Pints With Aquinas - 236. Playing Jesus w/ Jonathan Roumie

Episode Date: December 15, 2020

I interviewed Jonathan Roumie, the actor who portrays Jesus in "The Chosen" TV series. He tells us what it was like playing our Lord and how it has deeply impacted his life.   SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints  Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/ GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT  Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

G'day, g'day, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd, and today I'm joined around the bar table by Jonathan Rumi, who plays our Blessed Lord in the excellent series Chosen. We're going to chat with him for about 20 minutes about what it's like to play our Blessed Lord. Then we're going to take some questions from our patrons and superchatters, so please be sure to stick around for that. Also, we're almost at 96,000 subscribers. So if you would help push this channel over the 100,000 subscriber mark, that would be awesome.

So please be sure to subscribe, click that bell button. And also do us a favor. If you want to support this channel and support this video, go share this right now. Right now on Facebook or Twitter or wherever you do your sharing. And that will see to it that, you know, the max Twitter or wherever you do your sharing. And that will see to it that, you know, the max number of people see this excellent bloody interview. It will be excellent, just to be clear. Okay, look, hey, before we begin, I want to say thank you to Exodus 90. Exodus 90 isn't a spiritual exercise for men. You basically take 90 days and just not enjoy your life, in all honesty.

Not necessarily true, but you give up alcohol, you give up sweets, you give up snacks in between meals and things like that. Cold showers, these sorts of things. Why would I do that, I hear you ask. So you can grow in your relationship with our blessed Lord. So here's what's happening. In 28 days, 6 hours, 53 minutes and 40 seconds, 39 seconds, 38 seconds, there's going to be a ton of guys around the world who are going to be starting Exodus 90. And the reason it begins on January 4th is so that it can end at Easter. So if you want to take your faith to the next level, click that link below, exodus90.com slash mattfradd, exodus90.com slash mattfradd.

At least put in your name and email address to get more information. If you want to take your spiritual life to the next level, this is a great way to do it, exodus90.com slash Matt Fradd. Jonathan Rumi, how's it going? Hello, sir. Good. How are you? I'm very well. It's nice to see your face. It's nice to see your face. In fact, actually, it's twice in two days because I was watching you yesterday talk to Eric Ibarra about Greek Orthodoxy. And I don't know if you knew this, but I was baptized Greek Orthodox and then raised as a Catholic for my first communion and confirmation. And so I figured I'd wear better than to learn more about the faith

and adjunct faiths than through pints with Aquinas. And I got as far as, hello, I'm Eric Ibarra. And I was like, the rest was like. Oh, really? Yeah. Well. He's a smart dude. It was me too.

I was pretending to understand. That's dense. There's a lot of dense information about the histories that I had no idea. But it was beautiful. It was lovely. And it was so informative. So I think I held on to a couple of bits and bobs, hopefully. But yeah, at the end of the day, here we are as Catholics. Yeah. Baptized Eastern Orthodox. You're obviously a practicing Catholic now. Was there ever a choice there between kind of going back to Eastern Orthodoxy?

Obviously, we love our Eastern Orthodoxy Orthodox brothers and sisters, but is there a reason you're Catholic today and not Eastern Orthodox? I think after having—so I was born and raised in New York City, and once we moved out of New York City into the suburbs, there weren't a whole lot of offerings as far as Greek Orthodox communities. And so my dad, having grown up in Egypt and having gone to Catholic school run by French Jesuits, as you did if you didn't go to public school, it was a very easy transition to the church down the street. And he was familiar with it. My mother's Roman Catholic.

So we just kind of just transitioned very easily, and it just felt like home. And of course, I had thought, as my cousins who remained Greek Orthodox, were getting married and having kids and witnessing the marriages and the baptisms in the church and the beauty of the liturgy, you know, it crossed my mind a couple of times, but I never felt that I needed to go and re-transition. You know, the Catholic Church just felt like home for me, and increasingly so, obviously, the last several years. Beautiful. Well, for those who aren't aware, who is Jonathan Rumi and what is The Chosen? So The Chosen is the first multi-series, multi-season TV series about the life of Jesus Christ and his disciples. And the concept is that if you got to know Christ and see him and saw him through the eyes of the disciples

and how they were moved by him, then we as audience goers could be moved by Christ and his teachings and his words and the effect he had on the heart and the spirit as well. and the spirit as well. And so I play Jesus Christ. We finished a season last year with season one. We're in the process of filming season two. We're about halfway done. We spent six weeks in Utah, and then we'll be heading to Texas beginning of the year to shoot out the remainder of season two. And I think if folks have never heard of it, the best way to check it out would be to go to your app store or Google Play and download the app called The Chosen.

