonathan. I’m a big fan of Jesus movies. Last Temptation Jesus Montreal, and in the light of the new season of the chosen I sat down with him to talk about the meaning behind his work, his own outlook and perspectives and the role of faith in the modern world. Here’s that conversation.

 

David Duchovny  01:36

Hey, good morning.

 

Jonathan Roumie  01:37

Good morning, David.

 

David Duchovny  01:38

Nice to meet you. Sorry I’m late. Lovely to meet you.

 

Jonathan Roumie  01:40

No worries at all.

 

David Duchovny  01:41

No, it’s terrible. I it’s, I’m in my house.

 

Jonathan Roumie  01:49

You know, I tend to just generally jam a whole bunch of stuff in, and I’m convinced that I, I’ve given myself more than enough time to get from A to B, yeah, but you haven’t, but then, if I share that schedule with somebody, like, what are you thinking? That’s No, no, like, you’re not building in any time for, like, breathing, you know, I’m like, well, no, if you just, you just butt it up right now, I can. I can. No, I can’t. Okay, so my sense of time, I think, sometimes, is occasionally a little adrift.

 

David Duchovny  02:22

Yeah, for me, you know that would always come into play. I like being early. I just do but it would always come into play when I was in the if I’ve ever been in the middle of a long running job, I would start to take my little pockets of time to myself. And it was completely unrealistic approach to time like you, because I would leave at the time when I was supposed to be on set and things like that. And it only, it only took me one time to be a director to cure me of ever being late on set again. It was totally screws up everything. Screws everything, but you know what’s interesting? I think we have a lot in common, just superficially biographically. You know, you grew up in the city in the in the 70s. Is that right?

 

Jonathan Roumie  03:09

Yeah, I was born in Hell’s Kitchen and and we lived in Woodside Queens, and I lived there till I was old enough probably to start school. And then went, we went to the suburbs of Long Island. So, um, yeah, it was the East Village, yeah.

 

David Duchovny  03:27

I grew up in the East Village.  Hell’s Kitchen is such a, such an interesting, uh, phrase.

 

Jonathan Roumie  03:33

Yeah, Clinton Hill, or whatever they’re calling it. Now I’m just like, no.

 

David Duchovny  03:39

Yeah, it’s not now it’s it’s more like Hell’s foyer, because it’s a little classy. It’s like Hell’s waiting room, Hell’s Hell’s drawing room. So you’re a kid, you’re kind of, you’re born in New York, but you’re growing up in Queens and Long Island. I kind of know what that’s like at that at that point, but at some point you decide I’m going to be a performer of some kind, is that it I’m going to be an actor. I’m going to be.

 

Jonathan Roumie  04:05

I think I had a secret desire, you know, but it was secret voice actor. Yeah, I never, I had dalliances or delusions of performing, you know, and channeling that through drama club in junior high school, I think, in eighth grade and then in high school, but I was so shy and timid that, you know, I never, I wouldn’t ever think. I wouldn’t have ever thought at the time, and I would never approach the idea of auditioning for, like, lead roles. It was like little bit parts, you know, cameos, comic relief, you know, those were the kinds of parts that I got. I think in my my senior year, I actually auditioned. We did the sound of music, and I think I auditioned for one of the supporting leads. For, I think it was Rolf was the character, and he sings, I think Edelweiss, I think it was one of the characters, anyway. And, you know, I when I remember going up to like, you know, singing, and it’s like, Jonathan, we can’t hear you little louder. Okay. Thank you very much, let’s work. Move on to the text. And, okay, yeah, and I ended up getting a very small part where it was literally, like the the in when they have the contest at the end of the show. And then the Von Trapp family, they won the contest, but they disappeared, and they’ve escaped. I was like, the runner up when I came out. I ran out on stage, and later Hosen and cowbells, and it was to the roar of the crowd. I was I felt like, okay, that’s, this is good for me. That was. And then I went to film school, and then I went to film school, and I thought, let me work behind the camera. I want to get into special effects. And because I had a visual arts background, I drew. I was pretty good at drawing and painting.

 

David Duchovny  06:10

But isn’t Isn’t it amazing how present that memory is to you? I can see it on your face as you talk about it. It was, it’s such a formative moment in one’s life. I’m sure you could unpack detail after detail after detail that may have been added later. Who knows, but it’s something that’s lived in your mind, the freshness. But what’s interesting is, you know, you describe yourself as very shy, and your your audition, you know was somewhat shy as well, and yet, there was some other part of you that was pushing forward and with a kind of a need, or a kind of a joy or something, because we talk about failure a lot on the podcast, in that moment, of like, oh, I’m really, I’m screwing this audition basically. I mean, you would have known, you know what, what’s the intent.

 

Jonathan Roumie  06:59

Going in? I’m like, No way this is happening.

 

David Duchovny  07:01

Right? So it’s such an interesting kind of a state of mind to go into an endeavor and also to persevere through it. And I wonder where, aside from this knowingness that you’re in the right place, also the sense of resilience in the face of not great feedback, you know, nobody’s saying, Hey, Jonathan, you were made for this. Keep going, my friend, it’s not going to work out this time, but it’s going to work out, you know. So where did that come from?

