Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 288 | Behind the Scenes of 'The Chosen': That Jesus Wink, Rough Characters & No Hollywood Money

Episode Date: June 4, 2021

Jase is a little nervous with Missy in the room again, but the guys are excited to talk with Dallas Jenkins, the filmmaker behind "The Chosen." Dallas offers a peek at the making of the series, including how they get the actors and sets to look rough and authentic and why it was important to do this without Hollywood money. Phil admits the series brought tears to his eyes more than once. Jase volunteers his services as a consultant to keep the outdoors scenes accurate. And Dallas talks about critics of the series, including people who take issue with Jesus winking. Find out how to watch "The Chosen": http://thechosen.tv/ -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So we are super excited to welcome Dallas Jenkins and to the unashamed lair. I am super excited. I mean, we have been talking about you for so long. And so I had to say, I was getting emails about the chosen for over a year. I mean, people kept, have you seen this yet? Have you seen this yet? And I watched so little television that I didn't even know.

Plus, I'm in that age group that's kind of challenge. And not as bad as dad, but close. Right. So I, so I was like, what is this thing? And so Jace and Missy finally launched into it and then got us all, you know, up to speed. So, but we're super excited about having me here. Well, yeah, I've been hearing Chosen fans as well who you mentioned it on a recent episode where you just said, Missy's been watching it, watching it.

So I finally watched one episode and I loved it. And the chosen army, as we call them, all the, they, they blew up. I started getting social media messages and everything saying they're talking about you on a shame. you got to go on the podcast. And then I got a text from you out of the blue. That's right. Because we have a mutual friend. We did.

Phelm. Yeah. Phelmaiclair of all people. And I'd already send a note to Zach, who helps us with the podcast, my cousin. And I was like, can you find me some content information for, it looks like Dallas Jenkins is the one who puts all this together? I said, I really want to get him on here. So I don't hear anything from Zach for like a week, which is typical.

And then all of a sudden, Phelham just randomly. Like, I don't remember. asking about it, but he just sends me your contact him where he said, you need to talk to him. We shared a editor maybe or something. Yeah. Yeah. And he was like, I think he would be fantastic. I said, I've been trying to get this guy.

So it's like, you know what's weird? I didn't know all this was going on. But I called Zach once a week for the past two or three months and said, have you asked this Dallas Jenkins to be on our show? He's like, yeah, that's a great idea. Every time I asked him, he acted like it was the first time he'd ever heard. I was like, even if they say no, it's fine. I was like, but I had mentioned the show quite a few times because I watched it the first time.

And I told you before we started filming, I think when we had our little binge watch one night, and I just kept looking at Missy and she had a smile on her face, like the entire episode, on into the next one. I was like, now this is, this is something here. And I was, look, I ran the whole emotional roller coaster just watching me because it's moving. And so I'm I'm tickled pink that we can perhaps combine unashamed nation with the chosen army. Oh man, they are so excited that I'm going here. And I'm here in person because your mom. Yeah.

Because when you promised that Ms. Kay would feed us if we came, that's not doing Zoom. I want to see you face to face. What was funny about that is so for some reason, now I realize it was suggestive. Your name is Dallas. So I thought you were from Dallas. Right. But I didn't, I did. I was like, I thought you were in the Dallas area.

And so I was like, if you're ever over here, because you know, we're pretty close to Dallas. And you sit and you're like, where are you? I was like, well, we're in West Philadelphia. Where are you? And he's like, oh, we're from Chicago. I was like, oh, my goodness. So then we worked it out for you to come. Because I promised him.

I said, look, if you come, if you'll come here in studio, I said, we'll have a Miss K meal. And so what the audience can't see is not your whole family is with you. Well, yeah, I'm bringing, I brought my three of my kids. and my wife who all grew up on Duck Dynasty and all, you know, have seen Miss Kay's meals but haven't participated. So you're in today. You got a good one coming.

What gave you all the idea to do this because I'm not a big TV watch it, but, you know, Jesus number one crossed the board and then Matt Dillon is right underneath him. Dad watches a lot of guys. Y'all cut, yeah. You all cut Dylan out. now the chosen has come up in there. That's an actual compliment. It really is.

I mean, if you're getting up there towards Matt Dillon, I learned from that chosen, I watched them the other night, I learned that seeing something is far more powerful than reading something, reading about something. The scriptures, y'all were able to bring that to life because if you think about it, if Jesus showed up in 2,021 years since he came out of the Virgin Mary, if he showed up in modern day America,

I'm just afraid he would catch the same be the same kind of confusion in the religious world. I don't think much has changed. I think they would say, what, in our world? Do you think they would do that? Oh, absolutely. And that's actually one of the reasons why we did the show. was I love God's word and I've been raised on God's word.