So yes, the TV show is an app. It's brand new technology. This has never been done before. It's the first TV show to be accessed via an app for free that once you download it if you have a smart tv or a smart device like apple tv chromecast firestick roku you can literally cast it from your phone like a remote control to your television and watch it on your tv for free and um you can download it there and check out season one and then i think next sunday i believe that's the 13th um there will be a uh

the chosen is doing a christmas show and they're going to show a teaser a teaser trailer of what we've shot so far of bits that we've shot so far of season two and uh i i heard uh it it looks pretty good pretty fantastic so i'm i'm very excited to see what they've put together for the for the trailer but um yeah it's it's it's pretty it's a pretty incredible concept and the fact that it's been um crowdfunded from the get-go by uh initially investors and now uh for season two um people wanting to back the project just uh the general public can literally watch the show for free and then if they are moved by it they can pay it forward for somebody else to watch it for free and uh you know with any kind of a contribution because it costs money as everyone knows to stream so uh but that's this system this pay it forward system has allowed us to completely fund season two it's uh it's amazing wow i love it

i love that it's free on the app you know i mean yeah this is really like you this is like the first bible some people might actually read they may have heard about jesus christ but may have never picked up the new testament and they get to encounter it through you, first of all, which is really neat. Yeah, it's been pretty mind-blowing. I still do a double-take at times and furthest from anything I could have imagined or anticipated. Yeah, it's funny. I remember hearing Rowan Atkinson saying that when people meet him, they're kind of disappointed because they expect him to be like Mr. Bean. And I thought, people must be really disappointed when they meet you, because no matter how great Jonathan Rooney is, he's hardly our blessed Lord.

Hardly, hardly. Yeah, so I remind people, I kind of try to prep people whenever I do interviews or go online, and just remind people of how terribly human and flawed that I am and to lower your expectations and standards if you ever happen to run into me on the street because you will be thoroughly disappointed. Well, I had an experience that I think most people or many people had when they heard about this show, right? So I was upstairs doing something and my son ran up and he went, hey, mom's watching this like Bible video thing on TV.

You want to come and watch it with us? And my immediate reaction was not really. Like, yeah, I'm sure it's not terribly good. And quite frankly, like even if it's like biblically accurate, like accurate to the story of the New Testament, I'm sure the art's not terribly good. And I didn't say any of those things, but I was thinking those things. I guess I walked down, I sat down and I was like, oh, oh my goodness.

This is actually good. Not just like, this is great for a Christian production, but like, no, this is high end. And when you came on this, I mean, I was like, okay, I'm not disappointed by this. But as soon as I see Jesus, I'm bound to be disappointed because there's no way you you but i have to say in all sincerity when i saw you i was like oh my gosh that's fantastic like this you did such a great job and kudos to you for not doing the jesus face or the jesus voice you know i used to work for a ministry where we would put on these uh these uh you mean the British voice they said hello the kind of dreamy otherworldly far-sighted thing yeah you're just a dude and it's really it's really great thank you man thank you yeah we uh

you I started working with Dallas Jenkins the creator creator of the show. It'll he cast me as Jesus. And that sort of began our working relationship. And initially, they were thinking about having it done in, you know, doing the whole thing in Hebrew. And then we realized that that was going to be quite a task. Actually, for me, it wouldn't have been that big a deal, because I had five lines in the whole thing so uh but for everybody else it would have been quite you know it was a 25 minute film um so they realized that wasn't uh probably going to happen um and so I I offered that what I would at least do since we were going to transliterate it and and uh and speak English with accents, I wanted to approach and I had played Jesus once before and I did this

and I figured this would be my sort of thing is to give Jesus an appropriately regional dialect of, you know, Middle Eastern, you know, and that's, I basically pulled from two people, my aunt, who's from, my uncle's wife, my aunt, who's from Palestine, and my father is from Egypt. So she's got a very thick accent. My dad's got a lighter accent. So I sort of blend the two. And that's kind of what became where the accent came from. And then that became the standard for the casts moving forward. They would send clips of my work from those church films with dows um to the cast members to say hey this is use this as a as a baseline um which kind of keeps us all you know in within the ballpark and then when i got to meet shahar isaac who plays simon peter um i realized that like the the

intonations and how how he pronounces the words i'm'm like, Oh, and he's from Israel. I'm like, Oh, okay. This is like, he sounds like my aunt. He sounds like, like we're, we're not too far off from each other. So it was nice to kind of have a, a living example of like, yeah, that that's pretty, that's on that works and it's still consistent in like, cool. So that's, that's sort of where we went with it. You know, did you have a beard prior to playing Jesus? Um, I, uh, I had a, a smaller beard. Yeah. It was, it was more clean shaven. It's not like you have an option to shave now. People would be pretty pissed. I imagine. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, uh,

I was up for something where, or I submitted recently an audition while I was shooting for a character that only had a mustache. And he was a historical figure. He only had a mustache and just a little bit of this little tuft. Yeah. And I was like, oh, well, yeah. yeah and i was like oh well yeah and so you know i said to i said to the makeup artist i said if it had to happen uh if i had to shave this and we had to put a thing and her eyes got really big and she's like and i was like i just i just wanted to luckily i was asking for someone else i didn't yeah yeah i was asking for a friend asking for a friend uh luckily it never came to fruition so a

guy just like nah it's we're not we're not gonna do that right now maybe after um right after we wrap in i think uh february i might just trim it down or at least go back to, I ignored for 10 years or eight years previously out here. I more or less had a scruff for seven years and then I grew it out a little bit and then I started booking all these other characters like these Frenchmen and I play a lot of Frenchmen. So, um, the, the beard kind of worked for Frenchies. So I kind of kept it and then read for Dallas and I'm just just like, well, looks like this is sticking around for a minute. Um, I know that, uh, Mel Gibson has spoken about some of the letters they received after the passion of the crisis released, you know, people

in jail who are having these conversions and things. What are some of the stories you've heard from people who've seen the show and have been deeply impacted by it? from people who've seen the show and have been deeply impacted by it? One of the ones that comes to mind is people that have been suicidal. Atheistic, suicidal are the two biggest ones that have had huge impacts on me. People that like, there was, I think, I think there was this one letter that Dallas read it because he does these live streams to promote the show and help raise money for the show. And I think he read out a letter from a person that was an atheist, and they were depressed and suicidal, and they kept finding themselves being pulled to the Bible in some way.