 

Jonathan Roumie  07:35

You know? I think, I think part of it was, was knowing that I was, that I had some sort of artistic talent, that I had been given these artistic gifts in my life, and that somehow I was meant to use them. I didn’t know how exactly or when or where. I didn’t think it would be acting. I thought of anything. It would either be music or art, because I was very, very present and bold and, you know, confident in those abilities, and those abilities kind of gave me social currency as a child and as a teenager, performing didn’t, But I knew there was something in there that was was creative, and that I would have to find a job that allowed me to do that, because if not, I would die inside for every day that I spent doing something else. The thing about art school that they don’t really prepare you for is a job like a practical job while you’re trying to do the thing that you’ve trained for the last four years, and whether it’s filmmaking, whether it’s acting, like, what do you do just to make ends meet while you’re trying to do the thing that you feel called to? So I got a job with a buddy of mine, this credit card company through a bank, and he’s like, hey,  it’s a just try it out. And so I interviewed, great. I killed the interview of the job, and they’re like, well, we need a three month commitment. I said, great, yeah, sure, whatever you need, you know, and it’s eight weeks of training. Okay, start sign me up the third day into this eight hour day, yeah? Training week. Day Three. I called in sick and I went to Lollapalooza because I couldn’t stand it. Yeah, I just and then day four, I called up and I said,  I can’t come in. I’m not. This isn’t for me. They’re like, well, you but you gave us a three month commitment. I said, I know I did, but trust me, it’s better for the both of us if I don’t show up tomorrow, so if you could just send me my my check, right? That’ll be you trust me on this. That’s going to be the best decision for everybody. And they did. And then I went about calling all my friends from film school and saying, Do you have you worked on the set? Is there anything going and then I I got my first pa job, a couple of person assistant job, couple months later. For a month later, and that started my my career behind the scenes.

 

David Duchovny  10:04

Well, also, I mean, I think that pa jobs are a great kind of training ground for for any, any job on set. Oh, yeah, even as an actor, I remember Bill Hader came up to me and told me he was a PA on The X Files. And, of course, you know, I didn’t remember, but kidding. And all I said was, was I okay to you? So, wow, but, but you seem to have this kind of inner, inner directedness. You know that that that was carrying you through these moments of, let’s say not support. What I find interesting about your journey, too. Is that okay? Well, first of all, you’re a drummer, right? Is that what you Yeah, which? Which kind of makes sense, because I’ve always wondered why so many drummers look like Jesus. You know, it’s always been.

 

Jonathan Roumie  10:57

I don’t know if I’ve ever noticed that, but you know, maybe you’re right.

 

David Duchovny  11:02

More like more than the rest of the guys.

 

Jonathan Roumie  11:05

Yeah, not John Von. He was sort of a husky English Jesus. I guess I could say.

 

David Duchovny  11:12

I just made a long hair and a beard. Usually, they’re most unkempt of the of the quartets, usually but.

 

Jonathan Roumie  11:21

Well, when I was playing, I wasn’t. I was clean shaven, short hair for the most part, yeah. And then I let my hair really grow for the first time, as I went through college, as you do, and really, oh, this is new. And and I after that, I cut it a bit, and was in a band after that. But during college, I started playing a bit more with other people, and while I had long hair, but for the most part, most of my life, I’ve had, you know, with the exception of the last 10 years, I’ve been clean shaven with short hair.

 

David Duchovny  11:54

What kind of music did you play?

 

Jonathan Roumie  11:56

I played well. I played with a mostly with a singer songwriter from who’s in Long Island, named Joe tizio. I started, you know, we became friends, and I started playing percussion at coffee shops with him, and then that led to doing bigger things. And we ended up cutting a record, and thought I was going to go on tour and like, okay, I guess I’m going to be a drummer, you know, that’s where I’m gonna, you know, really find my artistic fulfillment. And after we we released the record, it was in like, Tower Records, and the whole thing, the company that released it went bankrupt and couldn’t fund a tour. And Joe this, this was like, Joe was already about 10 years older than me at the time, and this was his second sort of foray from what I remember, into the idea of becoming a singer songwriter as a living but he also had a son and family, you know, family to provide for and and he was like, that’s it for me, Johnny, I took my shot. I’m done. I’m like, oh, okay, well, I guess I’ll focus back on film industry. And I was, you know, working as a location scout at the time, so, ah, I just focused on that, and then ascended in in that ladder. So that was kind of another.

 

David Duchovny  13:14

Hey, man, a good location scout is a ace in the hole, my man. That is, yeah, nobody knows about that. Yeah, they’re like, yeah, good locations in the industry are spoken about, like, like, these kind of mystical, magical beings, you know, like, you’re like, where did he find this exactly?

 

Jonathan Roumie  13:35

I had a few choice moments in my career which were really, really fun. But ultimately, as I started going up that ladder and becoming an assistant location manager and location manager on some smaller stuff, it got more about negotiations and, you know, doing the deal and letting the scouts do the fun, creative stuff. And, you know, running around rooftops like I did for the first two Sam Raimi Spider Man films back in the day, and I Am Legend in real giant films that were really, really cool to work on. And so I recognized at one point, it’s combination of things between my growing kind of disheartening about the lack of creative input that I had on the day to day with that job, to a conversation I had when I was an assistant location manager for Alec Baldwin on his first directorial debut with Anthony Hopkins, I had it became clear to me that I had to do some I had To go back to the creative well and within me to to pursue, I think what in my mind and my heart was, was, you know, part of a God given gift to just be an artist. And so.

 

David Duchovny  14:53

We were, how old are you at that point? How old are you now?

