BIDEN just got DESTROYED in the debate & Exclusive Jonathan Roumie Interview - Stay Free 396
Contact Zero Debt USA to see how they can help: https://www.zapmydebt.com/⏰ BE HERE AT 12PM ET / 5PM BST ⏰.Could this be the end for Biden’s presidential campaign? How can we analyse the debate last night and what did it REALLY highlight? I also talk to star of ‘The Chosen’ and previously my body double on ‘Ballers’, Jonathan Roumie, about the difficulty of playing Jesus, the way in which ‘The Chosen’ was crowdfunded, and the huge success of the show. As well as reminiscing about our times together on the set of Ballers.Check out social medias and more - https://linktr.ee/RussellBrand
Hello you Awakening Wonders there on Spotify, Apple, Stinkwhistle, Gurgledot, or wherever you download your podcasts these days to remain at least peripherally connected to some tendril of truth in a bewildering miasma of lies and propaganda.
We appreciate you, and we love you.
You're part of our community.
So that's why we're very happy to give you an audio version of our live Rumble Show five days a week.
It's on Monday to Friday.
We decipher the latest news stories, we break down current topics that the mainstream media should be covering, and if they aren't, Then we critique why they're not and what they are covering.
Every week as well, right?
We do brilliant conversations with people like Jordan Peterson, RFK, Tucker Carlson, Sam Harris, Vandana Shiva, Gabor Mate.
These things are already up and you can listen to them now.
So remember, this is an audio version of our daily live show.
To tune in live, Go to Rumble.com forward slash Russell Brand.
You'll find it easily and I hope that you will love it.
Now please enjoy this episode of Stay Free with Russell Brand.
Thanks.
Thanks for joining me today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
Like you, maybe, I watched the debate.
Unlike you, I watched it in the UK.
So I'm pretty delirious right now, but a degree of delirium is perhaps helpful when trying to interpret and appreciate what we witnessed last night.
If that wasn't the end of the Joe Biden presidency, I don't know what people are waiting for.
A physical death?
Effluvia to emerge from his body?
What do people require?
The problem is, of course, that his senescence, dementia, and obvious decay is the perfect
metaphor for the decay of the system that he is nominally the head of.
And now we are seeing the mainstream establishment being confronted with what you have long known.
This person cannot be the leader of the free world.
This man who is led away from the stage either by previous presidents or his own, fortunately,
doctor wife is not the president of the United States, cannot continue to be the president
of the United States.
And however much you may detest Trump, you certainly can't claim that he would be a worse
bet than Joe Biden.
Some time ago, I said, look, if you were forced to choose one of those people, and I know how a lot of you feel about Donald Trump, you love Donald Trump, his brazenness, his manner, etc.
I would say that America is in safer hands in Donald Trump's hands.
Ludicrously, RFK was excluded from that debate.
Now, I want you to tell me in the comments and the chat, what do you think this precipitates?
The emergence of Michelle Obama?
Careful now!
The emergence of Gavin Newsom?
Does it mean that Vivek Ramaswamy is a soothsayer and a fortune teller who foretold that this...
The whole debate was three months earlier than usual to give the Democrat establishment the opportunity to see and demonstrate what we all plainly knew.
This was a man who is not capable of running the United States of America.
And for a moment, let's step back from the circus and the showbiz and the glitz and the glamour.
Let's, for a moment, put aside our awareness that No longer does the constitutional document adorn CNN's backdrop, reminding us what America's meant to be, just the bland, banalising logos of CNN itself.
What is America now?
What are we supposed to hope for?
What are we meant to look forward to?
Remember, of course, that we are potentially on the edge of nuclear war, conflagrations across the Middle East, incendiary language across Europe, populism understandably on the rise because this Is the moment that the Tower of Babel fell.
This is the moment where we are confronted with the fact that the establishment is out of ideas.
The old idea is dead.
The new thing is yet to emerge.
People of course are understandably enthusiastic about Nationalism, isolationism, because the world is in so much chaos.
Let's have a look at some of the most galling and upsetting moments of last night.
Let us remember that we are trying, aren't we, to be spiritual beings, not to be condemnatory or cruel, but we cannot deny the evidence of our own eyes any longer.
We're not Rachel Maddow.
Let's have a look at some of the worst moments from last night.
"We're going to get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we're going to
do with more border patrol and more asylum officers."
"President Trump?"
"I really don't know what he said at the end of this and I don't think he knows what he
said either.
Look."
I think what we're being introduced to here is a new side of Donald Trump.
I know people, of course, that know Donald Trump well, who tell you that he's a sweet, affable, lovely man.
When it comes to his relationship with Joe Biden, he's been pretty acerbic and cruel.
But I get the sense that on a human level, Donald Trump I actually felt quite compassionate and wounded because you know elderly people.
You probably have witnessed people descend into senility that you love.
If you look at Joe Biden from four years ago, the 2020 debate, he's like Timothee Chalamet or Douglas Murray watching Oscar Wilde.
He's not the firebrand of the 80s, like renting and raving and roaring his way through some beige and brown nostalgia.
nostalgic, sepia whirlwind of testosterone, but by God, compared to what we're watching
now.
And remember, what's important is to observe the symbol, observe the fact that we've been
told that this is the bet, that to vote against Joe Biden, you're voting against democracy.
What we now know is that it cannot be democracy.
That cannot be the President of the United States.
You cannot realistically vote for Joe Biden as the President of the United States when we're on the precipice of so many dangerous things.
Think of the things that didn't come up in any real detail.
handling of the pandemic, the real possibility of war, any actual substantial discussion
of policy or politics or geopolitics or a vision of how to improve America, other than
of course the recognisable and familiar tropes that Donald Trump has made his name on for
many years and presumably, unless there's some sort of great sway towards RFK, will
become the foundation of his next term.
Here's the moment that you will have seen at our post on X, I'm sure of it, it's one
of the moments that many people have noticed is kind of, we might call it the kill shot.
All those things we need to do, childcare, eldercare, making sure that we continue to
suppress.
Joe Biden cannot talk about eldercare as if it's an abstract policy, he has to talk about
it as an immediate priority for himself.
Strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare.
Thank you President Biden.
President Trump?
That's the Chief Trump moment.
That's the moment that they didn't want to happen.
That's why you had muted microphones.
That's why you've got an absented RFK.
That's why you've got no studio audience to prevent moments like that taking place.
It was almost a relief when they seemed to be on the precipice of announcing that they were going to resolve this debate by having a round of golf.
I was watching it live, I'm in the UK, I'm exhausted, we're having troubles with our stream, we're wondering if we're under some sort of DDoS attack style cyber warfare, and I was watching them talk about Golf handicaps and golf swings and whether or not this should be settled on the green?
This, to me, is when the circus descends into absurdity.
When the inutility of the entire modality is exposed.
Not only is the Emperor naked, he's got an incredible skin disease.
Look at what he is.
Look, I'd be happy to have a driving contest with him.
Remember, I got my handicap when I was Vice President down to a six.
