‘The Chosen’ star Jonathan Roumie on filming ‘devastating’ crucifixion: 'It was brutal'
The final episodes of Season 5, “The Chosen: Last Supper” just arrived on Amazon Prime Video, but the cast and crew of the first multiseason series depicting the life of Jesus is already hard at work on Season 6.
The next installment focuses on the crucifixion of Jesus (Jonathan Roumie), and the seventh and final season depicts his resurrection.
“We're about halfway through Season 6,” Roumie says in an interview from Italy, where the show traveled to film Jesus’ death. Filming for the season began in April. “It's been the most difficult thing we've ever done. And for many of us as actors, it was the most challenging work that we've ever had to do. For many of us, spiritually and emotionally, it was excruciating; it was brutal.”
When does 'The Chosen' Season 6 come out?
In a livestream with series creator Dallas Jenkins on June 8, Jenkins revealed Season 6's, “Episodes 1 through 6 are going to come out sometime in 2026, in the second half of the year. We don’t know exactly, yet, when."
The final episode of the season, Episode 7, will be "one big huge episode" and receive "one big huge global theatrical release," Jenkins said, targeting March 2027. Season 7 will debut in theaters in March 2028.
Jonathan Roumie: The crucifixion is 'not something I would ever want to shoot again'
Adding to the emotional weight of Season's scripts, filming at night proved trying.
“You're on a cross,” Roumie says. “You're pretty much in nothing but a loin cloth, and the temperature drops at night. And for me, it's an entering into Christ's suffering in a way that has to go far enough for me personally to be believably authentic to an audience. So there's a certain amount of communion in that suffering that I end up experiencing, because that's the only way to do this job.”
Replicating Jesus’ injuries in makeup also felt “pretty taxing” for the actor. “You're covered with prosthetic pieces and wounds and stuff that are physically glued onto your body, which takes hours,” he says. “And then they're kind of slowly ripped off at the end of the nights, unglued with all sorts of chemicals and stuff to take them off, and that's more painful than putting them on. … It's not something I would ever want to shoot again.”
Roumie predicts viewers "are going to be devastated” by the end result. “Beyond the image of it, you have five and a half seasons of getting to know this character in a completely different context and loving these characters and then seeing him and then his friends,” he adds. “Everyone suffers in Season 6. Nobody's exempt, and it's just going to be devastating.”
In Season 6, Judas' 'full story is told'
Actor Luke Dimyan, who plays Judas, looks forward to the continuation of his character’s journey. In the Season 5 finale, Judas leads authorities to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas greets Jesus with tears in his eyes and plants that infamous kiss on Jesus’ cheek. Then the screen fades to black.
“He carries a faith of his own creation, which ultimately leads to his downfall,” Dimyan says, “because when that's shattered and he realizes he is only left with the consequences of his actions, a state that he can't even remedy, it destroys him completely, so much more than any blade or jury or divine justification can. He is absolutely left forsaken, and I think his greatest self-hatred ... has no stopping power. It has no cover. So it fully comes out and overtakes him and eventually he sadly, in my opinion, takes his own life.
Dimyan won’t confirm if Judas’ death will be seen in Season 6 but says his “full story is told.”
With the next installment, which picks up after the kiss, “It's appropriate now that I've reached the height as much as I can with him, and I also get to say goodbye," Dimyan says. "So I'm very excited for everyone to see the ultimate fall of Judas, as it’s work that I'm extremely proud of.”