 

Jonathan Roumie  14:57

So this would be, I. I would have been like 27 right? Yeah. And I had so we were working on this movie that Alec directed, and we had a break, and Anthony, I met Anthony Hopkins. We kind of connected at the craft service table, you know, getting some snacks or whatever. And I’d met him, I think, at the beginning of the film. This was midway during shooting, and he he recognized me, but didn’t remember exactly what I did, because we didn’t have that kind of interaction. He’s like, what’s your name? And I said, Jonathan, I’m the assistant location manager. He said, Oh yes, that’s right. And how do you like that? I say, It’s okay, you know, it’s good. And I just been starting into, do you know, I just started working as a voice actor, like, a couple of years prior. My first job was with MTV for a show called celebrity death match, doing the voice.

 

David Duchovny  15:57

I was on Russians. I believe I won it. I think I was on.

 

Jonathan Roumie  16:00

That’s right, yes. And so I was really getting, you know, as I started to get work and build confidence as even a voice actor, I thought, I think I can do this.

 

David Duchovny  16:12

And such an important moment, you know, for people to hear is when, yeah, just that, I think I can do this. Just that little line in your head when you work with people that you respect, people that are doing it, and you see that they’re not magicians, they’re human beings. The work they’re doing may be great, but it’s still within the realm of your possibility.

 

Jonathan Roumie  16:34

That’s right. And so and so he asked me how I like and I said, it’s, you know, it’s good, it’s okay, but I think I need to be doing something more creative. And he’s like, I really like what? And I said, Well, I’ve been doing some voice acting, and I think I’d be a good actor. And he said, well, it’s not as easy as it looks, you know? And I said, I totally respect that. I get that. But I said, let me ask you a question. When you were first starting out, wasn’t there a moment where you thought to yourself, oh, I can do this. I could be good at this. He said, yes. I said, okay, well, then what’s the difference between where you were then and where I am now? He kind of turned his head, and then he looked at me, said, I suppose you’re right. Good luck, dear boy. And, and that was kind of like this permission. All of a sudden, I’m like, yeah, well, Anthony Hopkins made it very clear that there isn’t anything so mystifying that, right? Somebody can’t just go and try to do this. And I thought, Okay, well, I guess, I guess I got to pursue this now. And I really started to figure out how I could then move forward and try to make a living as an actor, which wouldn’t happen until, You know, literally as a living. 17 years later.

 

David Duchovny  18:27

If you could, like, take me through to this moment that I’ve read about where you kind of fall to the floor and say it’s not working. I don’t. I don’t know what to do. I, you know, I, I give up, or I give over, or something I really related to the story of you, you know, of how you came to play this role that you’re so ensconced in right now that’s been so successful for you. So if you could just take me to that, to that moment, like condense those 17 years of rejection and get me and get me to the point on the floor.

 

Jonathan Roumie  19:05

Sure, well, I, you know, I so I continued my upward trajectory in locations till about 2008 and I was now, anytime I’d work on a film, I had a headshot, and I’d say, Hey, I’m also an actor, if there’s any parts going and occasionally I would the great casting director, Ellen Lewis, I think, gave me my first couple of opportunities in some of the films I worked on as a scout. And my first film was prime with Brian Greenberg and Darryl Streep and Uma Thurman, and I played like a bakery counter guide Magnolia Bakery down on fourth and so I thought, okay, like this, this is happening. And so a few years later, I done some, a couple of soaps, some recurrings on some soaps. I did a law and order. I got my token law and order, which I was like, yes, okay, now I’m a real actor in New York.

 

David Duchovny  19:58

A real New York were you? A perp, or were you a victim?

 

Jonathan Roumie  20:02

I was a perp, yeah. Richie citrone, how you doing? Like, Mafia boyfriend, coke, Coke dealing. Mafia boyfriend that gets mastered by Anthony Anderson and company, and then 2008 the bottom fell out financially in the United States, and everything was just halted and reset. And I thought, You know what this is. This might be a good time to really see if I have what it takes, and go to where all the work is pretty much generated, which is LA, take my shot. And if I really have what it takes, I gotta go there. And landed in LA in 2010 and I didn’t have locations anymore. I didn’t have I was making a good living, and now I didn’t have that. And now I couldn’t I didn’t have any background in waiting tables. I’d never worked in a restaurant in my life. I tried to to apply for those jobs. The people that were getting those jobs, they had resumes in those jobs with great restaurant and so so I started doing anything I could. I drove rideshare, you know, I worked, I painted houses, I worked with kids on the spectrum, you know, I taught voiceover, like privately, I coached for auditions and all this other stuff to try to make ends meet. I finally got a job with a catering company, and then eventually, like, three catering companies and then, but, you know, did that for about eight years, and it was always, you know, hand to mouth, check to check, you know, not knowing where my next check was going to come from, trying to, you know, rely on unemployment, that whole system, and and then it got to the point, and I had booked a couple of TV shows. My first real guest stars were in Los Angeles, and so I would get a taste, and then nothing. And then another year would go by, and I might book one, maybe two guest stars in a year, if I was lucky, and nothing. And I couldn’t, I didn’t understand. I thought, well, I have great experiences working with people on sets, and that people, you know, really responding to my work. Like, I don’t get it, but I’m pretty sure this is still it. So I’m gonna keep going to the point where I got to, like, the spring of 2018 and then there was this window in early end of April, early May, where, like, I would go to try to make some money, driving car, rideshare, whatever. And I would get in the car, and then 45 minutes or an hour would go by and not a single call would come in, right? Or I was working with a buddy as a grip, and then for like, three weeks, there was nothing or the catering companies, there were no like, I would just no, nothing was happening. Like, it’s like everything strangely just dried up all at once until I was completely out of money. I woke up one morning overdraft my checking account. I had already used up my all my credit cards, paying rent, and maxed everything out. You know, I was out of food. You know, I was out of government assistance, and I literally had enough food to last the day, this one day, and I had this massive kind of moment of panic where I didn’t know what, like, what am I going to how am I going to get out of this? Yeah, and so being a man of faith, and I grew up with faith, I was baptized as a kid, I went to church, and as I got especially when I moved to LA like I really relied on my faith to kind of get me through these pivotal, tumultuous.