pulled to you know the bible in some way and next thing you know they like either and i i forgive my not being super specific about this memory but it was it's a version of this story where they saw somebody sat them down in front of the show or or they saw enough like ads or something like what is this and then then they watched the show, and it completely just, something opened up in them. It brought them out of this deep, dark funk, and that person, I think, ended up getting baptized, that wrote to him. And yeah, I've received a couple of emails like that before, people that were just lost or a person that saw the show who was suicidal.

message of Christ that is not me or the show or the right, you know, like the message and the spirit of Christ and his message, um, gave them a reason for hope and a reason to, to want to live and to, um, you know, just get to know him on a deeper level. So, um, yeah, we, we, we've had a lot of correspondence like that. I haven't met anybody in person yet, um, that, that has expressed that, but, um, you know that, but I know they're out there because they've written to us. Glory to God, man. That's really beautiful. Praise God. Oh, yeah. It's a miracle. My friend Cameron Bertuzzi wants to know how you stay humble playing Jesus. It's a really good question. I mean, it's probably difficult for anybody who's acting, and people come up to you.

They tell you how great you are, how much you've impacted them. How do you stay humble throughout this? How do you seek to? I look in the mirror. That pretty much does it, you know. I'm just like, what am I doing here, man, you know. know um and uh i and when i say that i mean i'm reminded of my humanity and how as i alluded in the at the onset of the interview that um i struggle i i i sin like the rest of the world uh and and um you know i i deal with my own humanity on a daily basis and the things that I'm trying to get better at and keep, you know, floundering over.

It's still a struggle to live in this world, you know. It doesn't, being on TV or playing a certain character, playing Jesus deeply impacts your life. But when you're not playing that character, you're still you. You're still a human being that gets offended and upset and has ideas and wants and needs and things and expectations of life that we don't always get met. Experienced loss. My family experienced a lot of loss in the last six months. It's a challenge, but I try to stay prayed up, man. I think that's what keeps me going. God, you know, by the, by the, by the, um, grace of God and his Holy spirit. I, uh, he kept,

he keeps me fed and, um, and humble. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, we want to take, we want to spend a big chunk of this video taking questions. Uh, so I want to get to that, but before I do, I have to say a word of thanks to hallow who I know you're a fan of as well as. Oh yeah. May have read a couple of sleep stories. A couple, a couple.

Maybe, maybe doing a couple of things with them coming up again soon. So yeah, they're, they're wonderful. I just did a live stream at the beginning of their, of Advent with their, they've got this I just did a live stream at the beginning of Advent. They've got this Pray 25 challenge going on.

And so I got to do a live stream with Alex Jones, one of the co-founders of Halo. And it was just a good time. I got to pray at the Chapel of Divine Mercy. It was awesome. I love them. They're awesome. Well, I want to invite everyone to watch.

I want to invite those who are watching to check out Halo. This is a fantastic app. It's just like Chosen. It's very sophisticated and thoroughly Christian. This is a thoroughly Catholic app. It's the number one downloaded app in the United States. Tons of five-star reviews. My wife and I use it, and we've been thoroughly impressed.

They lead you through these different guided meditations, Lectio Divinas. Someone can lead you in the rosary. There was even some time where I would bring Hallow with me into Eucharistic Adoration when my mind would just wander like crazy. I'd put in my little earplugs, and you can choose between this lady or this man lead you through this prayer experience

by reading the scriptures to you and asking some questions about what stood out to you, these sorts of things. You can put Gregorian chant in the background and these sorts of things. Anyway, they have a permanently free version of their app. You guys can download it. But if you want to get access to the entire app,

you can go to hallo.com slash Matt Fradd below. Click the link. And just by signing up there on the website, you'll get three months for free of the entire app. So you can try the whole thing out and see what you think but i don't think you'll be disappointed yeah yeah they had me read a song of songs did they yeah my lover stands behind the wall i don't know why i would speak like that that's how americans do my accent so that's me doing their my... Like a Cockney. They're doing actually a Cockney accent, essentially.

It's the David Brent. Right. That's very good, yeah. So hallow.com slash Matt Fradd. hallow.com slash Matt Fradd. Okay, let's take some excellent questions that we've been receiving already.

Ah, my goodness gracious. Here we go. Do you have your pint glass with you? Did I send you one yet? Because I will if you want one. You did not. Of course I want one. What kind of question is that?