But there is something about when you can see it and feel it and we try to make you even smell it. Like when you're watching the show, we try to put you there. And when Jesus looks at the people that he encountered, my goal and my job as the, as the filmmaker, is to make you connected to the people who actually met him. I believe if you can see Jesus through the eyes of those who actually met him, you can be changed in the same way they were. If you can identify with their struggles, if you can identify with their questions and say, he struggled with money, he struggled with taxes, he was like Simon Peter, you know, he was trying to provide for his family, but he couldn't. That's like me. Or in the

case of Nicodemus, you know, the Pharisee, like I'm a lifelong religious person. I've been going to church my whole life. What, and that's, that's where your question comes in, which is, what I recognize Jesus if he came? And when Nicodemus in episode six of season one has this debate with Shumuel, who's the other Pharisee. And Shemuel is saying, this can't be the son of God because, and he starts quoting Old Testament verses. And he believes he's really protecting God's word. He really believes it. And Nicodemus is saying, well, but what if there's more? What if, what if, what if this, if the son of God, you know, really came here? What, and we saw him, would you know it? Would you

recognize it? And I think that, I think those are debates we have now. Every time we hear something that doesn't fit into our box, it scares us. And so, yeah, I really wanted the viewer to be able to see Jesus. You know, if you look at the disciples, they were viewed as unschooled, ordinary men. And all these religious leaders of the day said, what is this all about? I mean, how did these people know anything about the Messiah, the Savior, or the world? these dudes, they never been to any kind of theological school, that's for sure. And they would just, it was a hard sell even then, I think would be the same now, you know.

But y'all did a great job in presenting that. Well, I don't cry that much, but that brought more than once. Wow. I mean, from my tears come out of me. There's like, I don't cry easily, but boy, after watching that, I'm like, you know, it was real. There's moments where that happened. I mean, when Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman. I mean, I don't know.

I guess you're looking at it so much, you know, but that just, there was something about the girl that was acting as a Samaritan woman. And just in that moment there, just because it's a story that we all know. Yeah. And somehow that the passion was lacking, you know, when you read it. But when you see it on screen, based on her lifestyle. And I think the fact that she kind of started having a. religious conversation right off the bat where you know talking about where you worship and if you

were a prophet you know that just kind of gets lost of the emotion of her encountering the Messiah in this moment and being filled with such crazed joy well there's two really important things about that scene that's because that's the final scene of season one is jesus is encounter with a woman at the well and two things are going to make that scene more powerful if we do it right one is getting to know her a little bit before she encounters Jesus. Because whenever you see a Bible movie or a Jesus movie specifically, it tends to go from Bible verse to Bible verse miracle to miracle. You don't know anything about the people that Jesus is encountering. And that's because in the Bible, the Bible wasn't written to be a TV show or to give you character development. It was to show that Jesus was the son of God and

point people to show you what happened. Yeah. These are Jesus' greatest hits to prove that he was the Messiah. Yeah. Well, we want to introduce you to those people that in encountered him. And what, what their before must have been like. My wife, the chosen devotional book, and she talks about the before and who we are before we encounter Christ. And when you can identify with that, when you can set that up properly, then that God moment is truly powerful, truly powerful. So we see her a little bit earlier in the episode. But then also, when you get the cultural context and the historical context, that's what a good preacher does is they show you a Bible story and they say, okay, here's what's not in the strip, but that we know about.

we know what the Pharisees were doing at this time. Here's why the Samaritans and the Jews hated each other so much. Here's why this was such a big deal for Jesus to be talking to this woman in the middle of the day. And when you get that, then that encounter really starts to hit you. Yeah, and also in the backdrop of our culture, there's so much division, there's so much racial tension with all the things that have gone, especially the last couple of years. I think that also adds into it because it's like, here's the way. Jesus is the way to bring people together

by focusing on the similarities that we don't focus on that we're all, you know, wanderers, we're all flawed people, we're all trying to make sense of life. And here he comes, you know, speaking the truth. One other thing I wanted to ask is who is the brain trust? Because I know when I'm watching this, as someone who's been studying this book since I was 14,

so do the math, almost 40 years. Because I can see there had to be a, there had to be meetings and rooms where people are talking. Now, how are we going to do this? And let's not screw this up because you're basically trying, the weight of trying to present the creator of the universe in human form. Even though we have the Bible, it's just a weighty matter. So I was wanting to know kind of who the writers are, the brain trust,

or how did that come about? Yeah, so there's two other writers besides myself. So the three of us get together. and we spend a weekend. This was a few years ago when I first had the idea for the show and we decided we were going to do it. We got together for a weekend and thought through the whole show. We wanted to know, all right, if we get to do all seven seasons of this show, we know in the Bible where it ends, you know, the crucifixion and the resurrection.

So how do we work our way backwards to make it so that that is really impactful? And who are the main characters we're going to focus on? and but most importantly is this Jesus guy if we're going to if we're going to have scenes that aren't from scripture if we're going to introduce him in scenes that aren't from scripture because if the scenes in scripture are like two verses apiece you know yeah the woman at the well story you can read that in about 45 seconds yeah so there's going to be things that aren't in scripture and that is that is a big responsibility and it requires a lot of prayer requires a lot of surrender um it requires you to get to the point where you have

have to not care what critics are going to say. You know, you and I were talking before we got on about Pharisees, modern day Pharisees too. And learning to love them and learning to appreciate that, you're going to have critics no matter what you do. Yeah. But we got to the point where it was like, no, we really believe that this can impact people.

And we really believe that if you can see Jesus in this context, that it's actually going to bring you back to Scripture even more than ever. And we hear every day from thousands of people who are saying, I'm reading the Bible more than ever. So to answer your question, though, we also wanted to make sure that I had accountability because I've got my own ideas, but I don't ever want to go outside the bounds of Scripture, even when I'm doing scenes that aren't from Scripture. I never want to contradict the character or intention of Jesus and the Gospels. That's what wakes me up in the morning and puts me to bed at night is.