 

David Duchovny  23:47

When you say relied on your faith. What do you mean exactly? I hear that phrase a lot, but what does that mean to you exactly?

 

Jonathan Roumie  23:54

So I think,  having faith is essentially this relationship with God, where you you’re connected to him, you, you sort of treat him, have him as a it’s like having an invisible best friend in your life, where you share the your your wins and your losses, And ultimately, you know that everything that you have comes from God, good and bad and indifferent. The good stuff is kind of the stuff that you can celebrate and feel blessed by. And like, wow, I got this job. I’m so grateful. But then the opposite side of that is like, Well, what about the failures? Does, you know, does that come from God too? And I think, well, in a way, yes, there’s an allowance of a certain level of failure, because through that, you’re sort of tested, you know, like sword makers, right when they’re when they’re firing up. Up the metal to make swords. They’re burning out all the impurities. And the longer that they heat the metal up, and the more times that they apply pressure and heat to this sword to basically get rid of all of the impurities within it, the stronger that sword is going to be, the more the better it’s going to cut, the less likely it is to break under pressure. I think the same thing is true with the human spirit.

 

David Duchovny  25:26

Well, that’s, that’s very, that’s very much what  I’m coming at in this podcast, even though I’m more secular than you, I’m coming at you. You talk about the idea is the same celebrating? Yeah, I can totally relate to it as I relate to much of the Bible, you know, as a as wisdom literature. It doesn’t have to, for me, it doesn’t have to be, you know, we don’t have to argue over, you know, the existence of God or that kind of thing. But we can, we can agree on the fact that this Bible has survived this many years because it has a lot of wisdom in it, and people come back to it, for the parables, for the stories, because they they are teaching stories. And so what I find in this podcast is like, you talk about celebrating the victories on this podcast, I’m trying to celebrate the failures, you know, because, in fact, I have found that those you know in your words, they make us stronger. Yes, they but they also, they teach us the most. Success teaches us very little, except sometimes it teaches us centric and narcissistic and not very good things. You know success teaches. Success says to us, you know, you’re the one, you’re great, and failure just throws you on to other people, you know, like, oh, please help, help I submit, or whatever help me. So, yeah, so if you’re so, this is your moment, and you’re going, you’re basically, you’re, you’re submitting, I think is the word you use, which seems like.

 

Jonathan Roumie  26:58

Yeah, submission surrender, yeah. And it’s because of that relationship. It’s because of of activation of that that relationship, that faith, is what kind of keeps me going in those moments of failure and learning from the failure. And you’re right. I mean, failure is the greatest teacher. Success teaches you of nothing.

 

David Duchovny  27:17

Well, this is teaches you everything is so fascinating. Because I want to talk to talk to you about, you know, Jesus’s failure in many in a sense, you know, it was just fascinating to me. I mean, that’s.

 

Jonathan Roumie  27:28

I want to hear more about that. I want to hear more about that. What is the failure?

 

David Duchovny  27:33

Oh, there’s so much. Oh, fuck, sorry.

 

Jonathan Roumie  27:37

Let’s get into it. Man, I’m open to all of.

 

David Duchovny  27:40

No, I know you are. I just I don’t want to, I don’t want to zoom past stuff that I also find it. But we’ll get Okay. Jesus’s failure is this. See, I look at it. I grew up. I grew up going to a church school. I so we, we had Bible study. I’m conversant with both Testaments. And like I said, I treat it like a, like a an ancient source of human wisdom and spirituality. I don’t, I don’t practice in the way that you might practice, or that I assume you practice, or the way I hear you talking about your practice. I don’t have that relationship to God that you have personal one that you speak of. But the story of of of God and Jesus, the story in the Bible, of the sacrifice of Jesus, is something that is so heart rending and heartbreaking and so essential. And it’s, you know, the dying god is not just a Christian myth or a Christian story. It’s, it’s as old as as we are. Go back to the Greek myths, everything they’re dying and coming back to, like, the defeat of death, basically, because death is the ultimate failure. That’s what this one that we’re all gonna we’re all going to fail in the end. Yeah, and Jesus offers us victory over our ultimate failure, in that sense, at least spiritually, if not materially, in body. But when, when I break down the story, I look at it as a father son story, you know, it’s like, oh, my God. And this is something Milton talked about in paradise, lost. He could not if you read, if you read the poem, he does not really in paradise regained. Does not really write much about the crucifixion because the notion of a father sacrificing his son was too hurtful to him. He could not, he could not, he could not face it spiritually. Yeah. And so that’s what I see in when I say Jesus’s failure. I think of wonderful books like the last. Temptation of Christ, or even, and a wonderful movie where you have this hybrid being this and we can all relate to it, because we are half animal and half Angel. That’s what we are as humans, right? So we get it. We get with Jesus’ struggle, and he’s supposed to, I guess he feels when I when I think about it as a story, like I’m going to pitch you. Okay, here’s this guy. He’s born. He’s half god. He’s half human. His job is to save the human race, but he gets killed. He can’t do it. And on the cross, you know, when he says, why have you forsaken me? I’m thinking he must have felt like a failure. He must have felt like he he didn’t live up to what his dad wanted. And that’s what I’m talking about. Like, why, regardless of what my belief in God is, that story, it hits my soul, you know, because it’s the deepest father son, human story that we all know, or Mother Daughter, whatever. It doesn’t have to be male. So that’s what I talk about. I don’t talk about the failure of Jesus. I’m not trying to have an argument with you about whether he saved the world, or he’s the Messiah, or anything like that. I’m talking about the human guy in that moment, in that moment of, like, wait a minute, I was supposed to save these people, and they’re killing me, I what I do wrong, like you, what do I do? And he was 33 he’s like, Oh, what do I do? Yeah, so that’s what I talk about, the failure, what’s what I mean.