I've got my little... What are you drinking out of there? I've got this little mug from Utah. Zion. This is Zion. I didn't get to go to Zion. Yeah, this one's way better. That's much better. Absolutely. I'll send that to go to Zion This one's way better That's much better

I'll send that to you Sweet, look at that dude Is it engraved? These are handmade one at a time in the United States They're gorgeous, they're really gorgeous Do people order them? It's a patron gift So when people support the channel by supporting on Patreon

Thanks for that softball setup too. There you go. First question comes from Bart Upart. He says, how has acting the role of Jesus changed your prayer life? It's deepened it for sure. It's deepened it. It's made me want to learn more about my faith. It's how I discovered you, Matt Fred, and Pints with Aquinas,

and digging around for more information on the Catholic faith and finding various sources of information, especially about the early church. It's deepened it in a way that I, you know, if you asked me two years ago, when we started 2018, if you asked me two years ago where I thought I'd be with my spirituality, I wouldn't have said with this behind me. I would never have in a million years. It just wouldn't have occurred to me. It just that there wasn't the same kind of passion and fire. I've got like three rosary bracelets on, so it just kind of opened things up for me. And that's a direct result of spending so much time with God and with his words and meditating and, uh, meditating on his son really, you know? Mm-hmm. Uh, patron Evan Collins says, have you felt conflicted in any creative decisions taken in the show on how to

tell a part of the story? I think I wouldn't, I wouldn't say conflicted. I would say that there were certain things that I thought were not as clear to me. And as a result, I thought maybe there would be ways to kind of play it so that it would be clear to me. Because if it wasn't clear to me, then maybe it might not be clear to other people. So I wanted to always make sure and I want to always make sure that I'm trying to represent both sides of Christ's divinity and his humanity as balanced as I can, as balanced as the writing will allow me in a way that it seems authentic. spirit channels through me that people are getting from from watching this and and receiving i want to make sure to continue to you know discern and pray over it and if there's if there are any kinds of things where i'm not clear um it's simply a matter of asking my friend and creator of the show

hey what do you think about if i play this like this and more often than not he'll be like yeah that's cool or let's try it or like you know what that doesn't work because this this this and this and and i'll realize like oh there's these other things that he wants to have happen that i wasn't aware of i wasn't thinking about because when you're approaching a role you're not thinking of everybody else's role you're not always always thinking about the bigger pictures to what the overarching story is and he knows what the story is from beginning to end we don't we get season by season episode by episode um but he knows what the bigger picture is so i have to always defer to him and trust him and um and i think it's worked out really well uh thank you uh patron uh riannon says, which episodes or scenes did you find the easiest and or the most difficult to portray? And did this surprise you?

is I think just trying to wrap your head around what it could be like to portray this, you know, sinless son of God on earth. It's a bit of a conundrum that from time to time will often trip me up. And then I just got to sort of shake it off and go pray and everything will be cool again. I'd say probably the most fun and the easiest would be uh episode three with the children um to a point you know anytime i was interacting with them it was just fun and breezy and then it gets a little heavier later on and one in that part of the episode um so then like any scene that there's there are challenges and challenges, and that wasn't without them. But I'd say that was probably the lightest of all of the episodes that I've filmed so far. Most difficult, I think, again, I think the difficulty is the same as far as technical aspects of the acting.

Spiritually, theologically, trying to make sure I communicated what I received from John 3.16 with the Nicodemus scene on the roof was something that to me was like, okay, this is a scene that i i i want to get it right and and um you know um i'm reminded uh dallas is like i think a couple of times you know he he'll remind me it's like god's not gonna let you screw this up you know god's not gonna let me screw this up referring to himself as well you know we're here we just we just got to show up with open hearts and um and just uh commit ourselves to excellence in the way that we have tried to do and the spirit will do the rest but still as a human as an actor trying

to do a scene you're like uh you know i want to make sure that at the very least in every scene that I'm exuding or trying to have as much compassion and tenderness and mercy as Jesus could have had in my very limited capacity to do that with whoever my scene partner is. So if you and I are doing a scene, I'm going to, Jonathan's going to look at Matt and just try to love on Matt to the best of my ability and see everything about you that is presented in your spirit and just try to just embrace that. And that's kind of what my challenge is as I'm playing him.

So it forces you to be a better human. You're just trying to be a better person constantly. That's awesome. Michael Beaumont says, Jonathan, thank you for your truly incarnational portrayal of his humanity without turning him into a postmodern hipster or an inaccessible mystic. Thank you. Thank you. Did you ever talk to Jim Caviezel

about playing the role of Christ? No. Do you ever accidentally compare yourself to him? Do I accidentally? No. I wouldn't know how to do that. That is the second most popular question

after, what's it like to play Jesus? And I feel the more it's asked, the closer I'll get to actually meeting him because I would love to meet him at some point and pick his brain about this whole thing. I know he knows of the project. I know he knows of the project. I know he knows of me because I know somebody who had at one point reached out to him to tell him about the show. But it hasn't happened yet. And when the Lord appoints the time, I'm sure somebody will just chuck us in a room and we'll figure it out. So my wife is watching. And so she's sending in a question on YouTube.

She says, question from Peter Fradd, who is my six-year-old. Hi, Peter. Hi, Peter. He says, who plays Peter in your movie? Is he as nice as you? Does he love Jesus? Shahar Isaac plays Simon Peter. I've never asked him if he loves Jesus, but he is as nice as me, if not nicer.