This terrifies me because it makes me wonder where their actual egos and their identities lie.
You know, these aren't just synecdoches of power, they're actual human beings with egos.
And Donald Trump is, you know, plainly and popularly and understood to be a fanatical golfer.
But then you, in that moment, sort of get a glimpse of a deeper reality, like when they're sort of Two old crotchety dudes bickering about golf.
Aren't you sort of beginning to understand the problem with the entire system?
That, hang on a minute, we shouldn't be trusting anybody with that amount of power.
They're just human beings like us that are worrying about their golf score.
Which is literally an example that Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist and analyst, Gives, as a way of understanding whether or not you're at the right point in your life.
If you're still worried about your golf score in your 80s, then you need to understand mythology.
This is a time to become elders, advisors, guardians and guides to the next generation.
Both these men have experienced extraordinary things.
Joe Biden has experienced the death of children and things that are tragic.
And Donald Trump plainly has loads to offer.
But really, if you're watching this and thinking that The solution is available to you on screen.
And I think we need to have a deep, deep inward look.
And maybe have a look at some of the stuff Bobby Kennedy was saying as well.
But man, I believe that we need deep, systemic change.
Even CNN are willing to start confronting some pretty difficult truths.
Let's have a look at that.
Who won the debate, we asked debate watchers in our instant poll, and the answer is a resounding Donald Trump did.
67% of debate watchers in our poll say Donald Trump won the debate tonight.
Joe Biden, 33% say he won the debate tonight.
Oh dear.
And that's on CNN, who have done everything they can to create an environment for Joe Biden to succeed in.
But the only environment that Joe Biden can succeed in is possibly a stairlift or a coma.
Sorry, that's it.
I'm not gonna do any more jokes like that.
President Trump walking off the stage.
The first debate of the 2024 campaign and the earliest presidential debate ever now in the books and in front of the voters.
Tonight, along with Aaron Burnett, the first... I'm still debating them!
I'll debate you harder!
I'll debate you to within an inch of your life!
The debate's finished.
What?
What debate?
Word on what those voters might make of it from our political professionals from our CNN flash poll and swing state focus group.
We'll be talking to surrogates including Vice President Harris, getting fact checks from our Daniel Dale, and new reporting from inside both campaigns.
With me here, CNN political commentator Scott Jennings.
I'll tell you what you like about Donald Trump, but he did leave the stage independently.
Here's Jill Biden congratulating Joe Biden in a manner which makes it difficult to cling on to the notion that what we have here is the leader of the free world.
That what we have here is the epitome and symbol of the kind of political solutions that the world requires right now.
Joe, you did such a great job.
You answered every question, you knew all the facts.
Once I attended a graduation for a learning centre for adults with learning difficulties
and I would say that the general tone was less patronising and many of the achievements far superior.
Let me ask the crowd, what did Trump do?
Why?
Yes.
Jill Biden is to be applauded, I suppose, for trying to hold together.
She lives in the reality of that, I suppose, domestically, and so perhaps now we're all encroaching on actual cruelty.
I know that many of you have said in the chat many times that we're on the precipice of elder abuse.
Let's see how CNN, having brought together this Barnum-like event that perhaps more than anything else tells us that we need a radical, deep inventory of the way that we run the world, As the BRICS currency grows, as nuclear war approaches, as de-dollarization takes place, as the world gets excessively and increasingly militarized as a response to America's economic decline, as American infrastructure collapses, as the reckoning required as a result of the pandemic period is still not correctly undertaken, this
Is CNN awakening to the fact that they are dealing with a sepulchral moment, that they are now standing at the tomb of the neoliberal project, at least the very verge of Joe Biden's tomb.
There is no two ways about it.
That was not a good debate for Joe Biden.
That was painful.
I love Joe Biden.
I work for Joe Biden.
He didn't do well at all.
He, he did not do well at all.
And he looks, you know, I'll give you the analysis, you kind of have the old man versus the con man.
Yeah, okay, let's cling on to those ideas for a while if we can.
But it's sort of extraordinary, actually, that there's this much analysis required and applied to something that's been evident for so long.
Actually, I'll be honest with you, when I was watching it live and clinging on to a cigar and clinging on to Wi-Fi in the dead of night while Rumble was clearly experiencing some sort of external threat.
I almost thought, well, what did you expect from Joe Biden?
We watch Joe Biden all the time.
There's a point where, just as a comedian, I don't want to talk about it anymore because it seems cruel, unnecessary, and downright repetitive.
And the sight of pundits and experts, well, no, that wasn't a good debate.
Well, what do you expect?
You You elected, essentially elected, or at least through some kind of heritage mentality, pushed to the forefront a politician who was never suitable for the job in the first place, in the same way that you pushed Hillary Clinton, in the same way they missed the Bernie Sanders opportunity.
That is an institutionalised party that created everything that it detests.
in the rise of popularism. What they could have done is looked at candidates like Marianne
Williamson or RFK, what they'll do now, presumably in this apocalypse that they've created, is
start looking at Michelle Obama, stop it, I said stop it, or Gavin Newsom or whoever
they can usher up. But if they can generate any enthusiasm, if they can generate any goodwill,
if their ongoing demonization and hysteria around Donald Trump, whose entire rise is
based on his ability to brazenly confront systemic corruption, be candid about his own
position, well I use the same systems, the game is up for them.
I don't know what they're going to do next, although my deep fear is that there won't be an election.
That there will be some kind of crisis, that there will be some kind of delay, and increasingly, the people that are on the periphery of the spaces that we now live in are the voices that seem more reliable.
Because remember, if you watch this kind of media, you knew that this was coming.
You are not surprised by those events because it's precisely what you anticipated.
But for Erin Burnett, this still constitutes a surprise.
He goes through six days of preparation at Camp David.
More than that.
And they know the rules.
It was more than a week.
Okay, so more than a week.
They know the rules.
He practices with the mics.
He knows every one of these questions is coming.
And yet he couldn't fill the time.
Now, I just want to, let's see what the White House is saying.
Sources close to the White House are saying he had a cold, wasn't feeling well.
I mean, as you would expect, that came out early on in the debate.
But what accounts for someone with so much experience doing so much preparation and this being the outcome?
Honestly, I think the question answers itself.
He wasn't capable of doing any better than he did.
Right.
OK.
Well, that's a concern.
Now, many people will make much of Donald Trump's familiar ability to, let's say, narrativize on the spot.
But CNN have been forced to fact check Biden.
And the fact is that they've checked out.
...some of them.
He said he's the only president in a while who didn't have any troops dying anywhere in the world.
Troops have, of course, died on his watch.
He said he's put in a $15 per shot cap on insulin in Medicare.
It's a $35 a month cap.
He said it's a $200 cap on overall drug spending in Medicare.
It's $2,000...
They can't even say that Donald Trump is a liar anymore.
They can't even say that that's the distinction.
All that is left now is propaganda and faith.
You might as well fall entirely into a faith-based mentality.
You might as well reject this system, absolutely.
The idea now that you can say, look, the grown-ups are back in charge.