 

Jonathan Roumie  31:33

But then, but then the success that comes out of that three days later is where? Is where he wins, yeah, that’s kind of like, yeah, the comeback, right?

 

David Duchovny  31:46

It is the call it a comeback. It’s the ultimate comeback. But you know, you know, for me, as an actor and as a lover of story, which is basically what I made my life doing is telling stories from whatever, as a writer, as an actor, as a director, whatever, that’s what I’m into. There’s no better story. There’s no better IP, you know, and this, this gets into what.

 

Jonathan Roumie  32:12

The reason why they call it the greatest story. I mean every time. And it sounds like you, you’ve spent a few few minutes in, if not more like in various parts of these stories, the more you read it and reread it, like something. You know, as Christians, we say like the Bible is alive. The Word is living, right? It’s because there’s the more you read it, then the more you reread it, things will come pop out of this, of the script of the text that you didn’t see the first time you read it, or it’ll just kind of speak to you in ways that you didn’t really recognize. Is like a possibility, and it’s kind of, it’s very mystical. It’s why it survived for, two 3000 years. I mean, 2000 years of the stories of the New Testament, and then 3000 years before that. Yeah, you know. And, and there’s something that is fresh every time you open it up and applicable to your life, that that can actually aid your life, if you will, if you allow it to if, if you have the humility to say, I need help. I failed. How do I Where can I get help from? And in that moment in my own life, it was submission and surrendering and saying, God, you know what? If you put me here, if you want me to keep doing the thing I think you put me here to do to somehow have an effect on my culture, my society, my community. You got to take over, because I’ve exhausted all my resources. I’ve given as much control as I thought I was supposed to in guiding this career. But clearly I’ve failed. I’ve either done something wrong or I’ve I’ve not been doing it right. So now it’s I’m at my my end, and so I give it to you. You take care of everything I and.

 

David Duchovny  34:13

I hear that, and I appreciate it, and and when, when I when I think about moments in my life when I have done something similar, even though I haven’t given it over to God, I’ve given it over to not me. And the the instructive thing that I if we could speak on it for a minute, I don’t even know, because what you’re saying makes me realize that this is something that’s instructive to talk about, but it’s so slippery is, what’s the difference between that and just I give up passivity? You know, how does that kind of submission lead to action?

 

Jonathan Roumie  34:54

When, if, if you give up, my question then becomes. Who are you giving up to? Is it just to yourself? Are you just saying I give up? In which case? Where do you go from there? Like, what’s, what’s to stop you from giving up totally and just, you know, and I don’t know, not even giving up off the floor, right? So for me, the only thing I can do is like, understand, well, if I didn’t have that relationship, I don’t know what I would do, but because I had that relationship, I had something, someone to turn it over to, because I did everything by the book, man, you know, like I was like, No, you know, hustle, do your auditions, get your side jobs, do everything you need to do. And it wasn’t working. Like everything on paper told me each this should work, but it didn’t work. And there was no explanation why it didn’t work, because I knew I was good at it. I knew I had something there. I knew I was compelled to go to LA to try something that was deep within me as an attorney, as an artistic expression, and everything I did just didn’t work. And so I thought, well, there, there must be something I’m not doing. And the only thing I recognized in that moment of surrender that I wasn’t doing is that I wasn’t inviting the relationship that I claimed to have had in my faith. I wasn’t trusting and counting on that relationship. And if you’re a person of faith, truly a person of faith, that there is an element of trust there that is implied, and you can, you can lie to yourself and say, no, I trust, but if you’re not actually trusting, if you’re not actually walking the walk and putting your money where your mouth is, then it’s just a bunch of gas.

 

David Duchovny  36:53

But how are you now? How are you not trusting? How were you not trusting?

 

Jonathan Roumie  36:56

Because I was trying to have so much control, that was the thing. It’s like so in a relationship with God, it’s supposed to permeate every aspect of your life. And what I did, especially in my career, is I kept God and my career separate. So I would have my faith life, I’d have my church relationships, I’d have this. But when it came to the thing that I was sort of imbued with, as far as artistic gifts go, I kind of was like, hey, guy, I got this I’m gonna call this guy. I’m gonna call his casting director. I’m gonna send out this headshot. Don’t worry. I’m good.  I don’t I don’t really need the help. I’m good. Like, I didn’t even, I didn’t the two never met. I didn’t even say, I didn’t even ask for the help that I clearly needed in guidance and the wisdom that you talk about and the discernment to say, look, hey, like I need.