I can't ever contradict his character or the intentions of the Gospels. And so we have a Bible consultants, you know, my New Testament professor from college is a brilliant, brilliant Bible scholar. He reads all our scripts. We have a messianic Jewish rabbi who reads all our scripts for the cultural context and the biblical context just to make sure that if I ever step outside of bounds that I'm reigned right back in. But I was in, yeah, I was in Israel a few years ago, and I was in Magdalah, the birthplace of Mary Magdalene. And I was in a synagogue that they had just found about 15 years ago. They just uncovered the synagogue. And I was kind of looking and researching Mary Magdalene.

And I really felt God lay it strongly on my heart. And this doesn't happen often, but where I really feel like he's talking to me. It's not verbal, but it's like, you know, he's laying something heavy on my heart here in this amazing holy land. And I felt like he was saying to me in a few years, this show is what people are going to think of when they picture Jesus' followers. Yeah. And I'm not going to let you screw it up. Now, on one hand, that was humbling.

On the other hand, it was exciting because I really did feel like, all right, I'm not claiming that this is God inspired. I'm not claiming any spiritual authority. But I do believe that he's going to, he's going to rain me in, you know? Yeah. And that's a good. He's your ultimate accountability. Wind them by all possible means.

Yeah. Yeah. You're just one more in a long line. Yeah. On the way this works. Yeah. Everybody, each person doing his job, often your body has a living sacrifice. It's a, you've done a powerful thing with that.

That's a good thing. Let's take a break. What's ironic is that this God told Dallas the same thing Missy told you about this podcast. yesterday. Don't screw it up. I'm nervous. Same way. Same words. I've only, we've done almost 300 episodes and I've only been nervous twice. Once is when Missy was in that chair because I had no idea. And she had been listening to some of them. So I thought, oh boy. Missy and I were working and the other one is today because she's sitting about 10 feet from me right now. And my wife is about two feet. She's right to her. So staring staring right at us.

It's why I'm sweating today. I actually, I'm perspiring. I thought y'all did an outstanding job. You would have thought the way y'all presented it, which is the true way, you would have thought it's just a normal looking guy. Well, in the first time you see Jesus, because this is what some people get confused by when they watch the first episode of season one, you're about three-fourths of the way into the episode, and people are saying, where's Jesus? Like, I thought this was a Jesus show, but we're spending the time really building the word. introducing you to the people before Jesus comes along. The first time you see Jesus is in a bar,

and he's where Mary Magdalene is at her lowest point of her life, where she's trying to drown her sorrows. They said it was a glutton and a drunkard. Well, I thought of Matthew 11. John the Baptist had a demon, and Jesus is a glutton and a drunkard, according to the ones who saw him down there. Well, I'm just telling you, when I saw that scene,

I thought, yeah, somebody had been reading our Bible. Whoever was in the room that produced the show? Because I was, you know, I'm a skeptic at heart. I mean, how I came to Jesus was because my dad, I'd seen transform literally in front of my eyes. But since his past was bad, I was kind of bitter. And I'm like, well, since he's doing that, I'm not going to do that. And so as I'm studying, I was trying to find a way around this. But it's like the deeper I got, I was like, well, wait, wait a minute here.

It just was too powerful for me to say, no. So, you know, I had to come to grips. with my own life. But when I saw that, because I was being skeptical as a, but I love the intro. It's the only intro of any binge show that we watch, that we watch it every time because I love the song. Yeah, the intro music. Yeah, yeah. Well, I love the fish. Your shirt. I like the fish going one way because you're like, what does this mean? Oh, oh, it's lovely. I just like it. I think it's what it is is it's not cheesy and most church productions god love them they're just cheesy

and people expect that and a lot of people say well it's because they don't have money or enough money or it's a budget but let's just face it a lot of religious people they're just cheesy and what are the odds jays what are the odds that when they were out there on the sea of gattelie throw your nets on the other side they're not catching any we started out and we When we moved down here, I said, Ms. Kay, I'm going to fish the river, and we're going to catch enough fish that we're going to sell the fish, and we'll wait that the duck call takes off, but I have to have some way to feed us all.

So I said, we're going to let the river, let the Almighty bless us with the fish we catch. So that scene, throw it on all the other side of the road. We've had been on the river, and if you're doing it for a living, And Jason and I could identify with that. I mean, big time. Now, at that moment of the show, I said, okay, number one, it's hard to pull off a miracle because you were trying to simulate a miracle. And I was like, to portray a miracle.

Right. I'm like, how are we? So I was like, I'm going to cut them some slack. So I thought it was pretty good. But I also made a trip to Israel. And what I was fascinated when I found, because we ate at one of these restaurants that the dock went out into the Sea of Galilee. Well, I'm an outdoors person.

So these kids were throwing tidbits of their food off the dock, and these fish were coming up, and I was stunned, and our unashamed viewers know what I'm fixing to say, because I was stunned when I found that the Sea of Galilee is filled with Apollosus catfish, which is the greatest eating catfish there is. On the planet. And there's different kinds of catfish. And I knew God knew his fish when they put the best.

Well, that's what I thought. I said, oh, it makes sense. Look, now I know why Jesus. God knows his fish. Host resurrection, Jesus. What's the first thing he does? Maybe not the first. He's on the bank.

