Playing Jesus on one of the biggest faith-based television shows in the world apparently comes with a burden few viewers ever see.
Bear Grylls is opening up about his surprisingly emotional wilderness adventure with The Chosen star Jonathan Roumie, revealing that when the cameras slowed down and the two finally sat together around a campfire, he sensed something much heavier beneath the actor's calm exterior.
Grylls said Roumie seemed like a man carrying the "weight of the world on his shoulders" as he navigates the extraordinary responsibility of portraying Jesus Christ before a massive global audience.
"I just kind of sensed here's a guy really carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders," Grylls told The Christian Post. "It must be a really brutal thing to have to carry and to play that."
That revelation comes as Grylls prepares to take Roumie - and several other familiar faces from The Chosen - far away from biblical sets and straight into the wilderness.
The six-part The Chosen in the Wild, premiering August 9 on Prime Video, pairs the famed survivalist with Roumie, Paras Patel, Elizabeth Tabish, Noah James, Luke Dimyan and series creator Dallas Jenkins.
But don't expect this to be simply The Chosen cast members hiking through pretty scenery.
Grylls said the wilderness stripped away the usual celebrity interview polish and opened the door to conversations about faith, identity, struggles and what starring in a global phenomenon has actually done to their lives.
And Roumie apparently left quite an impression.
"I just felt he was really honest and spoke really humbly about it all," Grylls said. "I feel I made a good friend there. He was a wonderful guy."
The actor also gets personal about his life before The Chosen, including the professional struggles he faced before landing the role that would dramatically alter the course of his career.
For Grylls, their time together became far more meaningful than another celebrity survival episode. After years of taking famous faces into some of the world's toughest environments, he described his experience with Roumie as particularly special.
"I kind of look back on that, and out of all the 'Running Wild' seasons we've done ... in terms of my heart, that one was really beautiful," he said.
Roumie isn't the only Chosen personality getting pushed beyond familiar territory.
Dallas Jenkins also joins Grylls in the wild - despite apparently being much happier indoors.
During their adventure, Grylls tells the creator that "life begins outside our comfort zones," but the survival expert admitted he needs that reminder himself. Even after climbing Everest and building a career around extreme adventures, Grylls confessed that some surprisingly ordinary situations still intimidate him.
"I find interviews quite scary, to be honest," he admitted. "But again, I treat it all as training time."
His philosophy?
"Seek out the uncomfortable. Treat it as training."
Grylls even has a rather dramatic description for people who become too comfortable: don't call it a comfort zone - call it a "comfort pit."
"Stagnant water in a jungle just goes bad fast," he explained. "Flowing water has energy and life and oxygen. I think if we sit doing nothing, we corrode."
But perhaps the biggest surprise for Grylls wasn't seeing whether The Chosen cast could survive rivers, cliffs, deserts and canyons.
It was discovering how deeply the show had changed the actors themselves.
"I almost wasn't prepared for realizing how much this role and this TV show has changed and transformed their lives," he said.
That discovery appears to have made The Chosen in the Wild particularly personal for the veteran television host.
Grylls said the outdoors has a way of dismantling the carefully constructed image people bring with them. Guests might arrive looking camera-ready, but after mud, exhaustion, ripped clothing and a few bruises, something more authentic tends to emerge.
"At the end, everything's ripped and covered in mud, and everyone's a little beaten up and has a few scars," he said. "It's like, 'Welcome to life.'"
"The wild is the ultimate place to be connected to people and have honest conversations, to share vulnerability," he added. "The wild never judges. You can't hide."
And Grylls believes that combination of vulnerability, adventure and faith is exactly why this particular series works.
The Chosen in the Wild arrives as The Chosen continues expanding far beyond the television drama that originally introduced millions of viewers to Roumie's portrayal of Jesus. What began as an ambitious crowdfunded production has developed into a sprawling global entertainment franchise encompassing theatrical releases, documentaries, books and other projects.
This time, however, the biblical characters aren't the focus.
The people playing them are.
"What we've tried to do with The Chosen in the Wild is get to know the real people and show their real journey," Grylls explained.
For someone whose television career has involved extreme survival challenges around the world, Grylls isn't hiding his enthusiasm for the finished product either.
"I look at Chosen in the Wild as one of the series I'm most proud of making," he said.
And judging by what he discovered around that campfire, viewers may come away seeing Jonathan Roumie - and the enormous responsibility surrounding his portrayal of Jesus - very differently.
The Chosen in the Wild premieres August 9 on Prime Video.
Source: Reporting and quotations from Leah MarieAnn Klett, The Christian Post.