Or the idea that you can say, listen, we just need a safe pair of hands.
The idea that you can say, in order to stop Putin, we've got to... All you can do now is aghast.
Sit back and marvel at the revelation that your systems are falling and failing.
This is the end.
This is the end.
Maybe the end was some time ago.
Maybe the reason that this is such a cataclysm and such a tectonic moment is because now the truth is unavoidable.
They can't conjure up new narratives the way they have around the pandemic.
They can't pretend in the way that they have with Russia-Ukraine that, oh, well, Putin's just an aggressor.
That war began there.
All of the numerous lies, deceptions that have been practiced for decades.
Those of you that have been watching carefully know the tropes, know the history, know the moments with all of the subjects I've brought up.
Now it's come to a kind of singularity of senility.
what we've just witnessed and the truth is, I'm afraid at this point, unavoidable.
There's no way out of it. Well, you might find a way out of it if you're Rachel
Maddow. Here's Rachel Maddow, God love her, trying to see if from this viper's nest
of senescence and senility and entropy some new story can be conjured up like a
broken molecule repurposed somehow. Some shivering new element might be
discovered down there in the quantum dregs of last night.
And I think with probably strange results, I mean, we'll see the response from both sides.
But if you're the Biden campaign, I think you wish that this right this night will be
remembered in reverse as the president became sort of stronger, including his literally his
voice, the strength of his voice over the course of the night, probably.
So Barbara Streisand.
It's not a concert.
You can't say, well, over the course of the evening, once he warmed up, he really got past those nodules.
Because this is not a matter of vocal ability and vocal range.
This is a matter of politics, geopolitics.
This is a moment where many of us suspect that there is Deep corruption.
That the world is in fact one run, excuse me, by cartels and cadres and cabals around the world, by corporate and globalist interests, by bureaucratic bodies that the media lies and amplifies.
It's not enough to say, but by the end of the evening, by God, it sounded beautiful, didn't it?
It was like Pavarotti out there!
Speaking towards the very, very end of the debate for the Trump campaign, I think it's fair to say it was the inverse President Trump, just in terms of his coherence and finishing a sentence and seeming to be in control of his own emotions.
Have you watched the recent Mehdi Hussein-Douglas Murray debate?
I mention this because it is obviously one of the most contentious issues of our time, the ongoing Middle Eastern conflagrations that define not only contemporary politics but actual biblical history, the history of the Abrahamic faiths.
You can watch that debate and you can decide for yourself.
The audience certainly decided that Douglas Murray won that debate.
But there are many people online that say, oh, Mehdi Hussain, they took Douglas Murray at school.
And there are many people saying, oh, Douglas Murray is a brilliant orator.
In fact, both of those people are about to have an argument.
Believe me, I've had conversations with them both, actually.
Or maybe I haven't with Douglas Murray, actually, but I've certainly watched a lot of him.
And there's no doubt that these are very lucid, brilliant communicators.
You can't now create a new silo where you say anything other than, Joe Biden's presidency is over, it was over before it began, we put a stooge in the White House in the first place, we tried to put an apparatchik in there to get a third term out of Obama, Obama himself let everybody down in 2008 and in fact created the Donald Trump phenomena because of his inability to address the financial crisis that took place during his presidency.
There was a possibility that there would be a kind of Leftist, if you want to call it that, populism in the figure of Bernie Sanders, but now that dude's been totally co-opted.
All of the enthusiasm around figures like AOC has been blended and bled back into a system of total corruption.
You've got no one to blame but yourselves.
You can't create a new narrative out of this.
You deserve to lose the election to Donald Trump.
You still had the opportunity of RFK.
And what did you say about him?
This guy's a lunatic as well.
He's a lunatic because of vaccines.
Now I know there'll be enough of you out there saying, "None of these people are appropriate.
We deserve better.
We deserve an awakening.
We deserve new systems.
We deserve a decentralized system.
We deserve real democracy, radical change, some respect and reverence for one another,
for the world."
Man, my heart is wide open to you.
But the fact is this, no one, no amount of propaganda can ever reframe this anything other than the end of the era of this type of politics.
...started off as strong as he was.
The strongest point for him was at the very beginning of the debate, and then over the course of the night, he became less coherent and more visibly flustered.
I don't think either of these campaigns, either of these candidates is going to feel like this was a shining moment for them.
But I think that first initial impression... Okay, Rachel, what should we do about the vaccine?
Should we take him or not?
Does the vaccine stop?
When will the bullshit stop?
Here's Gavin Newsom, a man with a fine head of hair and who had some pretty good parties during the pandemic era, grinning as he recognises the opportunity may be about to come his way.
Will it be Gavin Newsom, or will it be Michelle Obama?
You know how the Democrat Party, but also the Republican Party, they love a dynasty, they love another surname, don't they?
They like to hear Bush, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush.
Is it going to be the Pets?
Has Joe Biden got a cat somewhere?
Has Michelle Obama got anything?
To offer us that we don't know about, let's have a look at Gavin Newsom, crooning from ear to ear.
Are you going to be the next Democratic nominee?
No, our nominee is Joe Biden.
I'm looking forward to voting for him in November.
He's going to be our nominee.
Because you know that everyone are talking about you as a possible nominee now.
Are you enjoying it?
We're going up here?
It might as well be Bradley Cooper at this point, because remember, getting a younger, better looking person to fulfil the role will not change the system, and the system will never appoint anybody that won't uphold its message, that won't fulfil its agenda, and its agenda you know already, corporatism, globalism, war, Deception, tyranny, citizen management, the incremental creep of government authoritarianism into your life.
That's what created this mess.
Anything other than a deep mea culpa should lead to a devastating loss for the Democrats in November.
And given that they are participants in a two-party system, and given that they were happy to exclude RFK, that's exactly the result that they deserve.
Why don't we give a few moments over to Bobby Kennedy, who was simultaneously streaming In spite of being excluded from that debate, simply because it probably suited both parties and both candidates.
Let me know in the chat why you think he was excluded.
There was a poll taken that asked young people under 35 in this country, are you proud of the United States?
85% said yes.
The same poll taken five months ago, 18% said yes.
So somehow, during the administration of these two presidents, an entire generation of Americans has lost Pride in our country.
And a hope in their own futures.
And they feel that way because they see what's happening.
They can't get into a home.
First generation in history in America that is going to live worse lives than their parents.
They see the vitriol that you saw here, the division, the polarization that makes them disgusted with politics.
They're seeing the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that has transformed our agencies from the CIA, the health agencies, the environmental agencies, into sock puppets, the industries they're supposed to regulate.
They're seeing the destruction of our soils, the destruction of our air and water.
They're watching this happen and the politicians do nothing about it except for hate on each other.
If you want more of the same, you should vote for President Biden, President Trump.
You know what's going to happen.
You know that.
They're going to give you four more years of the same stuff.
If you want things to completely change, You're gonna support me.
Because I'm gonna change everything.
I don't know.
Maybe this is the moment for you to consider something as radical as an independent candidate.
Maybe this is the moment where you've decided that it has to be Donald Trump.