He's a wonderful, wonderful human being with such a beautiful heart, and he loves the role that he's playing in the story that we're telling. So, yeah, I'm very fortunate to be working with him. Awesome. Thank you. V Stew says, thank you, Jonathan and Mr. Frat. That's fine. The frat's fine.

These chosen lives have been such a blessing. Who will send the ale to go with your new stein? Always. Okay. So there you go. No one. I think in Georgia it's probably illegal, I think, for me to send alcohol to the mail, so you'll have to come up with that.

I might have to figure something out, or just grab a glass of water and work on that for a minute. That's what I'm doing. I'm drinking water right now. I feel like I'm, yeah. Well, this is tea, so. Okay. Raj Vengali says, as an actor, how do you try to,

oh, man, I'm really going blind, I don't know about you, but as an actor, how do you try to... Oh, man, I'm really going blind. I don't know about you, but as an actor, how do you try to... I'm fighting glasses, man. I'm fighting it. You remember that bit by Seinfeld about glasses and how they're supposed to make people look more intelligent? Do you know? They do. It works.

It works. He says, like, you know, we look at people and think, wow, he must have read a lot of books, but you never look at someone with a hearing aid and think that man must have heard a lot of good stuff. I forgot about that one. Raj says, as an actor, how do you try to sort of get in Jesus's head? By the way, pretty much every episode makes me cry when I see Jesus interacting with the poor, the lowly, the meek, and the lost. God bless. I don't try. I never try to get in Jesus' head. It's just, I mean, that's an impossibility.

I just try to clear out my own head, clear out my own spirit, and just open my heart in the scene and try to be present with the person in front of me. And, and then the rest is whatever the spirit lets happen. Rose Black wants to know what your t-shirt says. Oh, this is a Harley Davidson knockoff. It says, Jesus Christ, son of David. Love it. Yeah. Beautiful.

Christian Salem says, my girlfriend just finished her media degree. Any tips on getting a Catholic job with that degree? Huge fans of, I didn't mean to laugh, huge fans of you both from Canada. Hello, Canada. A Catholic job. You know, I mean, there's there's. Yeah. I mean, I think there's you can start by going on Facebook and there's a bunch of I've seen a bunch of, you know, Catholic media outlets there. It all depends on what you want to do. there. It all depends on what you want to do. Media is so wide ranging. I'd say,

depending on the specificity, there are a number of companies that are out there that are looking for people to get involved. At the end of the day, I think the first priority would be to just commit to a sense of excellence and want to, and ask God to show you her where he wants her to be. It might not be with a Catholic job, Catholic company, but it might be something else that she can use her skill set for that will bring people closer to God. But it doesn't necessarily, it may not necessarily be specifically Catholic. For instance, this show is not a Catholic show. This is a show made by an evangelical and with a Catholic actor and evangelical actors and non-believer actors and crew people

and Latter-day Saints and all Pentecostals. Like it's a whole smorgasbord. It's Muslim. I mean, it's a whole smorgasbord there's muslims i mean it's like it's a huge family of people that just um want to tell a really good story and um most of them are really connected to the story that we're telling just by proxy of seeing what's going on in the world and the reactions to the to the show so um yeah but prayer, I would start with prayer. Sounds like a good idea. This person's name is Naya,

which makes me think there might be an Australian. Naya. Naya. Do you want to give us your best Australian accent while you're at it? Right. Just say welcome to Pints with Aquinas. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I don't have a lot of experience doing Australian,

but as I talk more, it will start to fall apart. That's very good. Whenever I try to do an American accent, I can't do my R's. My tongue doesn't make that. There it is. Naya says, and this goes to what you were just talking about, on the set of The Chosen, did you share your Catholic beliefs with those around you? And then maybe just to what you were just talking about, on the set of The Chosen, did you share your Catholic beliefs with those around you?

And then maybe just to what you were saying a moment ago, like, what's it like, you know, working with people of different faiths and no faiths? You know, we don't specifically bring up our personal faiths on set. I mean, it's like working in any other workplace you kind of you kind of don't talk about it but you know that if somebody asks you a question or you did talk about it it's it's one of the few workplaces where it you know that most of the people there are pretty much of a similar persuasion. So that makes it easier. It also makes your ability and the way in which you express yourself in the vernacular, like saying things like,

"'God willing, such and such will happen,' or like, "'Praise God, I just got this thing and we did this scene and it was a blessing.'" So the ways that people express themselves are much more God centered and God oriented which is not the case typically with most workplaces especially these days so there's a certain freedom in that that we enjoy as a result second question oh what's it like working with uh you remember people of all different persuasions yeah uh it's i mean it's amazing it's there's

i feel that we are in a time in history where ecumenism and unity through this community of believers in christ is it should be the priority versus the interdenominational dispute right or you know uh or or even catholic denominational disputes that there are between left and right. We should begin with what we agree about, which is a great deal. Right, yeah. And since we've been approaching, it's just kind of naturally fell into this way of how people just respect each other and honor each other and honor each other's and respect each other's differences uh it's it's created a an atmosphere on set that's just unlike anything else like it's

it's just one it's been one pretty big happy family for going on two years now and it's every like when i tell you like the entire cast gets along with each like we we love each other like if you could just people can go on social media and see photos of us, like a group of us and stuff, and it really is a love fest. And especially, it's great hearing from the newer actors that come on that they didn't know what it was going to be like, and they were assuming that maybe certain people,

maybe even myself, might be like this or like that. And then to be completely like blindsided by the amount of gregariousness and charity and love has been, you know, just confounding them and defying every expectation they had coming onto a project like this. coming onto a project like this. My daughter, Avila Fradd, who's an awesome child, says, have you acted in other movies? What's your favorite besides The Chosen? I have acted in a few movies. I've acted in more television shows than I have movies.