They catch the fish. And they have a little, yeah. They're that good. They're that good that he's eating them, even though he no longer has to. What is he eating the fish for to sustain life? No, he's imperishable. He's just doing it because he can. And he wants to.

He came out of the grave and they were like, preach to us he's like give me a moment got to get some fish watch this you know and so what I thought though is I thought they need an outdoors advisor consultant so I'm offering a few for future

because I would have I would have simulated I was like it must be catfish and I noticed one of the guys when he was skinning the fish that he would have gone nobody trusted don't feel bad about this nobody on the planet's going to notice this but as a kid who clean fish

every day for years. You're always going to go toward the tail. You know, but it was a quick scene. I was like, they need an outdoor consultant. And so I'm volunteering my services. Now, I don't mind playing a demon-possessed guy. Typecasting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm a rugged indoorsman. So I would like to have you around maybe. But I thought we got the fish. It's the one moment where Jesus is helping Simon's wife, preparing for fish. I watch that. And we had some. He does about three times the right way and then once the wrong. And I thought, I'd have cut that on the end. Nobody noticed. Some of them do use that method, though. They use them. They can go back the other way. Yeah, thank you.

But the one time I did that, I have a scar because I went in between my fingers. Jesus knows he's not going to cut this. That's true. That is true. Technically, you're going to win this argument. But I do like how even, you know, I watched that interview you had with the guy that plays Jesus. Jonathan, yeah, Jonathan, which I liked as much as the show. So I highly recommend that. I noticed there was over a million people that had seen that in about a year because it's awesome.

Because here's this poor guy. I'm like, you think of the weight of what you're doing. Okay, you be Jesus. Don't screw that up. And so it was just, I'm so glad you did that. But in that interview, you mentioned something that I think is very important, is that You know, Jesus represents man and God. And it's not really a 50-50.

It just is. He's that bridge. And so I'd like for you to talk about just how you've seen his transformation. Based on that interview, because you could sense the weight of that upon him. Hang on down. Let's take a break. The thing that has weighed down Jonathan in two ways, playing Jesus. one is to get it right for the show.

Right. And how do you get in character to play Jesus? Because that's what most actors do. They want to deliver the character's intentions. And he says, the only way I can do it is to empty myself. And let the words that have been written for me just come and to try to be as less of myself as possible. You know, may he increase, may I decrease. And I remember there was a moment on the set in season one when he was delivered.

essentially a sermon to a group of people who'd gathered around the house. And he pulled me aside. He got emotional. And he says, this is making me nervous preaching these people. I don't feel worthy of this. And I said, oh, gosh, Jonathan, none of us are. I mean, I'm not worthy to be here either. Like, let's just, let's embrace that.

It's like that's the whole point. That's the whole point of the show. That's the whole point of the gospel. That's the point of Jesus is none of us are worthy. So let's hold on to this for the rest of the time that we're filming this show. Let's never forget this moment that we're not worthy. That's the only chance we have of getting you more close to this because we can't do it. But then the other thing is, of course, people when they meet him in person now,

now that the show is really starting to take off, he's dealing with just the discomfort of that. People meeting him and being like, oh, my goodness. Yeah, he said that like coming up and touching his shoulder and he's looking around like, well. Did you all have anyone to advise you because I thought you did a, not having been there 2,000 years ago, Roman Empire, but did you have anybody to kind of coach you on what the living quarters and because the scenes, your sets, I mean, they were, it was really a great thing, I thought. I mean, it was a, unlike you.

Rougher than I, rougher, kind of rougher than I was kind of, you know, you read the Bible. Well, they didn't have electricity. It's like when Jesus was starting the fire, I love it. That's what I was going to say, you're balancing that he could start a fire. I mean, they were constantly washing their feet throughout the episodes because think about it. I mean, I just thought of the, what I want to say, all this thing about cleanliness and all the purity. Yeah. Purity laws.

I mean, y'all presented this thing where, you know, you talk about pandemics could go through a place. I mean, you know, I could see how Pell legs and whatever could just go through a play But did you have anybody to coach you on what 2,000-year-old woman Empire looked like? Yeah, so two things. One is, in all the Jesus projects that I've seen,

I've seen all the Jesus movies in miniseries. And I always felt distance. Me too. Jesus was kind of boring and formal, and he quoted King James English. Yeah, right. And then the look of it, too. I just thought, I thought they lived

kind of in the desert conditions and it was always dirty and they were very poor. And so we worked hard in our production design department and our wardrobe department. You did great. But you went to Israel, just like me. I mean, when I went, what was it, four years ago, four or five years ago? Were the streets like narrow little passageways like that? Once you got out to around the sea of Galilee, it looks exactly like your sets when he, I was thinking of that episode when Jesus was healing people, but he's not seen the whole time.

and everyone's kind of having a typical argument. It was really... The disciples are backstage while Jesus is healing. It was a really powerful show. I mean, it was just, well, it's something that makes you look at your own life. Because we complain, we don't realize we're complaining. Right. And then you kind of look up if you happen to have Jesus, the real Jesus here, you're like, what am I doing?

