Jonathan Roumie: The Weight of Playing Jesus in The Chosen, & How to Raise Your Spiritual Awareness

As Lent begins, Jonathan Roumie of The Chosen explains the power of prayer and fasting. (00:00) How the Call to Play Jesus Was an Answer to Roumie’s Prayers (09:35) The Weight of Playing Jesus (18:30) What Is Lent? How Does Roumie Observe It? (28:59) Mark Wahlberg, Chris Pratt, and the Power of Fasting (42:16) Heightening Your Spiritual Awareness Paid partnerships with: Hallow prayer app: Get 3 months free at https://Hallow.com/Tucker Policygenius: Head to at https://Policygenius.com/Tucker to see how much you could save Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Witness the beginning of the revolution.

• 0:04Speaker 02

  Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Film for IMAX.

• 0:08Speaker 02

  Make them remember you.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.

• 0:15Tucker Carlson?

  You're an actor, you're looking for work, your agent or somebody calls you and says, "We'd like you to play Jesus." What's that like?

• 0:25Speaker 04

  It was an answered prayer.

• 0:47Speaker 04

  The person who made that call was a friend and a colleague by that point, a guy by the name of Dallas Jenkins, who created The Chosen. And I had played Jesus for him for his church's Good Friday service in these little vignettes three times over the course of four years between 2014 and 2017.

• 1:14Tucker Carlson?

  Just literally in a church?

• 1:16Speaker 04

  In a church. So we'd go and shoot out on a farm, these vignettes, whatever, build sets into this. His church has like a little studio and so we would, but mostly on location, we would film these little films that would be in the spirit of Good Friday, or illustrate a particular gospel passage or scripture scene, and that was in line with the theme of the service for that year. And yeah, so the first time I played Jesus in one of those short films was The Crucifixion. It was, I was in it for five minutes. The film itself is called The Two Thieves. You can actually find it, I think, on Amazon still.

• 2:01Speaker 04

  And it was about, it was a what-if story about the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ. Like, who were they? How did they get there? How do you go in like, one of the Gospels, in one paragraph from, you know, he was being mocked and reviled even by the thieves next to him, to all of a sudden, the penitent thief, as he's referred to, gives his life, basically, to Jesus in that moment, says, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus says, "Truly, today you will be with me in paradise." And he basically, it's like the first confession on the cross, and he grants him access to the kingdom.

• 2:42Speaker 04

  And so, how does that, how do you go from being one of the mockers, revilers, to this sudden conversion on the cross? And so, he tries to, Dallas tries to answer that question in the course of this 25-minute film. I actually read for The Penitent Thief, because he's got this fantastic narrative arc. And then, and I thought I'd had a great audition. It was in LA at the time. And I knew it was an opportunity to like, you know, get paid a nominal stipend for some work in another city, in this case, suburban Chicago. And I thought, man, I would audition for this short film.

• 3:26Speaker 04

  I don't care if it's for a church, it's a great story, the script is great. So I go and I audition, had a great audition, I'm like, I think I nailed it. Couple of days later, I get a call back to come back in, but this time to read for Jesus. And I thought to myself, ah, man, I didn't get the first role. And then I looked again at the script, I'm like, hey, so Jesus got like, five lines in the whole thing. But I had happened to have played Jesus six months prior for another completely independent project up in Washington State at a studio for this Catholic company called St. Luke Productions, about this saint in the early 20th century named Saint Faustina,

• 4:10Speaker 04

  who was considered a mystic. She had these visions. She wrote an entire diary that was sort of dictated to her by Christ himself in these visions. And so I played Jesus in the vision aspect of that story for this traveling one-woman show where it was an actress playing the saint, a screen behind her, a couple of rudimentary set pieces, and then all of the other characters in the show, in the play, including these visions of Jesus, was projected on a screen that she would choreographically time out her scenes with for 90 minutes. So, fast forward, six months later, I get to audition for The Two Thieves.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  I didn't get The Penitent Thief. I go and I audition for Jesus because I'm like, you know what? I enjoyed playing Jesus six months ago. Like, this would be cool if I got, if I got anything, it'd be cool, because I wasn't working steadily, consistently. And the way Dallas tells the story, about 10 seconds into the audition, he's like, "That's Jesus. That's my Jesus for this show." And so we did that film. And it was screened. He brought me back to view it like a month later at the Good Friday service with his church. About seven services. It was like 15,000 people saw this thing in a matter of a day and a half.