Why don't you let us know?
Myself, I'm praying.
I'm praying for an intervention.
That's why I'm very excited that straight after this we are going to be speaking to Jonathan Rumi, JC, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the hit show The Chosen.
Please stay with us for that.
It should be a fantastic conversation.
I know it is, in fact, because it was available on Locals for the last week.
Consider becoming a member there where you can join us for lots of additional abundant contact as we explore new solutions together.
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Takes hours to groom the chest hair.
This is where all the time goes, Jonathan.
Various apotropaic medallions to keep the Lord close, but then substantial time combing body hair.
Making sure it doesn't get tangled up.
See, I don't have as much to worry about, so I'm not as fortunate in my masculinity's development as you are, I guess.
Look at the two of us, Jonathan, why we could be body doubles.
Maybe it's time for me to be your body double now.
How about let's flip it around rather.
I'm coming there.
The minute I get to that set on Chosen, I'm standing in because that was like how we met.
People may not know this because you will know Jonathan as our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
He portrays Jesus.
He doesn't play Play Jesus!
It's not a game!
He portrays Jesus in The Chosen.
We met on Ballers where Jonathan would be a stand-in.
Jonathan's been an actor for a long time, I figure, but would stand in.
But we would always chat, wouldn't we?
I'd often not take advantage of the fact that there was a stand-in because I'd be chatting with Jonathan and in the end it turns out that you probably could have played the part in Ballers.
You know, I don't know if you know this, but when the first season that I came on to stand in for you, it was season four, and the DP for that season, Director of Photography, the cameraman, the head of the camera department, for those who don't know what DP is, Apparently, his requirements were that all the stand-ins are off-book with the actors' lines whom they're standing in for, or as best as they can be off-book.
So we show up on the day, they're like, here, learn this.
I'm like, I'm sorry, what?
They're like, yeah, yeah, this is what, you know, The guy's name, whatever it is, I can't remember.
This is what he expects, and just so you can literally just give as much of the performance before the actual performance as possible.
And I thought to myself, wow, okay, that's a lot.
And then to do that for you, When you're talking a mile a minute and there's like paragraphs, I'm like, oh my gosh.
So at the end, I ended up, I think one of the things that got me the job for season five, not just the fact that you were coming back, was that I started doing the scenes as you.
Because I do impressions and stuff like this.
So I started talking like this, you know, pissed up my accent a little bit more and, you know, started moving around a bit and talking quite fast and going this way and moving that and just trying stuff on the fly, all that.
I remember thinking that that impression was a hate crime.
That's what I remember thinking.
That's a hate crime happening right there.
And then when you eventually became Jesus, I was extremely confused.
Yeah, those are the good old days.
That was, what, seven years ago.
Seven years ago.
Pretty incredible, Jonathan.
And what's so amazing for me and gratifying was when we obviously stayed in touch, we were friends, we were hanging out and stuff, and you said, I'm doing this thing, it's this crowdfunded show, it's called The Chosen, it's about the disciples, it's Angel Studios.
Oh, who are you playing?
I'm going to be actual God come to earth in human form.
Well, good luck playing that because I've seen how you play me and it was very cruel.
If you do to Jesus what you did to me, you're going to be in a lot of trouble.
Yeah, well luckily I got away with it.
But then it became like a massive global phenomenon like, you know, like The Chosen has galvanized the Christian community like no other rendering of the Gospels.
You know, I think back in my lifetime there's Robert Powell as Jesus, there's Willem Dafoe as Jesus, there's of course our man from The Temptation of Christ, I'm blanking on his name.
Yeah, Jim Caviezel.
Jim Caviezel, he's an amazing Jesus.
He bears that burden a lot.
Like when you hear Jim Caviezel talking about times on set, on Temptation, it sounds a lot like he's coming quite close to saying, making that film was as hard as being Jesus.
Like he's getting perilously close to making that claim.
When you get struck by lightning it's kind of hard to refute and you know open heart surgery and dislocating your shoulder and accidentally actually getting scourged.
He did get a scourging.
Yeah, that's some good method acting.
And also the cross dropped on Jim Caviezel.
I've watched it.
I've watched it.
But yeah, listen, I think you're my favourite Jesus.
Of course, we're going to talk about The Chosen.
We're going to talk about the app HALO, and we're going to talk about your documentary, Jonathan and Jesus, because there is a sort of a complexity to playing our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, that many actors won't have.
I was thinking, and when we chatted the other day, I said it's like, you know, Christian Bale is not like a member of a Religion called Batmanism, but you are a Christian, so you can't ever put down the role.
And I feel like it must come with some, because the, in fact, even from a theological perspective, the idea that Christ is fully human and fully God is a very sort of complicated, hard idea.
I remember when someone recently said to me, That in the agony in the garden, Jesus isn't sort of pretending, like, oh no, this is bad, but I know I'm God, so I'm basically going to be fine.
He is sweating blood, he is terrified, fully the full human experience of dread and terror.
It's almost an impossible Acting job, I would have thought.
Almost impossible to get the humanity, to get the warmth, to get the divinity, the full masculinity and maleness.
And then also, this is God.
But you actually, like, you know, because I saw some of Jonathan and Jesus, when you're like, you know, people saying that when they pray, they see your face, because I'm friends with you.
I'm like, I'm not doing that.
I'm I'm not praying to Jonathan!
But I do have to, because you've done such a good... He's getting in there!
Because you have done such a good job of playing Jesus, portraying Jesus, I have got like, you know, I do sometimes when I'm going, Jesus, I need you Lord, I'll be like, oh no, there's Jonathan sneaking in there with a sarcastic English accent!
I'd love to know how you, as a Christian, Draw those lines and what kind of challenges and experiences you're having in this extraordinary place.
Well, you know, one of the things I think as humans that we need, especially if we have a relationship with our Creator, if we desire a relationship with our Creator, it's only human for us to want to put a face to who that is.
And so, what do we have?
We have the relegations of culture and, you know, Paintings and imagery and since man could create and since Jesus, you know, lived, people have been trying to depict our Lord and Savior because that gives us an opportunity to kind of, you know,
reference what it is and who it is that we're putting our belief system into.
So, I think we need to have a face, and in the age, you know, of film and television and social media and popular culture, when you have, and for you and I, I think it was the same generation, Robert Powell was that for the two of us, where, you know, even now, you still see images of Robert Powell's face as Jesus Christ in modern culture, in churches.
I was in We were promoting Season 4 in Mexico earlier this year, and I was in a church in rural Mexico, and I went in, and there's a depiction of this scene with a particular religious person, like a priest or something from the region, or it was a saint, and he's in this painting with Jesus.
And the image they used for Jesus's face is Robert Powell, you know, and so I think it's the more saturated we are with certain kinds of images, whether it be my face, whether it be Jim Caviezel's face, whether it be Robert Powell's face, inevitably your mind just, I think, naturally wants to go there because you're like, oh no, no, he was a person, and I know this person portraying this divinity and his humanity all at once, and so it just kind of pops in there.