He's out here working. Yeah, he's doing God's work. And we're out here complaining about legitimate things, but we're still complaining. But that, the way that seems. Before every scene, we have a person in our warded apartment, and I'm really insistent on this. I always want everyone to look sweaty and dirty. And we have a person who has a sock full of, what's that white powder that you put on your boots? Like when you're walking through, so you don't get ticks, like sulfur powder and whatnot?

Yeah, we just get the ticks. But I got you. You know, we pull them all later. But like I said, I'm a rugged endorsement. Kill them later. But we get them, we put dust and dirt on them all the time because I want you to feel. feel the texture. And you just said the rough, the roughness of it. The walls we make sure are rough. Nothing is smooth. Nothing is polished. And that's what Jesus came into. And that's what's

hard for people to sometimes come to grips with. And I feel like you've been wanting to talk about this a little bit is the whole God versus man thing. Yeah. And Jesus, you know, having to start a fire and dressing a wound and stretching out sore muscles. That's been the number one thing that has caused the most controversy about the show is where does the God versus man thing stop and begin how you know we believe I assume we're brothers here we believe that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man exactly so how do you explain what does that look like yeah it's very difficult to explain but did he walk around we walked down everyone's thoughts are just coming in his head he's just 24-7 he's got the the the god goggles on as one of the scholars said but Jesus himself said in the

gospels there are things the father knows that I don't he knows the time only the father knows when he was in the Garden of Gassimini, he was begging the father to essentially change his mind. Please take this cup from me. He's on the cross. He's asking his father, why have you forsaken me? So we take this belief that Jesus couldn't bench press 5,000 pounds when he was on earth. He couldn't just blow and the fire could start. Now, maybe if he wanted to ask his father for the power to do that, yes, of course, he could do miracles.

But I just think it's so much more powerful. And I believe it's biblical to see. Jesus as a true human sacrifice, for lack of a better term. He was a man. Oh, he became a man. I mean, Philippians, too, says he emptied himself. Well, what did he empty? He said, and he did not see equality with God as something to be done. Yeah, right. So clearly he gave something up. Right. To be, to feel what we felt and go through what we felt. And I just don't think doing it in a polished way is. Hebrews too. He had to be a man like his brothers in every way. Right. Which that means everything. That means full humanity. So, yeah, I thought.

that's the one of my favorite things. I think what the modern day Pharisee is missing is what's what's really made me drawn to your show is this even when you talked about Jonathan struggling with that. Well this is what we all as individuals who have surrendered to Christ. This has been my struggle for 30 years. I'm trying to introduce Jesus to other people and you know based on Galatians 220. I've been crucified with Christ. I no longer live. So I'm trying to just get out of the way and let Jesus be revealed. And I've shared in all my speeches and wherever I go, my biggest fear in life is public speaking.

That's all I do now. Right. So you're like, how did this happen? Like Phil says, boy, I won't shut up. But I'm like, it is for real because I feel inadequate. I feel the weight because I'm trying not to screw this up. And so every speech I give, the last one I gave. I came home.

I had to go. I was like, terrible for my view. But I'm sure it was great. But it's just, I struggle with that. So I feel like I see that in your meetings and how we're going to present this. God uses flawed people to make Jesus known. That's just a fact. By the way.

Yeah. So how far, because, you know, I hate to see it end. So how far would you go into the future? He's on his way to dying for the sins of the, the world being buried and waves on the dead. Spoiler alert. Yeah. So you start back.

Tell us what you can. And then I want to give you a challenge. But you know, they could start in the book of acts. Well, I was going to say that. Keep going on. We'll let you comment. But I was going to say this because I got to thinking, since you decided, okay, we're going to do about the chosen. And then most shows, like the passion, which was a great film.

Sure. They end right at the resurrection, just the idea of the resurrection. But I thought, well, if it's about the chosen, couldn't you go on into the Book of We can. Have you thought about like Half Park and we run this because it's a wonderful thing you're doing? Yeah. We want more is what I'm trying to take. Yeah, yeah. Thank you.

Well, my wife is in the room and might be saying we're going to take a year to sleep after the seven seasons of the children up. That's true. So we remember people said, why does that dynasty after he is? And we were like, because we love your show. You know, we were like, well. I felt the same way. I thought, let me sleep for a year. and get back to you.

But we, look, we're crowdfunded. I mean, season one of this show is based on a short film that I did for my church's Christmas Eve service on my friend's farm in Illinois. We feel like we're on house playing with the house money, you know, to use a gambling term. But we didn't know if we were, how long we were going to last. We don't have a big studio writing us a check saying, all right, here's the next seven seasons like all these other shows have. We are relying solely on the fans.

to pay it forward because the show is free. Yeah. So people pay it forward to keep it free if they want. Or they buy shirts and our books, our devotional books and our Bible studying all that stuff. That's the way, that's how we survive. Which is absolutely one of the other reasons that I love this, because that's a leap of faith. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

So once they start shoveling the money to you, they, I mean, quite an array of them, they begin to dictate policy. Well, that's the golden rule from Hollywood. you as the gold makes the rules. You got it. And so stay out of the weeds, my man. Right. Well, so this is something I want to share with you is because you're talking about the authenticity of things. And I think what has made your show so successful and what people have responded to so much with your whole family is the authenticity. You come out and you say, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not a good public speaker. You're so authentic. And that has honestly been a model for me as well.