• 5:31Speaker 04

  And it was remarkably well-received. It was so beautiful. And it was, it was essentially the foundational bones of the concept of the chosen, which is this, this sort of Ignatian spirituality, this Ignatian insight into the Gospels, which is basically, you put yourself in the Gospel, you ask, in the Gospels, you ask yourself a series of questions, and that's how you meditate on the Gospels through this form of spirituality. And so this, this process of filmmaking was kind of like a living example of that on celluloid, or digital celluloid.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  And so we did it again the following year for a different kind of scene. And then we skipped a year and then 2017, the spring of 2017, I did one more film with him for his church. And then it was in probably the summer of 2018 where he called me and say, hey, wanna put the sails back on? I think we're gonna do this four episodes of a crowdfunded TV show, probably not gonna go anywhere, but it'd be some consistent work. And I jumped at the chance. I thought, okay. I had now played Jesus for him a few times. I was getting really comfortable with the role.

• 6:49Speaker 04

  I was also pulled in during that time between like 2016 and 2019, I started doing these Passion Plays, being involved in these Passion Plays that a friend of mine was directing. And then I helped co-direct and then I co-wrote a version of The Passion that we would put on for our church. And so for whatever reason, like, God was putting me in these situations and these stories about Jesus so often in such a short, I mean, a relatively short period of time, in a few years, I'd played Jesus like five, six, seven times. And I started to think like, well, there must be something to this.

• 7:33Speaker 04

  Like, I don't know what it is yet. And then when I got the call for The Chosen, the penny dropped. And it was like, oh, all of that was preparation for this.

• 7:52Tucker Carlson?

  And it became much more than anyone thought it would be?

• 7:57Speaker 04

  I would say so.

• 7:58Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 7:59Speaker 04

  The four episodes that probably wouldn't go anywhere became eight episodes of a first season of the show that was crowdfunded by selling shares to fund the show. And then...

• 8:14Speaker 04

  Released in the fall of 2019, re-released for free because we were charging, I think, 15 bucks for the season, the entire eight episodes on DVD and streaming. And then when the pandemic hit, The Chosen, the folks at The Chosen said, we want to do something to kind of ease people's burdens and give the show away for free. And it exploded after that, like beyond anyone's imagination. And since then, it's always been free on the app, The Chosen app. So, and then now we just did a deal with Amazon. Amazon is

• 8:56Speaker 04

  going to be our exclusive window for the streaming of the show after its initial theatrical run, which for season five will be March 28th. It'll be in theaters for about a month, then it'll go to Amazon for 90 days exclusively, and then it'll go to the app where it will remain free.

• 9:16Tucker Carlson?

  I mean, it's turned into the biggest, you know, thing in that genre, maybe ever.

• 9:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. They don't often, nobody really releases figures in streaming for viewership and any of that kind of data, but we do because we're like, we don't care. We want to tell people. Like, it's been estimated right now that about 280 million people have seen the show globally.

• 9:43Tucker Carlson?

  340 million in the United States total. So, that's a pretty deep penetration, as we say on TV.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  I would say so.

• 9:49Tucker Carlson?

  That's amazing. So, the reason I asked the question, and you didn't flinch, was that I think some people would feel like that's a pretty heavy role in Jesus, basis of the world's largest religion, God himself, according to Christians. Did you ever feel that on you? Like, that's a lot.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  In the first season, I did. There was this moment, especially Jeff kind of talked about at times where, and it's still, I think it's still sort of affects me. I actually like telling the story because it's a reminder for me to remember what it's all about and who I'm serving as I endeavor to portray this role. And so, we were about midway through the first season.