I'd say one of my favorite roles to have done was, well, two come to mind. One was very recently, just before everything shut down in March due to COVID, I got to play a heroin addict, a British heroin addict on a show called Chicago Med, which was great because I haven't gotten to do anything crazy like that in a long time. great because I haven't gotten to do anything crazy like that in a long time. Ten years ago, I did a staged version of Trainspotting, so I got to play a Scottish heroin addict. So that was really interesting. And then other than that, I think the Mindy Project, which was a show on Hulu, I got to play a French doctor. This intense French doctor on the second to very last episode of the series, which was just a trip. Everybody on that show is like inhumanly funny.

I don't understand how so many funny people can be collected on one TV show. So those are my two, I think, the two shows that come to mind. Beautiful. Caitlin. Let me see if I can say this last name. Against my good judgment, I'm going to try. Manilastis says, hi, Jonathan. Sounded good. Thank you.

You just got to say it with confidence. Caitlin from Calgary, Canada here. I'm one of your prayer warriors, and I join your Divine Mercy prayers on Instagram. I'm inspired with your relationship with Mother Mary. Can you talk a little about that? I mean, what's not to love about the Mother of God? Her willingness to unconditionally say yes to God is something we should all aspire to and something I try to do and fail at miserably every day. But I try, you know, and she I think Dr. Scott Hahn put it this way in his book on Mary.

Scott Hahn put it this way in his book on Mary. What is it? I forget. I forget the name of the book. Forgive me. You probably know the name of the book. Hail Holy Queen. Yes.

Thank you. He made this distinction that I had never thought about before, but she's the only woman in history to be the spouse of God, the mother of God, and the child of God all wrapped up into one, which is just like, boom. So when you think about that, it's like, how do I not give her honor and reverence? How do I not give honor and reverence to the woman that God entrusted his son to be raised by in conjunction with St. Joseph. Like, how do I not give them their due? You know, like Jesus had to how to, you know, be one of us in, by, by Mother Mary and, and her, and her spouse, her husband. So, um, yeah, it's, when you think of those terms, it's like the God of the universe become a baby and taken care of by these two people, not just anybody, not to anybody, but these two people. Um, it, it just, uh, it it just it kind of it's mind-blowing it's

mind-blowing so um yeah i and i had a she once turned up in a dream of mine years and years and years ago so um there's always been uh there's been a connection there for a long time and and i i love that i've gotten to um you know grow closer to her these last few years as my faith has deepened. Very good. Colin Carr from Patreon says, I love the way Mary was portrayed in the episode on the wedding at Cana. I also noticed the episode on Peter's call was titled the rock on which it was built that surprised me considering the director and leadership are not catholic and i assume wouldn't see peter as the rock um i guess that's just a comment or is that i don't know yeah yeah cool yeah uh yeah yeah Cool. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Jack Skin says, fellow actor here, how do you balance taking jobs and staying true to your faith? I almost always feel the art culture is at odds with my faith.

You know, I feel like the culture is, in general, at odds with faith. But then it comes down to reality. What are the jobs you're being offered? And if the job specifically you're being offered, first of all, congratulations on being offered a job, you're being offered first of all congratulations on being offered a job because that's an effort of heat in itself as an actor to to get a job secondly what about the job makes you uncomfortable puts you at dis-ease makes you uneasy uneasy. There's always an opportunity for, we have to remember as actors not to judge the characters we play. Now, there's a difference between not judging a character and realizing the character, like the way it's written and what the, the, uh, creators of the project

have in mind for you to do. If, if there's anything that you feel is compromising your spirituality, that's one thing. If, if you feel like there's, you know, he's maybe a bad guy. Well, I try to find the good. I try to find Christ in all of these characters right if they're somewhat three-dimensional hopefully they're three-dimensional finding Christ in those characters as you would in any other human being is what allows a character that maybe might behave distastefully in certain scenes to at least give you something that you can work with and find a redemption for. And maybe it's just a lot of gratuitous violence or sex or whatever it is.

And sometimes you look at those and if those are the kinds of roles that are being offered to you, then you've got to decide whether or not that's good for you. I now no longer can even watch certain TV shows because they're so gratuitous, like my spirit rejects them. So if if I were to even audition for a certain show or one or two particular shows that I my spirit is almost offended by when I watch it because it just seems like, all right, the agenda is really dark on this particular program or that particular show. If I were to even receive an audition, I probably wouldn't even audition for it. Because, you know, at the end of the day, you have to live with the decisions you make. And now, you know, digital is forever, you don't want to look back and be like, why did I do that? Did I do that just for a couple of bucks?