I mean, I can honestly say that watching you guys over the years and even the name of your podcast, unashamed, but just being completely who you are has been a model for us with this show. It's from day one we said, look, whatever God wants is where we want to be. I don't know if it's going to last seven seasons, which is what we think we need. I don't know if it's going to last one season. I don't know. I just want to be in God's will. And I'm going to be myself and our social media videos are going to be raw and the show's going to be raw.

And we're just going to follow in Jesus' footsteps. And wherever that leads is what leads. It's hard to argue with that. Let's take another break. I would say this, I do think what we have in common is back when we were doing Duck Dynasty, the people we were working with, we were not, what's the best way to say? Pataco. We were complete opposites.

And so they had an idea of how we should be. But we're so stubborn and had our faith and trust in God that we're like, we're not budging. We're going to be ourselves. So what I missed during those conflicts, because every week we would argue all week about what we were going to do. Even though the show started being successful, they were like, this is what you should do. And we were saying, nope, we're going to be ourselves, just as what you sell. But that conflict actually created great TV because we would argue so much that when they turn the cameras on, I was so passionate that I was right and they were wrong. it actually came out in our filming.

And so I thought about y'all's show. I was like, your conflict is more with yourselves, not wanting to screw this up, that you're thinking so much and looking at every detail. And then I think the passion comes out in the episodes because you're just driven to say, okay, we want to get out of the way. And so I do think there's a similarity there. Yeah, I think there's truth to that. I think there's also a responsibility to the audience. as much as possible, but it's a responsibility to an audience that has 9,000 different perspectives on every single scene that you do.

So we'll get a thousand emails saying, how dare you do that scene that was offensive or showing Jesus tell a joke or Jesus being sarcastic or whatever it was. And that'll be the exact thing that we hear from other people saying that was my favorite part. That's what brought me closer to Jesus. Jesus winks at somebody in episode two of season one. Oh, I love it. A guy makes a joke about his hometown.

He says, oh, I guess something good can come from Nazareth. And everyone freezes thinking Jesus is going to be offended. Yeah, and he's like, And Jesus, did I see any of the material you put out? Not once did I say, well, is it? No, that means a lot. Spoiler. There's a scene.

I don't even know if this episode's out yet. Because I noticed once we gave a donation, we started getting the episodes for everybody else. I don't know if that was on purpose or not. Maybe I shouldn't even say that. No, no, people who pay it forward at a certain level or higher. get to see the episodes a day in advance. So there was one episode, and I won't, because I don't want to mess it up for somebody. No, no, no, no, no one has, all the episodes that you've seen are out.

Okay, so something happens. And one of the followers, because it's awesome that Jesus does. And there's like this awkward silence. There's America when he goes, there's one of the characters who I can identify with, Phil, you more than him. And who has a beard like yours. Yeah, looks like my cousin, actually. He goes, yes.

I love that. Because that's me. That's what I was thinking. If I was there and I saw a miracle and it was of that nature of a spiritual warfare, I'd be like, because everybody else was like, oh, my goodness, I can't believe what I just saw. Then there's a guy ready to go to World War over saying, yes. I love it. But I'm sure that somebody somewhere is like, oh, you know. Yeah, because some people.

Because it wasn't Reverend or. Yeah. They'll talk about the. reverence and some of the music in the show they feel isn't reverent. But in that scene in episode two of season one where Jesus winks at him, I've heard from literally thousands of people who've said, seeing Jesus wink and reassure this guy that he was okay, like impacted me greatly.

It's one of my top three scenes of the whole series when he does that little wing. I love it. Right. And I've heard from others who said, well, there's a verse in the book of Psalms where it talks about how if you wink your eye, something, the devil or whatever. Yeah, and shuffle your feet. Yeah, and I'm going.

But that's the thing. So the whole point of it is, all I can do, I can't please everybody when you're doing a Jesus show. And the show is now in every country in the world, it's been translated in over 50 languages, Catholics, Mormons, evangelicals, Greek Orthodox, they're all coming to the same fan club. They're all loving the show,

and then they look around on their right, wait a minute, you're not supposed to be here. you're not supposed to be here what do you do and and then they and then they start putting expectations onto the show and what the what it's supposed to look like and how jesus is supposed to be portrayed and if i if i think about that and if i care about it it's going to cripple me right and so i have to get to a place where i think where you guys at where you guys right with the show i think it's a superpower where you go if you don't want to do the show with us being ourselves then let's just not do the show oh yeah yeah just think about it all this yeah yeah just think about it all this yeah yeah just

about what Jesus was up against being 100% flawlessly perfect. Yeah. And goes into a world, a sin-cursed world, and he's being perfect, just think how hard it would be to present yourself knowing you're perfect. Right. And living up to that, you talk about a bone to be chewed. But Phil, you make a good point. When you did the episode, you introduced Jesus with the kids. Because I know where you got that, because those passages about where he always,

unless you change and become like little children. He loved kids. And I like at first, for one fleeting moment, I'm like, okay, there's an adult man and these kids are running away to go visit. At any other point in life, I would feel very uncomfortable about this. Right. Because if there's an adult, strange man with a bunch of kids, kids, that's always going down a bad road in any kind of movie.

And I thought, oh, but it's Jesus. This is good. He's perfect. I trust this person. Oh, I thought it was a stroke of genius. A good genius. That's why I was going to say about the people who are offended. Look, I can think of every other movie that or TV series that's ever been made in the history of man.