 

David Duchovny  37:46

Okay, I hear my sense totally hear what you’re saying. And I’ll give you my interpretation, my secular interpretation of that, when I hear that. And I’m not saying you’re wrong and I’m right at all. I’m just saying this is how i i hear I’m trying to get jobs, I’m trying to get jobs. I’m trying to make money, but I’m not really thinking, what kind of job do I want? What kind of artist do I want to be? How? How can I be authentic to myself? I’m just trying to win. But what am I trying to win? I haven’t really asked myself what I want to be. I’ve seen, oh, I want to get success, but I want to get money. But what is my heart like in those roles? Maybe it’s not. I’m just trying to make connections. I’m trying to do this. So when you say, God, I hear soul, authenticity, spirit, and I don’t disagree with you, you know.

 

Jonathan Roumie  38:39

No, I love that interpretation. I love that because I think, I think there’s truth in that. I think even if I had, even if I had thought of it in that way that you described, that would have been more helpful to me, I might have had a different it’s like I would have been even closer to the thing that I ultimately felt that I needed to do, right? But I didn’t that to me. They were, they were so far apart that I thought, Well, no, how would you know? It didn’t even occur to me, which is preposterous, especially as somebody of faith, to like, not combine the two, and when I did, when I finally said it’s I need help, like, you take it, yeah, hours later, and I’m completely broke. I experienced a financial miracle for all intents and purposes. It was literally a financial miracle that took me out of the reality of my situation and the reality of my brokenness and my brokenness, and I recognized like there was a switch that was flipped. And it was a complete aha moment that I actually when it was happening. I get back to my house after I, you know, realized I had just 20 bucks left, and I was, you know, borderline destitute, and I like overdraft, as I said, and so I go, and I spend my last 20 bucks on brunch. I come back to my house and I. Opened my mailbox and there’s four mysterious checks in the mail. And so there was a $50 check, and then which I was expecting for some reimbursement for a passion play that I did, for some makeup that I bought, or something like that. But then every other check was like these missing residual checks that just came through, all at one time hours after I just dropped my knees and surrendered you.

 

David Duchovny  40:49

I mean, I’m just really fascinated with the idea also, of of playing Jesus, you know, playing Jesus, the character. And in a way.

 

Jonathan Roumie  40:58

You did tiny Jesus. Did you do a character named tiny Jesus?

 

David Duchovny  41:02

Yes, it was animated. So I didn’t have to tell me about I didn’t, actually nobody

 

Jonathan Roumie  41:06

Gave me a tiny Jesus in my travels this last trip.

 

David Duchovny  41:08

Yeah, I think I do. I did play tiny Jesus. And I really had not remember that until you brought it up. But it’s true, and I can’t remember.

 

Jonathan Roumie  41:18

We share that.

 

David Duchovny  41:20

I played tiny Jesus. You played Jesus? Yeah, I played tiny Jesus. So I forget animated show, something duck, is it?

 

Jonathan Roumie  41:35

Yeah, it was queer duck. The move, queer duck.

 

David Duchovny  41:39

Queer duck, what’s fascinating about thinking about playing Jesus is, well, what I said to you earlier, what I find fascinating, is this push pull within the character of humanity and divinity, you know, which we can all relate to, just on a human level, you know, but also the insecurity, the sense that you don’t know everything. To me, it’s a it is the metaphor of like we get these infinite consciousnesses and we’re put in these finite bodies, and something happens where we can no longer see everything. So not not only you’re you’re dealing with all that. I don’t want to tell you your process, I’m going to ask you about your process. And also, it’s, you know, it’s like, Jonathan, you’re going to be James Bond times 10. You know? It’s like, there’s, there’s a lot of weight of previous performances and historical whatever on it. You know, there’s, it’s, you can’t go into it free and easy. I wonder, did you watch other Jesus portrayals? Did you did? How did you go about creating this character? As an actor creates a character.

 

Jonathan Roumie  42:51

So I had, I’ve seen most of the performances, just even before I was ever cast. Because I I just, I’m fascinated by biblical pictures and faith stories and how they’re depicted. And I’m drawn to them when they’re well done. I’m repulsed by them when they’re caricatures or, you know, depictions full of empty or soulless platitudes that don’t really speak to me as an artist. I think what we are are as artists and as actors, are carriers of truth, and how we apply that truth to the characters we play is the difference between a flat performance and a standout performance. I think when, when people are bringing the fullness of themselves to any role and the truth of who they are as it relates to a character, then you have performances that mystify people and sort of defy, you know, understanding and even by the performers themselves, they I don’t really know what I did. I just good point. I tried to prep, and I said the words, and something happens, you know. And so for me, I think having my faith as a background was sort of the best prep of my life for this role. Like I don’t know that I could ever prep in the in the way that I’ve been prepped to play this role for any other character for the rest of my life. And if I’m, if I’m lucky and to be that any of my work should stand any test of time whatsoever, it will most certainly be for this. And if that, if that was the only thing I ever did for the rest of my life, I would be okay with it. I’d be sad, because I love working and I love telling stories, and I love sci fi and westerns and comedies and but I would be content, because for me, I can’t imagine a. Character that is more challenging or complicated or nuanced or mystical than Jesus. I mean, you know, Christians. We as Christians. We believe he was fully God and fully man, wrapped up in one being through a process called the hypostatic union, which is a lot of theology, just to say he experienced the fullness of His humanity minus the sin part and the fullness of His divinity while in a human body.