It's actually happened to my sister, My sister said she was praying once and, you know, in church and all of a sudden, my face popped into her prayers.
She's like, no, no, get out of there!
Get out of there!
And I kind of freaked her out for a second.
So, and for me, it's obviously I'm not thinking of myself, but you know, if it's not Robert Powell, I get images of Renaissance paintings that come into my head, you know, or Something by Karl Bloch will just pop into my head.
He's one of my favorite artists who depicted Christ.
And so, I want to have somebody to kind of think of, to imagine, because he's a real person.
Jesus is a real person.
He continues to be a real person.
But when you don't have the face of that person, you want to put the face on him, if that makes sense.
Yeah, the idea that there is a definitive image of Christ that is not a rendering or an approximation or a portrayal, but the same way as you are you and I am me, is actual Jesus.
That's the kind of reality that I sometimes stumble over.
When it talks about the apostles encountering Christ During the Easter, during the first Easter, and not recognizing him.
I think, I wonder about that, you know?
I wonder, like, what is the Jesus that they're meeting that they don't recognize a person they were with, like, a few days or a week or whatever it is, before?
You know, like, what is that?
You know, what is that telling us?
I also wonder, like, sometimes lately, and this perhaps says more about my narcissism than anything else, and it was perhaps a technique to try and avoid having you in my head, like, I was thinking, well in a way, I wonder if seeing, like, the perfect version of myself, if I'm inviting Christ to be in, I'm inviting Christ to be in myself, seeing, like, an External yet internal Christ, that is me.
Me perfect.
If it's like in Galatians, I die on the cross that he can be reborn in me.
Imagining myself being overtaken and not being Russell with all of his flaws and hypocrisies and contradictions, frailties and longings and instead Like, oh my God, there is a perfect version of yourself, and that is the Christ.
Now I'm talking in sort of slightly abstract terms there.
So you never allow yourself to be Jesus in your own mind, first of all, and also, except I suppose when you're playing him, which must be weird, which must be weird.
And then, but like, I wonder if you could talk a bit about what you think that is when the apostles don't recognize him, and also about how When you're actually being Jesus, like in a scene, when you're live in a scene, what you're actually doing, how you're tackling that idea.
Yeah.
Well, I know you recently had Jeff Cavins on, who's a brilliant theologian, and so he could probably answer the detailed theological aspects of the heavenly reality of Jesus's body post-resurrection ever so more than I could.
But for me, because eventually we're going to get to the Resurrection in the series, there's been no secret about that.
I think we'll even get up to the Ascension and even beyond, maybe the beginning of Acts, I'm not quite sure.
But for me, I think as I contemplate the idea of What might that look like?
Would they, I mean, does that mean somebody else is going to play Jesus?
And then when the veil is lifted from their eyes, then it's me or no?
Or is it just, I think, narratively, what makes sense to me is that I think it could be two things.
One thing it could be is that Because now he is not nearly fully human in this earth post-resurrection.
He has access to the heavenly dimension.
He can go through walls.
He can appear and disappear.
What does that do to a person?
What does that How does that alter their reality?
And is it, you know, is it for the sake of having this episode play out on the road to Emmaus where these disciples don't recognize him and, you know, he comes up to him and he says, what are you guys talking about?
And they're like, are you the only guy in Jerusalem that didn't know what happened these last several days?
Jesus of Nazareth, the guy we thought was going to be the Messiah, was nailed to a cross and he's dead and like now it's over.
The movement's done and he's like, he lets them talk for a bit and then basically when they get to sitting down and having a meal, it says their eyes are opened in the sharing of the meal, in the breaking of the bread, which kind of then For, as a Catholic, connects to the whole mystery and the miracle of the Eucharist, and the Eucharist as a new manna, which was the fulfillment of the Old Testament, Exodus, which led to the Passover.
So, there's so much at play, I think, in that story, and in the breaking of the bread is when their eyes are opened, and then he disappears.
And it's like, wait, hold on a second.
Like, what does that mean?
What, you know?
So, to simply answer the question, I think the details of that are inherent to the mystery of this heavenly reality that he is now on Earth and simultaneously able to leave reality at will, you know, prior to his ascension.
That's the first question.
That's cool, that's cool though and there's quite a lot I want to say.
Like that it is, that meeting on the road to, I guess you're saying Emmaus, not Damascus.
So Saul, I believe it was Saul was on the road to Damascus and Emmaus was them leaving.
Emmaus, I see, thank you.
Jerusalem and then they came back.
Cheers Jonathan, thanks for clarifying. So when they're having that, when he breaks bread,
they see that as, "Oh my God, the Last Supper, the Eucharist, this is it!"
Like it kind of glitches together those two realities, the spiritual and material world
combined for them in that moment.
And that's interesting because it is so sort of supernaturally beautiful.
And it makes me wonder about further encounters with Christ where it's more, you know, like in Thomas, where it's more about digging around in the wounds and like looking at it from a kind of a very gory, anatomical, bodily perspective.
You know, it's interesting.
It's interesting that during that 40 day or whatever it was period where there are the encounters with up to 500 witnesses of the risen Christ that there are sort of varying that first one being really supernatural and mysterious and it gave me a weird feeling actually when you were describing it and he disappears at the breaking of the bread and that that is a reiteration of the last supper I loved that description you did that so well um like but like some of the subsequent encounters right up to what right up to like Pentecost right up to Saul's conversion or whatever
They vary, don't they?
They're varying these encounters with the risen Christ.
Yeah, I mean, going back to this heavenly dimension where he's just walking through walls and appearing in a room at will and then disappearing, it's like, why?
How does that happen?
And I think all of it led to the building of this movement, the building of their individual faiths, and ultimately the building of the group's faith.
So that he became undeniable, so that to the point where, you know, when you get up to as far as Constantine, before Constantine legalized Christianity for the Roman Empire, you know, Christians were being used as Roman candles, like human torches in games and being set on fire because it was, they were just, it was such, it was such, This abstract concept to the rest of the modern world at the time, this little movement from this backwater town of Nazareth that kind of generated this monstrous shift in the perception of reality and what it means to be human and what is important and how we are to treat each other just exploded because it had to.
The Spirit was within it from the very beginning, and I think all of the moments throughout Jesus' life, post-resurrection, through after His ascension, through the development of the early church in Acts with Paul, all of it was meant to strengthen and solidify This new reality for these people that were going to be the champions of the faith, that would give their lives for this thing that they believed, that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and everything He did met and fulfilled the requirements of the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.
You're practicing Catholic, you pray a lot, you have a tabernacle, you love the Lord, you're in continual discourse with the living Jesus Christ and suddenly you get the opportunity to be Jesus and you actually are having to, in this sort of incredible cultural Artifact that perhaps more than anything since certainly the passion of the Christ has created cultural and media interest in Christianity in a new way.
It's reaching more people than would have been imaginable.
It's the first you know almost internet age media item or artifact around Christianity and you're in the middle of this as a person that prays, who has a dialogue with Jesus.