You don't want to look back and be like, why did I do that? Did I do that just for a couple of bucks? And trust that God, if you're offering and surrendering your life and your will to God, he will provide for you no matter what. I am living proof of this. I was at my lowest point in my life on every possible conceivable level until God got me to surrender my will. And that day, he turned my life around. And six months later, I got booked on The Chosen. And nothing's been the deciding factor. the industry, controlling my life, controlling my career, and trying to do what I think I needed to do, and checking with God, and that's, that became the deciding factor, so yeah, you just discern,

pray, surrender, and, but also try, if you have the opportunity, try to find the arc where Jesus is with whatever characters that are flawed. Because, you know, I did that, for instance, with Chicago Med, that, you know, the guy was a heroin addict. And I found things that were, for me, were this guy trying to get his life together. You know, it was two scenes, but I had the whole thing worked out. And for me, it was great. Some people would have been like, how can you take a role with a heroin addict? You're playing Jesus, but I had the whole thing worked out. And for me, it was great. Some people would have been like, how can you take a role of the heroin addict? You're playing Jesus, but don't you?

People are like, so what? You think Jesus doesn't minister to heroin addicts? Of course he does. Especially the people that are suffering and people that are addicted. Jesus is in the mix of the grittiest and grimiest of characters. He's always there. So, yeah, just maybe think about that as you're as you're looking at some of these kinds of projects. That's great.

I got to go to my other daughter. Sorry. Sorry. What do you want from me? Kiara Fred, the little rascal who's amazing and beautiful and powerful. She says, what's your favorite thing about being Catholic and favorite thing about acting as Jesus? Great questions, Kiara. Thank you.

My favorite thing about being Catholic is our understanding of the Eucharist and what it means for Jesus to be truly present in the Holy Communion. That's my favorite thing. That gives me a lot of peace in my soul. And it just makes everything about being Catholic make sense to me. My favorite thing about playing Jesus, was it? I think my favorite thing about playing Jesus is

it puts me in a really happy place most of the time when I'm playing it. And even if there are scenes where I'm sad, it's still coming from a happy place or a joy or a tenderness for people. It makes me feel better about humanity playing Jesus. Beautiful. Anna Sher says, I'm from Australia too, Matt.

Can you ask Jonathan, please, when he is going to visit Australia? I'd love to go to Australia, but I don't think they're accepting us right now or anytime soon. So whenever the country opens up, it's been on my bucket list for 20 years to visit Australia. And one of our cast members is Australian. So I have an open invite to go hang out with George Xanthus, who plays the Apostle John. And we're very good friends as well. Is it being cool getting feedback from people from all around the world who watch the show? Oh, yeah.

It's mind-blowing to see how far reaching it's been and to know that people in third world countries are writing in and just expressing their joy over seeing these characters come into life for the first time in a way that they'd never seen before so it's uh yeah it's it's really really pleasing it's been such a blessing lovely and she also wants to know which saint writings have influenced you the most in your spiritual growth and who you would like to read more of. Oh, which saint, right? I started reading St. Augustine's Confessions which is really wonderful um

St. John of the Cross has been influential St. Benedict um St. John Paul II of course I mean he's in modern times he's written so much brilliant

beautiful stuff uh who would i like to read more of i don't have a specific person that i i want to read more of like stuff just kind of comes to me through osmosis and it's like, oh, I'll read this now. So I just, I like kind of discovering things accidentally. I'd say, yeah, that's where I'm at right now. That's awesome. Patron Metanoia Faith says, how has your Catholicity been received by so many evangelicals producing the chosen? Maybe not just producing them, but I'm sure as you get interviewed more and more people are like, wait, he's Catholic. What's been the response from evangelicals and our Orthodox brothers and sisters as they've learned that? You know, the response has not been denominational by any stretch. It's been

welcomed. It's been ecumenical. It's been supportive and encouraging um the subject of denomination doesn't really come up unless people ask me like hey what's that image in the background and i'm like oh well i'm glad you asked um you know i've i've i'm i've been um blatantly open about my Catholicity and unapologetic, but I'm not trying to shove anything in anybody's face. that I love about working with the guys at hallow is that even though it's a Catholic app, there's so much there that is, that is applicable to Christians of all denominations. It's, it's ecumenical or it's, it's Catholic in the universal sense and that there's so much that is that people can draw from. And for me, you know,

I had started praying the divine mercy Chaplet at the beginning of quarantine, and it literally was born out of this desire to answer this call to just give people another tool to expand their spiritual arsenal and then explain what it means and what it is and what we're saying, why we're saying what we're saying. And so many non-Catholics are like, that's great. I love that. And people like start saying, started buying rosary beads and saying divine, praying the divine mercy chaplet. And they're not even Catholic. I think when we expand our understanding of some of these mythological differences that really aren't that different, just letting people know, again, the reason for the season, right? It's all about Jesus. At the end of the day, it's all about Jesus. And pretty much everybody that is Christian can get on board with that.

