“The Chosen” star Jonathan Roumie met briefly with Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday during a general audience at the Vatican, where a Season 5 episode of the hit biblical series had streamed on Monday at the Holy See’s Filmoteca theater.
Roumie, who plays Jesus on “The Chosen,” and Elizabeth Tabish, George Xanthis, and Vanessa Benavente — who respectively play Mary Magdalene, St. John the Apostle and Mary, the Mother of God — as well as series creator and director Dallas Jenkins, are in Rome this week after wrapping three weeks of filming in the ancient southern Italian town of Matera. There, they shot the crucifixion scenes of “The Chosen” Season 6. Matera is the location where Mel Gibson famously shot “The Passion of the Christ.” Season 6 will focus entirely on the final 24 hours of Jesus’ life, culminating in the crucifixion.
“When [Pope Leo XIV] was elected, I wept, because I never thought I’d see an American pope in my lifetime,” Roumie, who is Catholic, said during a press conference held prior to the Vatican screening, according to Catholic News Agency.
To get “to communicate to him in our native language this week is just something I never thought I would see in my life,” Roumie added. On Wednesday Roumie presented the Pope with a gift from “The Chosen” and took a selfie.
Select seasons of “The Chosen” have been released in movie theaters and grossed over $140 million worldwide. It will launch Season 5 internationally via streaming on Prime Video on July 13. The show launched on Prime Video in the U.S. starting on June 15.
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