How do you Conflate and conduct a relationship with Christ while you're, you know, like, you know, presumably after work, you're praying at work, you're in a trailer and you're like, oh, how do I do this scene?
How much variety?
Like, you know, how many different takes?
If you're doing a, you know, say something, let's say from seasons you've already shot and they've already been aired.
Like if you're doing like a sermon on the mount or whatever, are you trying it in a variety of ways?
And in your mind, are you in a kind of continual state of prayer?
I've heard you say before like you know like it's increased your intimacy with Jesus but I want to know like what that is like because again this isn't you're on one level I'm just talking to an actor like if I was talking to you know like we've had Matthew McConaughey on I'm not like oh in Estella do you think you're actually that bloke not doing that Because it's not a religion even though it seems like an
attempt to try and create one in the Stella sometimes Christopher Nolan's plainly on that tip
but like yes, I Wonder man what it's like to does it blur lines?
well, I would have to say that a lot of the the Increased
Methods of my own personal practice and prayer life have been a direct result of spending more time
with Jesus as a character in a TV show whom I'm playing when I'm portraying and
I think a lot of those things might not have arrived in my life had I not been forced to kind of, you know, spend, well right now it's been six years of my life on this show so far.
I think this is kind Kind of been something that God's been preparing me for, for a very, very long time.
I remember seeing Jesus of Nazareth with Robert Powell as a kid, as like an 11-year-old kid, and being so impacted by the way of the cross, by the path he took to his crucifixion, that after The show was over.
I went outside in my own backyard, built a life-size cross, and reenacted the Passion of the Christ myself as an 11-year-old kid.
Like, who does that?
And I literally hammered the nails, and I painted the blood, and I made a crown of thorns, and I plopped it up against my garage, and I just reenacted the crucifixion.
And so I think it's something that has been in the back of my mind clearly for a very long time, so it's hard not to kind of look at this as some sort of manifest destiny, that God has a plan in which I can now bring, for this very specific time and age, The precepts and the concepts of the faith and the necessity and the importance of having a relationship with Christ and having the spirituality to an audience that I think, on a global scale, desperately needs something to anchor themselves into.
And for me, like, you know, playing him My preparation begins with prayer.
It begins with Mass and Confession and the Eucharist and kind of spiritually cleaning myself out so that I can be a greater, a cleaner sort of a mirror, if you will.
It's like wiping a dirty mirror and just say, okay, God, you reflect Off of me the things that you want the world to see, the qualities that you want people to feel from Jesus as portrayed in the show, and just let me be kind of like a mirror to what you want for people to experience.
And the things that people have been experiencing are profound, and I can take no credit for them.
I just kind of show up as a vessel, and I say the lines, and I do enough of my own meditation and prayer prior to it.
I think really hard about these particular scenes, and I wonder what Jesus went through, and if I'm kind of suffering in my personal life, will I try to bring that suffering and offer up that suffering through the art to Christ in union with His suffering?
Because when we offer our own sufferings up, That's when God can take them and sanctify them for our good and the good of everyone in heaven and on earth.
In a way, what you're doing as an actor is essentially the Christian journey anyway.
Like that's what we're all supposed to be doing, except we don't then go on camera and sort of render our experience.
But in our lives, We're meant to, as you say, offer up our suffering.
We're meant to cleanse that, be available for God, be available for Him, rather than allowing my desires and my self-centered.
When I self-deify, when I become, once again, the center Of my own life, I'm in trouble.
I had an amazing kind of, like, when you were talking about, like, you know, your own suffering, I was like, ah, Jonathan's a person that's now, like, if you ever lose it at a service station or in an airport, you can never again go, I told you, I ain't sitting in that seat!
What the hell?
You, like, you gotta be clean now, man.
Yeah, it's a really convenient accountability partner playing Jesus on the screen.
But I gave a commencement speech at Catholic University of America a few weeks ago.
Yeah, I watched it.
It was good.
Thank you.
And one of the things that I said, and I meant it, was that you don't have to play Jesus on TV to be Jesus to the world.
And what I was trying to communicate to the kids, it's like, just because I'm playing Jesus doesn't mean you can't do what I do in your own life, in your own way, whatever it is.
You know, even as a student, you know, even as a graduating student who might not have a job, but you're still interacting with the world.
You're still important in the world.
Your soul still has purpose and meaning, and as they find their way to the path that God wants for them, Ultimately, hopefully, to glorify Him in the gifts that He'd given them, they have to, we all have to be Christ to everyone we meet.
And I think when we are using our gifts, I mean, just like you're using your gifts now as a proponent of speech and, you know, conscious thought and awareness and awakenedness, all of that As you are on your journey can be used to glorify God in some way, and as you do that, what He does with your life becomes incomprehensible.
Seven years ago, when I was working with you, I was dead broke, man.
That job, for me, as a stand-in, was one of the lifelines that kept me from completely just drowning in financial misery.
It was prior to my deeper conversion, which was about a year later.
Where I surrendered everything that I had and didn't have.
I was in a really bad state, and you've seen my documentary, so you kind of know what that's about.
But I essentially had to let go of the reins of the control of my life, of trying to think that I was responsible for everything, that I could do it all, that I knew better than God knew about what my life should look like, about what my career should look like.
And the minute I released it, And truly and honestly and totally and wholly gave it away to him, everything changed.
Everything changed that very day.
Now, that doesn't happen maybe with everybody on that day.
It was a very, it was a very dramatic thing that happened for me.
And, you know, it took a little bit of time.
It was about three months after that before I got cast in The Chosen.
But I knew in that moment that this answered prayer was the beginning of the next chapter, the next phase of my life.
And my life has never been the same since.
And it's their opportunity for everybody in their lives.
If they're stuck or they're suffering or they feel like they just don't know what more they can do.
You got to give it away.
You got to give it up and surrender it all.
I was struck.
By the proclamation, Jonathan, I was doing my rosary, listening to a voice that I've heard before render sarcastic impressions of myself.
Let me hear what that voice sounded like.
What did that voice sound like?
You want to talk about hate crimes, okay?
In progress.
That's blasphemy!
I mean, that's a whole bundle right there!
Blasphemy!
Hate crime!
International crime!
When you say, like today in the proclamation, I was struck by, you know, calls thinners A community.
This is what this is.
This is what Christianity is for.
It's for the fallen.
And like I was thinking of the fallen and for the broken.
And I was thinking about what you just said then about your own like the letting go of the reins and the surrender that you just described and how that how does that relate to the fundamental Christian promise Of surrender.
And was it really, are you describing despair?
You know, when you made that prayer, was it despair?
Was it rage?
What was it that you were feeling, Jonathan?
There was despair about my circumstances, but the prayer itself essentially was that God, I've been doing this thing for somebody who professed to be a man of faith.
I needed to now get on my knees and pray and have a real heart-to-heart conversation and say, God, you brought me to Los Angeles for the last eight years.
I've gotten little bits and pieces.
I've barely been able to stay afloat to keep myself fed.
And in fact, that day I was out of food.
I had enough food for that day.
I was negative in my bank account.