 

David Duchovny  45:32

Now you see, that’s where, that’s where I would push back, and I’d say, How can you be fully human without having the sin part?

 

Jonathan Roumie  45:40

That’s why, that’s the that’s the theological question, yeah, and that’s what makes him God and not you know.

 

David Duchovny  45:49

We could get stuck on this one. We don’t have a demigod. Yeah, that’s, that’s people, people, that’s people. Give me some more time to prep for that. People have died over this. People have gone to war over this. So we’re not going to go to war over.

 

Jonathan Roumie  46:00

No, but I and I share that not, not to get into any kind of spiritual debate.

 

David Duchovny  46:05

Obviously, but to give when I’m being funny, I’m not being dismissive at all. I’m actually, no,

 

Jonathan Roumie  46:11

I don’t affect it. I respect welcome this and any kind of conversation. Like, I mean, as you, I think you probably have seen or know by now, like, I’ll sit down with anyone that wants to talk to me from any background, where, whoever they are, they want to have a conversation and know more about what I do. I’ll talk to anyone, but just to share with you what, yeah, what the challenge is for me, yeah, going into this, working with a Christian filmmaker, and being a Christian is like, how do I do this? I don’t I can’t relate to divinity. All I can relate to is the humanity side of it, and for me, my own flawed humanity will never live up to that. But I can give what I can give in my estimation of his character and how I portray him is the fullness of the the emotional life that was possible, the fact that we write him as an accessible person, and what made him so compelling.

 

David Duchovny  47:06

So this is a very interesting thing because, because you’re long form television, and what I should say because I think a lot of people listening to this don’t understand how phenomenal it is that this exists at all because it was crowdfunded. It was not something that was done inside of mainstream Hollywood. It was.

 

Jonathan Roumie  47:26

Completely outside the box.

 

David Duchovny  47:28

Completely outside the box of financing. It was and it’s become a huge hit. I don’t know how many millions of people you say have watched it. We’re about

 

Jonathan Roumie  47:37

280 million individuals, close to about five or 600 million views.

 

David Duchovny  47:43

Yeah views, it’s an incredible hit that most people don’t and that’s globally fresh. It’s an incredible hit that people don’t really know about, because it’s not, it’s not in the discussion of mainstream cinema or television. But it’s picked up now by Amazon, so it’s readily available to anyone so much like your story of finding success in this the success of the show is very unlikely, very but yet it is, and the best successes are very unlikely. So just having put that to the side, um, the notion of long form, what I’m going to call long form Jesus, as opposed to two hour Jesus, you know, which is our mini series, Jesus. Yes, you are. You guys are going to be writing scenes that aren’t in the Bible. You guys,  are going to be putting Jesus into situations that are not given, and so that’s kind of a thorny area, I’m sure, not only for the writer, but also for the man portraying the character in these new situations. So can you walk me through that kind of process a little bit?

 

Jonathan Roumie  48:59

Yeah, so you’re absolutely right. I mean, there are numbers of scenes, dozens of scenes that are not scriptural. Just say it, it’s not scriptural. It’s not in Scripture. It’s not in the Bible. But when you read the Bible, it doesn’t read like a screenplay. It’s not meant to read like a screenplay. It’s it is as you, as you have stated so accurately, it is wisdom material. It is Wisdom literature. And so to make we just to remind people like even, especially the people that consider themselves, you know, followers of Jesus, this isn’t the chosen. Is not the Bible. The chosen is a television show that is based on Scripture and based on the Gospels. And if anything, it is meant to engage curiosity with the Bible, or point people to the Bible if they want to know what it was, word for word. And we we bring in, there are passages from Scripture. Uh, interspersed with creative license, because the only way to kind of tell this story in an engaging, compelling way for a TV show is to be able to do that. There’s some characters in in the Bible, there’s like, there’s two lines about them, but they’re one of the apostles. And so for doing an eight, seven season show for you know Thomas, you got it right.

 

David Duchovny  50:20

Thomas, this is your season. God damn it, Thomas, you’re this is all about Doubting Thomas, season six, the doubt so anyway, I cut you off. So go ahead and tell we’re talking about the pressure you have, the you have non scriptural. Yes, you have pressure as an individual as Jonathan, you’re like, well, I’m feeling some pressure because this isn’t actually scriptural.

 

Jonathan Roumie  50:43

Is so what we what we do try to do is adhere to the essence of the Gospels. So, so even though it’s we work through plausibility. We have historical consultants, biblical consultants. We’ve got a Messianic Rabbi, a Catholic priest and an evangelical professor, and they all kind of get the scripts before we do as actors, just to say, hey, if there’s any, like, major red flags, they just let the creators know. Like, you might want to rethink this part here, because this kind of goes against gospel intentions. Yeah, so if, as long as it doesn’t, but it’s plausible, like conversations could have happened. Yeah, then that becomes what we leave in. In order to tell a well rounded story.

 

David Duchovny  51:27

I think you are going to have to come back and we’re going to have to have a good five hour conversation. I know, I know I’ve got to let you go into like, five minutes or something, but I wanted before you go. I just think it’s a very human story, if you could share with people listening these kind of Uncanny moments that you’ve had off stage, having having been associated with Jesus in such a profound way for many people, you know, because I know as an actor,pPeople confuse me with characters that I play. You know, I can only imagine how strange that is for people to confuse you with the person that you play.