If you're a religious person, you could be offended about. Right. If you just ranked them in order. At least this is trying to get you to think about who Jesus is. I mean, when I'm saying you get into the secular world. Right. I mean, we're talking F-bombs and gender. By the way, what about the secular crowd out here, the unbelievers, the atheists?

Have they risen up against you, too, I guess? No. In fact, I have less. What do they say? I have less pushback from that crowd than I do from the Christian. Well, we're the same way. We know it's a lot of the same. Let's take one last break.

well you know now it's one of the things that struck me the attention to detail for every character or every not even a character just every scene that you see of people like it got me right off the bat in the pilot with the with the shepherd and just from the moment one like i cared about what happened to it and then i love the little girl skipping across the field i mean that whole thing you know it's set that whole thing up so i feel like one of the brilliant things you guys have done and bringing it to film and bring it to screen is that you really care about the ones around him. Yes. And that's, I mean, I had never, to be honest, I've preached and taught my whole life and you tend to focus on the main people. But I've never cared as much about everybody around him as I

have watching the series. And so I think that part really spoke to me and speaks to me about that. Well, and that's the thing. When you watch a normal TV show, even a show with Matt, Matt Dillon. you want to identify with the main character. Right. You want to see kind of the world through their eyes. Well, Jesus is a tough main character for a, for a movie. That's right. Because he doesn't, he doesn't change, really.

He doesn't learn anything new. He doesn't, he doesn't sin and then have to kind of overcome his struggle. Right. And so as a viewer, you kind of go, I can't really see the world through his eyes. Right. But I know Simon Peter. I can relate to that. I can relate to Mary Magdalene, I can relate to Nicodemus.

And then when you see in Jesus through their eyes and you encounter him, and I think that's also true of some of these supporting characters, as we call them. Right. In season three, we're going to explore the woman who had the issue of blood for 10 years and how she reached for Jesus's garment and touched him and she was healed. Well, just let's, let's explore that. What would have been like to live in a purity culture? Yeah.

Obsessed with purity where you're unclean for 10 years every day. Right. What desperate, how desperate must you have been? And so desperate, especially as a woman. So you're a woman, you have all these other rules you have to follow. And she's like, I can't, I can't reach him. I can't get all I'm going to, maybe if I just grab his garment. So we're going to explore her story.

And we're going to explore her story from the context of that culture. And I believe that there are going to be women, especially, who are going to be like their relationship with Mary Magdalene in the show. And be like, I have, I have felt that. Maybe then, maybe not that specific malady. Maybe I'm not, maybe I wasn't here 2,000 years ago. but I can relate to that feeling of I'm an outcast. I have nothing.

All I can do is reach out as far and as strong as I can. Oh, I love it. I think you've done a phenomenal job, too, of the women characters in there. You know, Acts 1 is so powerful to me when it says the believers were all together. You know, there's post-resurrection. And it says about 120, which is such a depressing number. Now, I don't know if it was just all of them in that specific region, but you would think, where are all these people?

I mean, he's been raised, but it says they were constantly together with prayer, and it says along with the women. And even in all these little moments in history, y'all have studied so much, which I think the first thing that I want to say this, that pops up there is you say this is a show, a depiction, but it says, read your Bible.

Read all right. The opening, at the beginning it says this is, you know, based on the book of, you know, on the Bible. Some of the timelines have been combined, you know, because we don't stick to scripture. I mean, we don't contradict scripture, but we do a lot of things that aren't in scripture. But it says, viewers are encouraged to read the Gospels.

Yeah, that's what it says. So I think that should be what you send to the people who say, what are you, just send them that. You know, even Matt Dillon, there's a warning now. Warning, warning. It says, before you watch an episode of Matt Dillon, right gun smoke right started in the 50s 40s 50s 50s it says on the screen outdated cultural depiction they're like it's a warning here because you know you know old Matt you know law on order

I mean he stood stood firm well to show what they're doing with what they've done here on these episodes you know you say how much has changed between 2,021 years ago as far as man's problem you said no that's the same the solution to the problem it's just a reminder that we're in a spiritual war yeah yeah this is I mean have you figured out how to depict a guy walking around with a two before coming out of his eye have you I was trying you read your Bible before you try to get the speck of dust because really you think we're all flawed which was the point I was making about what we have in common and when we

we present Jesus in our everyday lives, because I'm, I feel like the power of your show is when you read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it seems like there's, it's just filled with these little moments of individuals, which is what you've captured. Yeah. And that's what my life is, you know, everywhere I go and everywhere I speak, I'm like, everybody can relax. Even though I look like a preacher, I'm not. They all laugh.

Right. And I was like, I'm not a preacher. I'm a believer and I believe Jesus is real and I'm not really concerned about what happens here on Sunday mornings because you can pretend to be one of the members. What I'm concerned about is what happens on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday when you go to the grocery store, you go to school, when you open up your computer and the internet and you got your cell phone, all these things. Are you having these Jesus moments that he had these little moments with individuals? So I think you've done really well with that. Well, that's huge and that's honestly the thing we've most focused on in the show. And it's the thing I, sometimes people ask me, what have you learned most about Jesus

in doing this show? Because I've been a lover of God's word in my whole life. My dad is an author of The Left Behind books. He's been a believer his whole life. I mean, I grew up in the church, but I'm still learning new things about Jesus. And the thing that I learned the most, I think, when we were going through the Gospels and telling you stories is the personal. He didn't come and do a ton of magic tricks in front of a big crowd to say, like,

It was always about that one person. Even when he was doing, in our show, when you see him doing miracles, we even in our, in our filmmaking, will, I'll make it so that your foot kind of, the sound gets kind of more quiet. Like it gets really zoned in on Jesus looking right into the eyes of that person. And if you've watched the first, so you've seen the first five episodes. I've watched them all. Yeah. So there's 13 episodes so far.