I was thousands of dollars in debt and I hadn't worked.
I was doing rideshare.
I was delivering groceries.
I was painting houses.
All of a sudden, all of the side gigs They stopped for like two weeks, like I couldn't get arrested for like just a side job.
And I started to panic.
And I said, my last resort was literally getting on my knees and praying like God.
You brought me here.
You brought me here with these gifts you've given me, but I've tried to do this.
Like, I thought I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing.
I thought the Lord helps those who help themselves.
Well, it turns out Ben Franklin said that.
That's not in the gospels.
That's not biblical.
So, what I realize is, like, the Lord helps those who rely on him.
And so I said, Matthew 28, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you.
My burden is easy and my yoke is light.
I'm paraphrasing.
And so I said, here, take mine because I don't know what you want from me anymore.
So I'm going to take all this stress and all of this burden and all this fear and anxiety, and I'm going to give it to you.
It's not my problem because you're true to your word.
I trust you.
I believe everything you say.
I believe everything you say is true.
I believe you are who you say you are.
And you've never lied.
And so you say, come to me.
I'm coming to you.
Take my burdens.
They're yours now, not mine.
And I literally felt this weight just lift off of me.
And I'm like, wow.
All right.
It's not my problem.
I had 20 bucks left.
I spent it on food, like I went out for a brunch or something.
And I'm like, oh, this should be interesting.
I wonder what's going to happen now.
And I came home.
And there were four checks in the mail waiting for me from these disparate sources.
Like, it didn't make sense.
Like, one of them was from a company that hadn't paid me residuals for an animation job I did in, like, four years or something.
Like, oh, we forgot to pay you!
Here's $800!
And at the end of this I took these checks, I went up to my apartment, I turned on my phone, I pressed record on my video function, and I recorded myself opening them because I was like, this isn't real.
For posterity, so that I know I'm not hallucinating, I gotta have a document of this somehow.
And I opened the checks, and each check was bigger than the one before.
And at the end of that, I had $1,100 when in the morning I was negative $80.
And so that $1,100 may as well have been a million dollars, but more than that, it was an answered prayer, and it was proof when I cried at my most desperate time and truly just surrendered everything wholly and completely.
And I can't stress that enough.
You have to do it and you say it and you mean it because then you feel different once you've done that.
Once you've completely surrendered and you walk away with like, it's not on me, man.
It's not my responsibility.
You feel the weight shift.
And that's when I knew, okay, it's going to be different.
I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but it doesn't matter because he's got me because he said he would.
And he did that very day.
And so when that happened, I'm like, okay, I'm going to be okay.
I'm going to be fine.
A guy that I had worked with over the previous four years shooting these little short films for his church's Easter service said, Hey, we're doing four episodes of this crowdfunded TV show.
It's probably not going to go anywhere, but you'll get a few episodes of work.
I'm like, Yeah, I'm in for whatever, man.
Like, whatever.
And here we are in the middle of filming season five, 200 million eyeballs later, and it's just, I mean, it's just every step of this journey from that moment in my life has just been utterly mind-blowing.
It's been mind-blowing, man.
Yeah, that's a beautiful story of surrender And transformation.
And it's difficult, isn't it, Jonathan, not to make the evaluation based on outcomes, you know?
Because that's the bifurcation that I wrestle with, is that if I am living along spiritual lines and surrendered, That I'm not looking for, well you've done this because even your encounter, it's beautiful to hear the removal of the burden, the bondage of self, the removal of that burden is what I pray for.
More than all of the various accumulated horrors, it's the horror of being an individual, it's the horror of being trapped in self, the imprisonment and incarceration of being your own God, and what that does To the spirit, even if you're open-minded and you're intelligent and you're metaphysically curious, this bondage of like knowing, like I read a Timothy Keller thing yesterday saying, deep down, I've been relying on myself, Lord.
Deep down, even though I believe in you, I've been relying, I'll be like, I'm going to do this.
And what It sounds like you're describing to me, I'm over that, I'm over it, I'm letting go of that.
And I want that, and I felt it, I felt it when I was baptised, I feel it sometimes, but I feel like I'm so continually engaged in various, like the gridlock of materialism, and the sort of the combat of material life, that when I It's like I keep being magnetized back into it.
Like I don't, I want to be saved and stay saved.
You know?
I want to be saved and stay saved.
Salvation.
It's a daily journey, man.
You know?
That's the thing.
It's not that we believe, well, you got to earn your salvation.
Salvation is a gift.
It's grace.
It's something that's given to you freely.
But You have to continue to work on any good relationship.
Just because, let's say you and I are friends, if ten years goes by and we never talk to each other again, are we still friends?
I don't know.
It takes work.
Relationships are work.
Relationship with Christ is work.
Relationship and dying to yourself is heavy work.
Relationship to Jesus and destroying of the, you know, the ego.
Destruction of pride.
Like, that's probably, I mean, pride is the father of all sins.
Because when you possess pride, everything else is born out of that.
Everything else is born out of the need to serve the self, right?
And so when you can destroy pride, that's what I mean.
You're familiar with that prayer that I think I sent over to you once.
It's called the Litany of Humility.
It's a meditation on humility.
And if you go through that, It's everything that is the antithesis of what society is telling us we should need.
Society says, focus on yourself.
You are in charge.
You are you.
You are independent.
You are the thing that drives you and your life.
Only you matter.
And Jesus is like, look at that guy.
No, focus on that guy.
And then you'll get it.
The parable that he tells to the young rich man that comes to Jesus, Lord, I've done all these things, I've followed the rules, I've done everything right to follow God, and what must I do to attain the Kingdom of Heaven?
And Jesus says, And he knew he was rich and he knew it wasn't a commentary on that having wealth is bad.
It was that this particular young man came to him who was wealthy, said, what must I do to attain eternal life?
And he says, go and sell everything you have and give the money to the poor and then follow me.
And this guy, was so attached to his wealth.
He was so married to wealth, to his money, to his possessions, to his things, to his materialism.
He couldn't.
He said, sell everything.
Sell it all.
Give the money to the poor.
And he went away sad because he knows, he knew he couldn't do it.
He didn't have that strength.
And so that's what we are asked to do, whatever it is.
If it's not money, if it's lust, if it's position, if it's authority, if it's, you know, whatever it is that is anchoring us, that is keeping us from aspiring to The priority, which is Him, which is God, which is that relationship, and by serving God and serving each other, we serve God.
By being of service to each other, to the poor, to the most marginalized, to those who are misunderstood, by being of service to them, that's how we serve Him.
Your life changes, but that all starts with the destruction of the ego.
It sounds extreme and it shows you how extreme our culture must be.
That the principles with which you would abide with him appear extreme in the context of the culture.
It shows how far we've gone because that is simply, that's the way to live.
And it's like, I'm not doing that.
So it sounds crazy.
So it's, you know, in a sense, this brings me to A challenging idea that it is a fundamentally political act to live a spiritual life.
Because you are rejecting the world.
You are rejecting it.