Yeah, I got some good friends, like my friend Cameron Bertuzzi. He runs an excellent channel called Capturing Christianity. And I was saying to him, like, look, you don't have to become a Catholic to be able to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. You could do that if you wanted to. And he sees the beauty in that for sure. So it's really cool. Yeah. I recently that rick warren is a huge devotee to the uh divine mercy chapel it's like well how you see that so it's uh yeah prayers for

everyone it's not just for catholics or anacostals or baptists it's for everyone you know and if if something resonates with your soul you if it works, use it. Ethan Lansang on Patreon wants to know, what's one of your favorite books? I don't know if you want to send more people to this book you told me about. Get the guy on. Yeah, well, do I have it here? I can pull it up on the screen if you tell me the name. What's it called again?

It's called How to Be Somebody. That's right. By Mark Mendes. And it's a collection of wisdom from a variety of the church fathers about humility. And it's been one of the most impactful books that I've ever read and continues to be every time I reread the prayers in that book and go to how to be somebody dot org. I'm showing everybody right now. Yeah. Oh, cool, yeah. And please support Mark and his ministry, because I know he sent a lot of books for free. It's not meant to be sold.

But please contribute to his ministry in providing such a resource of quality and spiritual impact. Yeah, it's been a tool that it's been indispensable. And I've talked about it to a couple of other pastors, like, you know, Protestant pastors that had never heard of it. And they bought the book and they're like, this book is changing my life. And, you know, and it all comes back down to the, you know, the faith and the origins of the faith and essentially following Christ's teachings. So, you can't go wrong with that. You cannot go wrong with it. Not at all.

And, yeah, I bought it when you told me about it. And, yeah, it was awesome. It's a compilation of a lot of church fathers and saints, as you say. So, that's awesome. Glory to Jesus Christ. So, all right, let's wrap up. What are you doing tonight? What are you up to?

What will you be eating, drinking, watching? I will be I think I've got to go Bookshelf shopping I've been redoing my place And I just Put all my books in boxes With the exception of this stack here And then I was looking and counting the boxes And like, I don't have enough I just put all my books in boxes with the exception of this stack here.

And then I was looking at counting the boxes and like, I don't have enough. I have like two shelves. I need to get like a bookcase. Now I think it's official. I got to get a bookcase. So, so I'm going to be doing some very domestic stuff and then preparing for some stuff I got going on with hallow this coming week.

So very exciting stuff indeed can you tell us about that or no um just keep it cryptic recording yeah a little bit a little bit of recording okay going on so uh it's about as much as i can say for right now but i i i have a feeling that um um people be pretty um people been asking for some of the stuff that we're going to be working on. So that, and then I'm finishing up final edits for this nativity play that I helped produce called 30 Minutes B.C. I'm a partner in a Non-profit Catholic entertainment company Called GK Chesterton Yeah GK Chesterton Entertainment

And we're doing A fundraiser for the company Of a very well Produced staged reading of This original play Based on the writings of A couple of Catholic mystics Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, Maria Voltara.

And it was written and directed by a young lady who works with the company. And we're very excited to put it together. It'll be available next, the 12th. I think that's Saturday. So we're coming down to the wire here and uh we're going to be releasing a trailer pretty soon and and if people want to check us out they can go to our website gkcb link in the description org oh yeah right now click that link and check out the the great work that you doing there. Are you a fan of Cheston? Who isn't, really? Yes, I am.

Yeah, I didn't. The name was chosen by the founder. So there was a theater company called G.K. Cheston Theater Company. And then my business partner, Maria Vargo, was the artistic director for the G.K. Cheston Theater Company for like 10 years. And then they went dormant for a little while. And then she and I met a couple of years later, and then we were producing our own live passion play beginning of the year that we'd been doing for years.

And so to kind of help facilitate that, she assumed the title of the company, and then when we realized we couldn't perform a live play we decided to pivot with the company and do streaming and and you know filmed media for the time being and so uh so now we're gk chesterton entertainment and uh and so this is the first project uh since the passion play that we're um that we're putting together. So very excited, very excited. Oh man.

Beautiful. Well, Hey, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. One final time. If people missed it in the beginning, how can they quickly access chosen? If they didn't want to learn more about it,

I want to watch the show. Yeah. Go to the app store or Google play, download the app called the chosen, the chosen. uh once you download it it's free you can stream it to your tv or your smart device and be watching all of season one today and if you and when you download the app too there's there's heaps of bonus content there's we have three biblical um scholars who do these roundtables.

It sounds like a setup to a joke. We have a priest, a rabbi, and an evangelical professor walk into a room and talk about every episode of The Chosen and the theological aspects and the differences with our director and creator. There's interviews with me. There's interviews with the rest of the cast. A lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. It's really, really cool. Like, yeah, the rest of the cast a lot of behind the scenes stuff it's really really cool the app is one of a kind that's beautiful

so thank you hey why don't we close maybe we can offer this time to all of our viewers all those who will watch this to our blessed mother because of the delay let's not do the awkwardness

where we try and pray it together I'll do the first half you do the second half deal? copy that yes that's good Father, Son, Holy Spirit Holy Spirit Let's not do the awkwardness where we try and pray it together. I'll do the first half. You do the second half. Deal? Copy that. Yes. That was good. Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Jonathan.

Really appreciate it. Thank you, Matt. It's been a, Jonathan. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Matt. It's been a pleasure, brother. Appreciate it. God bless.