 

Jonathan Roumie  52:08

Yeah, I was just, we just had a premiere in Spain, which was our European premiere, and I met a number of people that there’s a thing that is, is that often happens with with with people that they they want, they want to hug. They want to hug from Jesus. And they’ll, you know, there, I studied a bit with Eric Morris for craft and his protege in New York. This guy, Anthony Bob, a brilliant method based, you know, technique, stuff, and and Eric would say, on a level of one to 10, do you have the the art, the the artificial reality of of the circumstances that you were playing in the scene, right? And so you can have, you can drop in on a level of one to 10, but on at the 11th level, you know that it’s not real that you’re an actor.

 

David Duchovny  53:06

You’re not you’re not psychotic.

 

Jonathan Roumie  53:10

And it’s kind of like the same thing in my experience with with many fans from one to 10, they know I’m not Jesus, but at 11, they’re like, maybe, maybe there’s something that they want, that feeling that they get, especially if they have a relationship with faith this, the performance resonates with them on a different level. And and a lot of them will, will burst into tears when, when they meet me, yeah, because they they kind of, they’re front loaded with this experience, with their faith, that they’re connected now to me, and when they go to church, they see my face as they’re praying, which is completely surreal for me, still, sure, and and so they’ll a lot of them will just want to hug, and in the hug, I can feel people just break down. And I’m happy to give for them, whatever that means to them. But it also it’s, it can be, it can be a bit heavy.

 

David Duchovny  54:10

And I’m sure it’s in the in the best way. It should be humbling. But it could also be. It could also, you know, get into your ego a little bit if you’re not if you’re not careful.

 

Jonathan Roumie  54:23

I think if you’re not careful, yeah, but I, you know, part of my faith process, there’s a prayer called the litany of humility. And if you look this prayer up, it’s easy to find litany of humility. And you start reading this, and you start reading this out loud.

 

David Duchovny  54:43

It’s, can you? Can you give me a little of it?

 

Jonathan Roumie  54:45

Yeah, let me pull it. I don’t. It’s long, I don’t, yeah. So, so it’s called the litany of humility and, and it’s, you know, it’s, it’s to Jesus, but the things you’re asking here from the desire of being esteemed, deliver me. Oh, gee. Jesus from the desire of being loved to deliver me O Jesus from the desire of being honored and from the desire of being praised, from the desire of being preferred to others, from the desire of being consulted, from the desire of being approved, from the fear of being humiliated, from the fear of being despised, from the fear of suffering rebukes, from the fear of being forgotten, from the fear of being ridiculed, deliver me Jesus, and it’s like you’re saying, I’m I’m gonna submit all of these things that I’m afraid of that would be worst case scenarios for me in any walk of life. Does not just an actor, but any of these things, if you really, if you really pray this or read this with all of your heart, with everything within you and you, you attach yourself to the truth of those words. It prevents you from thinking, I’m doing this. It prevents me anyway, like I’m not responsible. I’m my job is to show up and do the job as best I can. And then everything that happens from that, happens from that, it’s not up to me.

 

David Duchovny  56:02

And when I how I translate that for for this show and for myself, is the the overarching concept is deliver me from the fear of failure, yeah, and then I can, because all those things are certain, are failures of a kind of failure of like self esteem. I want to be esteemed by others, things like that.

 

Jonathan Roumie  56:21

Societal failure. It’s what society perceives that, you know, we should want the opposite of that. And when you when you don’t pine for those things and you pine for the opposite, you actually get the thing that you want.

 

David Duchovny  56:32

Yeah, give me, give me a love of failure. If we have a society where people are in love with failure, I like that society better than, you know, the society where we’re obsessed with winning constantly. So I agree with that. Jonathan, thank you so much. I mean, we could have gone on. I could have gone on for another hour. Really, I could have.

 

Jonathan Roumie  56:53

Well, thank you for having me. I’m on it to be on my man.

 

David Duchovny  56:56

All right, keep drumming.

 

Jonathan Roumie  56:59

Will do.

 

David Duchovny  57:13

Much to think about, after talking with Jonathan Roumie, I found it interesting to talk to people of faith in this self proclaimed way, Christian faith in this case, because much of what I see anecdotally, when I what I hear of people getting through tough times, moments of failure, streaks of failure, we’ll say my faith got me through, and that’s always interesting to me. Where does that faith come from? And what I appreciate is him having these discussions with me with great humility, something we get into a lot and great humor. This is the kind of discussion I want to have with somebody who believes in a very different system than I do so I thank him for that, and it was a great pleasure. And to be able to have that kind of discussion, and I want to have more of it.

 

CREDITS  58:33

Thanks so much for listening to Fail Better, if you haven’t yet, now is a great time to subscribe to Lemonada Premium. You’ll get bonus content, like my thoughts on conversations with guests including Alec Baldwin and Rob Lowe. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple podcasts, or for all other podcast apps, head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe. That’s lemonadapremium.com.  Fail Better is a production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby.  It is produced by Kegan Zema, Aria Bracci, and Dani Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo.  Our SVP of weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neel.  Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Karpinski and Brad Davidson, the show’s executive produced by Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Jessica Cordova Kramer and me, David Duchovny.  The music is also by me and my band. Lovely Colin Lee. Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowan and Sebastian […].  You can find us online at @LemonadaMedia and you can find me @DavidDuchovny.  Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.