And to reject the world, you know, my problem, my challenge with a lot of ideologies, say, is that sometimes I detect in them That really what you're trying to do is use this ideology to make yourself in alignment with materialistic principles and to make yourself more effective in a material environment.
When in fact what we are supposed to, whether that's the 12 steps of various addiction fellowships or Christianity or presumably any faith, if the ultimate goal isn't that like, you know, partly what the eldest son in the prodigal son is telling us, That even if what you're living is on the, or even Job, even if on the outside what you're doing appears pretty righteous, if the reason you're doing it is in service of your own ideals, ideals likely derived from the culture, you're independent, da da da da da, isn't sin, isn't abuse, really the traffic and momentum derived
From being your own God, your own Jesus, rather than the rejection of that.
And I think the reason that probably, like a lot of newly converted people, I'm fascinated by acts is because Christ is God, and the Gospels is God, and acts is human beings touched by God.
And part of the reason that the release, the surrender to Jesus is so beautiful for me is because I have been so devoutly my own Christ.
What was the tipping point for you?
Suffering, breaking, being broken.
Like, you're like, ah, this was God.
Now you are being shown that your God was, I like being powerful.
I like being revered.
I liked my little position in the culture of, hey, look at this guy.
He's a super hedonistic wild man who's intellectual and promiscuous and sleeping around.
Fame and sex were the things that were my gods.
And those things, vroom!
They're the things that turned into hell.
Fame and sex.
Where's your God now?
Where's your God now?
Okay, okay, okay!
I thought I was pretty clever.
I thought I was so smart.
I thought I had it.
But like I didn't have it.
And that's why sort of esotericism derived from impersonal universal spirits.
I can't get that.
I need like, you Lord Jesus, you help me.
I don't know what to do.
I'm broken.
I'm broken in both senses.
I'm broken as in I'm finished.
I'm kaput.
And I'm broken as in I'm obedient and I'm willing to wear the yoke that my burden may be shared.
That's what happened.
One of the things that popped into my head to say to you as you were telling me about the struggle, some of the struggle for you is feeling like, feeling this complete surrender and I would say the thing that came to me was that just be patient with yourself because this is something that takes a lot of time and If you've lived a certain way and you're used to having a certain mindset for decades, or your reality was one way for years and years and years, and you've seen something that says, no, wait, you pull back the veil and you're like, wait a second, this is life?
This is real life?
How do I get more of that?
You've taken the steps to get there.
I think it's going to take some time and continued devout prayer and meditation and just offering yourself up every day.
You wake up and just asking.
For that surrender, asking for that burden to be lifted, asking for, you know, there's a prayer like, I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.
So it's like, even as believers, we still register doubt, we still suffer doubt, we still deal with trials, we still deal with, you know, tribulations.
We're not exempt.
Jesus himself was not spared from death and tribulations and the misery of humanity.
He experienced that along with us, so that we now know we have an ally.
In our own sufferings, and somebody that can do more with our sufferings than we can.
And so, keep asking.
Keep asking him.
To show you how to continue to put that with which you are struggling on the altar to help lift it, to help take it off your shoulders.
You're so tender and you're so beautiful.
And part of what I like about your Jesus versus some of the other culture Jesuses in a kind of Jesus Royal Rumble showdown is like, like if Robert Powell has that kind of like mystical, Ooh, Caviezel, brooding, sexy.
You have tender, warm Jesus.
You know, like from all of the aspects of the Christ, even how Christ plays out in culture.
You know, do you need the healing Christ?
Do you need the teacher Christ?
Of course, we all need the Redeemer.
Mate, we have to do, I have to go, but I wish we could do this every week, if not every day.
Can I ask some, like, chosen, some chosen questions, quick-fire chosen questions?
Juan, what is your favorite season that you've made so far?
This season so far.
You talk about the things that we've seen in the tender heart of Jesus and the loving Jesus and we see a few different colors from Jesus in season five and you may change your mind.
What is your favorite scene that you're in from The Chosen?
Oh, you know, every moment, every scene has, there's a few scenes, I couldn't pick one, but some of the stuff that we've done in Season 5 has been my favourite.
I think it's going to be on another level.
Because everything's intensifying, so you like the intensity.
Who is your favourite?
Yeah, we're in Holy Week for Season 5.
Yeah, yeah, I'm waiting, baby.
Still waiting for Summer Season 4!
What about, who's your favourite apostle?
I'll tell you who is not my favourite apostle and it's Little James.
I want to go on record that Little James is not my favourite apostle.
Good.
Have you got a favourite moment with Dallas?
Played by Jordan Ross.
Favourite moment with Dallas?
You know, I think the end of season, the first episode in season one, Where Jesus meets Mary Magdalene in a bar.
Sounds like the beginnings of a great joke, but it's probably the moment that hooks everybody into the series.
Yeah.
And when we prepared for that scene, myself and Liz Tabish, who plays Mary Magdalene in Dallas, who directs us and created the show, when we were prepping for that scene, We talked about it at length and there was this bond that was created in that moment because we knew there was something really special about this scene and this episode and I think ultimately we knew this show had something that we'd never seen before and I'd say that that's probably the moment that sticks out with me the most because it was the beginning and we didn't know where we were going and where it was going to go and we had no money
And to look back now after nearly five seasons later, it's just been extraordinary.
What about your favourite on-set visit from a donor or financier or community member of The Chosen?
Can one come to mind?
That's an interesting question.
You know, when people approach us, like whether they're fans or donors, the thing that they all have in common is that they just, from the deepest depths of their heart, want to thank us for bringing this show to life.
And so, I mean, I've had people that I haven't been to church in 30 years come up to us and say, this show helped me go back to church and helped me reestablish a connection to God, and I can never repay you, but I am helping to fund your show.
This is like how we can help kind of give back.
But yeah, I mean, that kind of stuff.
I mean, all jokes aside, you can't put a price on what this show has done and what these characters will do that probably no other character I ever play for the rest of my life will ever touch.
There's nothing that will ever come close to this experience.
And so I'm trying to stay as focused and as present as I can now.
Oh man, that's so exciting.
Jonathan, thank you very much.
You know what?
I really want to come and visit you on set.
I'd love to spend some time with you.
Oh, good.
Yeah, thanks, man.
Thanks for all of your help that you've given me on this journey.
Thanks for bringing me here.
Yeah, no, it's been my honor to call you friend and to get to be on your show.
And I love you and I'm praying for you.
And anytime you want to come on, you just let me know.
Thank you.
I love you, mate.
Thanks very much.
I'm still not letting you in my head for prayers though.
Russell.
Russell.
He's in there!
No!
Oi!
What if I talk like this?
If I say something like this?
Lord!
Tell me what to do, Lord!
That interview with Jonathan Rumi was available one week earlier on Locals.
You can of course watch Colonel Douglas MacGregor right now by becoming a subscriber.
Me and Douglas MacGregor talk about Assange, we talk about Ukraine, we talk about the rise of populism and the rise of patriotism.
It's a fantastic conversation.
We will be back next week, not with more of the same, oh no, but with more of the different.
