'The Chosen' star Jonathan Roumie shares the prayer that saved him

Jonathan Roumie steps out of the interview room at the Four Seasons in Madrid looking momentarily like a man on a mission: not divine, just maybe a little bit peckish. Between back-to-back interviews with international press, he pauses to scan the small snack table, eyes the options, and ducks away briefly to regroup. No big entourage, no announcement, just a soft-spoken, lanky figure who looks a little more like Jesus with each passing season.
 
This is the morning of The Chosen’s Madrid premiere. It’s been a journey that began as a niche project, quietly crowdfunded and distributed without major networks, that exploded into a global phenomenon, particularly during the early days of the pandemic, when isolation and uncertainty cracked people open. That’s when it found them.
 
It found the devout, the lost, the questioning, and the hurting. It offered something most religious media couldn’t: intimacy, grit, and a Jesus who is relatable.
 
A teenage girl stepped forward, she hadn’t been part of the press, but when she saw him, she couldn’t stay silent.
 
She told him she loved The Chosen. That his portrayal of Jesus brought her closer to God. That she had never prayed so honestly until now.
 
Roumie didn’t glance at his watch. He didn’t nod politely and move on. He stopped. He looked her in the eyes. He gave her the same full-bodied attention he gives anyone who speaks to him, even after hours of interviews. And in that moment, just a few seconds in a hotel hallway, it was obvious: the man takes this seriously. Not the fame. The responsibility. The impact. The weight of playing not just a role, but a figure who, to billions, is God.
 
He thanked her. Genuinely. Quietly. Then he stepped back into the room to keep telling the story he never expected to carry.
 
Roumie doesn’t act like someone who’s carrying a hit show on his shoulders. He laughs too easily. He’s surprisingly funny. Between serious reflections on scripture, he’ll toss out one-liners and deadpan zingers with a timing that feels more late-night than late-Republic Rome.
 
“I hope I don’t get crucified after,” he quips when asked how it feels to be hailed by fans at the same moment his character is being hailed in Jerusalem.
 
There’s a flicker of mischief in his eyes—just enough to remind you that before all this, he was just a New York guy trying to make it in voiceovers and music.
 
“I mean, Jesus was all rock and roll,” he adds with a laugh when I told him he looks like a rock star. I added that with his music talents, he’d be a shoo-in to star in a Jesus Christ Superstar musical production. “Depends who’s casting,” he says, not wanting to assume. He sounded exactly like an actor who, for much of his career, faced casting rejections.
 
But beneath the easy interview banter is reverence. A deep, steady sense of calling.
 
Now in its fifth season, The Chosen approaches the most devastating chapters of the gospel. And Roumie, who plays Jesus with a mix of deep conviction and surprising humor, carries that weight in more ways than one.
 
He is leaner this season. That physical transformation is part of what allows this portrayal of Christ to feel so human, achingly so.
 
This time, we see Jesus cry. We see him pause. We see him burdened with the heartbreak of being praised and rejected in the same breath.
 
“I’m trying to serve the story and the character of Jesus to the best of my ability and intentions,” Roumie says earnestly. “Especially as a person of faith, Christ is the most important person and figure in my own life, and so playing this character is the greatest honor of my life, and also one that I endeavor to do very sacredly.”
 
And the show does, too. In a season filled with praise from crowds yelling “Hosanna!” and disciples jockeying for position, the weight of what’s to come presses down hard. For viewers, it’s a stark reminder that glory and suffering were always tied.
 
For Roumie, the Last Supper scene was especially sacred.
 
“Well, I think portraying the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper was something that, for me as a Catholic, is just so, so important,” he says. “Having to portray the moment that actually becomes reality for the faith, for Christianity, was something that I took very, very seriously and sacredly and felt an immense amount of weight to portray as spiritually, as impactfully as I could.”
 
He prayed through it, literally. He asked others to pray for him, too. “A lot of my prep for that, for the scenes in The Last Supper, were really with prayer and discernment.”
 
His is a grounded kind of faith. The kind built on letting go. Years ago, broke and uncertain, he found himself at his lowest point. I asked him what prayer he said during those times.
 
“The fundamental prayer that is kind of the guiding theme of my life is rooted in the idea of surrender and that I’m not in control — that God is in control, but I have to be a willing participant,” he says.
 
He recalls praying this: “Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything.” He repeated it, over and over. A novena. A breath. A last hope.
 
“And once I did, I felt a weight off of me,” he recalls. “And then hours later, I experienced a financial miracle that was impossible to comprehend.”
 
That story was featured in his documentary series, and it continues to move fans who see in him not just an actor, but a man who’s tasted what he portrays.
 
Later that evening, Roumie greets fans along the Madrid premiere carpet, posing for photos and embracing co-star Shahar Isaac, who wraps an arm around him and sings his praises. “We started this journey when no one knew who we were,” Isaac laughs. The crowd surrounding the theater showed how big the show has become.
 
What began as a modest production has become a movement—one that speaks to old believers with renewed fervor, and to new ones with an unexpected tenderness.
 
That night on the red carpet, the cast glowed. It wasn’t a performance. It was joy and gratitude, stark and plain to see.
 
So much has changed since those early days. The sets are bigger. The fandom is global. People stop him in airports, in churches, in restaurants. And yet, Roumie still moves through it all with that same quiet center. Still anchoring himself with the same simple prayer he prayed years ago when he had $20 in his account and no plan:
 
Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything.
 
He is not Jesus. He knows that. He gently reminds fans of that when some blur the lines in their excitement over meeting him in person. He was supposed to be inside the theater more than 30 minutes ago but he was still taking photos with fans and graciously listening to them and accepting their handmade tokens of appreciation.
 
You know he really isn’t Jesus, but when he speaks, you can feel it: something more is happening.
 
And maybe that’s the point. He’s not pretending to be divine. He’s just fully present. Open. Willing. A man who gave his life over to a role—and in doing so, became something more than an actor and became a witness.
 
And in a time when so many are still looking for something to hold onto, Jonathan Roumie reminds us that surrender can be the holiest act of all.