And I'm guessing it's probably about half a dozen times you've heard Jesus say, look at me. look at me. Don't look at him, look at me. Or don't look over there, look at me. It's about that intimacy. And Jesus always made it into that relationship of that one person. And that is something that we're trying to do with the show too is I feel like when I'm doing my live streams or when I'm doing the interview with the conversation with Jonathan that you talked about are behind the scenes, I'm trying to talk to one person.

Yeah. And that makes it feel more intimate. But that's the model of Jesus that I've really learned is that it's about that relationship. If you can avoid these public arguments, public theological arguments, public political arguments, and just have it be two people talking, it's so much more effective anyway. And it also, it arouses this intimacy that is what I think God is after in our hearts. Yeah. So tell folks where they can get merchandise, get the show, where they can help. The books.

The books, yeah. Tell our audience where's the best place to go to get that emphasis. So the number one place to go. And I know that this doesn't apply to all of us in this room because some of you may be, God bless you're a little older and don't like the apps. But we have our own app. So if you go to wherever you get your phone apps on your Android or iPhone, and you download the chosen, we're really easy to find.

And the good thing is it connects directly to your television. So Roku, Apple TV, Firestick, Chromecast, you don't need a subscription. You don't need to pay anything. You don't need to give your email address. Nothing. It'll connect directly to your streaming device. Now, if you're old school, we also have DVDs, and that's an art. That would be an app.

Yeah. And Phil. Yeah. But I do know how to get an app, so I'm glad to know that. The app is not short for Apple, Phil. This is complicated. That's why we have Dan the Unique. Yeah.

He's, he, he, you want something, some kind of computer. We is, Dan. That's going to be too hard to explain. I was going to say, Dan, the Unic. Phil's Butler is, okay. It's, it's complicated. Well, good. We'll have a Unic on our show.

too. Hey, there you go. No, but yeah, the app is the highest quality. It connects directly to your streaming device. And again, the beauty of it is, I mean, they literally invented this technology. I could go to your house and go to your Roku or Apple TV and just connect directly and watch the show on big screen. We have the DVDs on our gift factory. We've got the shirts and hoodies and stuff. Yeah, you're, I got one ready. Give you one. Bonus one. Get used to different. Get used to different. A key line from season one. Yeah. But here's something I want to say real quick. Anytime I talk about our gifts, because we call them gifts, not merchandise. Because my wife who's in the room has written a devotional book and a Bible study,

which I believe your mom is. Mom is doing it. Yeah. Her ladies group. I think they're four episodes in and they're doing the study every week. That's awesome. Yeah. But we have really worked hard to make sure that we don't ever do trinkets or just merchandise

for the sake of it. Everything has a purpose and is a conversation starter and is going to design to take you deeper. The show isn't the end game. Getting you deeper into this is the end game. So even the phrase, get used to different. People, when we wear that out in public, people go, oh, what does that mean? We talk about that. Well, that's Jesus says that in episode seven to Simon Peter.

And that's why I brought it to you guys, because I know you guys couldn't resonate with being different. I heard you say, you know, we're the ones that bring, you know, we bring our little fish and bring that. Yeah, we bring the loaves and fish and God feeds the 5,000. But even the shirt that I'm wearing now, it's due from the opening credits, which is all those. gray fish are going in one direction and then one by one they turn teal the color of life and go the opposite direction and so this is 13 fish Jesus and the 12 disciples all going against the current I love it but it's all it's all designed to really start conversations and being people closer but yeah on the app or on our website I don't want to give a bunch of websites because people don't

remember them anyway maybe you can do them in the show notes but yeah we'll put it up there but that's where they can get all that we got what we need but look thanks for being here we love what you do Yeah, thank you. Yeah, but you guys have been doing it for a long time. And one of the things you were going to talk about, which I know we don't have time for, we can talk about off the air, but is the model of doing this all outside the system. Yeah. Because I think there's something for you guys in that, too, because you were saying this on the air.

I think Duck Dynasty, we have a hard time being on the air today. Yeah. I would know so. I mean, we didn't get it made through the network. Yeah. But the way we're doing it now and our distribution partner, Angel Studios, is building multiple projects like this, which are just done. completely outside the system.

I'm telling you, it is a freeing feeling when you know that you're not owned by anybody and you can't get canceled. And you can just talk about whatever you want to talk about. Let's talk about this. And find me a cameo in here, even if I die in the first five minutes, it's okay. Just ride by on a donkey. Ride by on a donkey. Just Jesus walking on the road.

Just, oh, yeah. What's the story with that guy? I'll heal him later. Love it. Thanks for having to thanks, Dallas. Thanks for listening to The Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click that little bell to get notified about new episodes. And for even more content that you won't get anywhere else, subscribe to Blaze TV at blazed.com slash unashamed.