• 10:40Speaker 04

  And the time came for me as Jesus to start preaching, you know, um, full-on sermons. And we started filming. And then as I was going through these words, I suddenly, it's like I kind of felt I was outside of myself, listening to myself preach to a crowd outside the doors of, in our story, Zebedee, James and John's father Zebedee's house. And there was a crowd of people that was growing, a crowd of onlookers, you know, and our wonderful background actors that participate in the show, and many of whom have participated for years. There, this crowd starts growing outside the house

• 11:25Speaker 04

  as Jesus begins preaching. And the scene's not specifically about Jesus. It's about other stuff that's happening in the background that becomes the foreground of the story. And in the background, Jesus is preaching, but I still have to preach. I still have to say these lines from Scripture convincingly and try to mesmerize and galvanize the people that are listening to me and get their attention. And they seemed really attentive, so much so that it made me really self-aware.

• 11:52Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 04

  And I thought, what am I saying? What are these words like? These are holy, holy words set by the holiest being that ever walked the face of the earth. I shouldn't be doing this. This feels wrong. And so I would have those feelings and then, you know, we would stop and then move on to the next setup and put the camera in a different place. And then as it went on, I just had to stop the production for a moment to talk to the director, to Dallas Jenkins. And I said, can we just, can we hold, can we just slow down a second? And he said, what's going on? And so I took him aside. I said, listen, man, I'm having a hard time right now.

• 12:36Speaker 04

  Like, I was starting to feel panicked and overwhelmed, almost like I've only had one panic attack in my life. And it started to feel like it was creeping into that. And I didn't know what, why, or how. Well, I kind of knew, I thought I knew why and what was going on. But I just said, can we slow it down? And he said, what's going on? And I said, I'm saying these words and it's, and hearing them, hearing myself say them, I don't feel worthy to be saying them.

• 13:12Speaker 04

  This is why I tell this story, because

• 13:16Speaker 04

  it drives home the point

• 13:20Speaker 04

  of the gift that I've been given in playing this role.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  And he puts his hand on my shoulder and he says, "Brother, none of us are truly worthy. But here we are. I mean, it's you and me. Here we are. We're doing this so that the world may know his story. Those who haven't heard his story

• 13:46Speaker 04

  may know the impact that he's had on the world and on our lives personally. And I'm slightly paraphrasing because it's been many years since we shot that. But that was the essence. And it settled my spirit. And I thought, you know, he's right. He's right.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  For whatever reason, God saw fit to put, for whatever reason, God saw fit to put me in that role and not somebody else. Nobody else auditioned. There weren't auditions for the role. He had just called me up and said, "Do you want to do this again?" And I said, "Yes, of course." I didn't hesitate. But then, when we got to that moment,

• 14:35Speaker 04

  it started to dawn on me the weight of what it was that I was being given to do

• 14:42Speaker 04

  and would then inform the encounters and the experiences that I would have as the show progressed and as we now arrive here at season five, the dawn of season five.

• 14:56Tucker Carlson?

  When you started the series, did you believe? Did you believe it? Did you believe in the gospel?

• 15:02Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:05Speaker 04

  I was raised Christian. I was baptized Greek Orthodox.

• 15:10Speaker 04

  We lived in New York City. And then when my family moved into the suburbs, there weren't really Greek Orthodox options.

• 15:20Speaker 04

  So my dad, having gone to Catholic school in Egypt, and my mom being Catholic from Ireland and raised in the faith as well, were more than happy to just go down the street to the local Catholic church. It was familiar to my dad and part of my mom's upbringing. And for myself and my sisters, it didn't feel different. It just felt right. And so I'm in my first communion and my confirmation as Catholic. And probably when I got into my early twenties, I was revisiting the idea of my Orthodox roots

• 16:01Speaker 04

  as cousins and family members were getting married in the Orthodox Church. I so admired the beauty and the sanctity with which they approached the liturgy, which is quite different than Catholicism for the most part. I mean, there's Eastern Catholic rites, which are more similar to Greek Orthodox. But it was different.

• 16:26Speaker 04

  It didn't draw me to go back completely.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  Because I think I just felt like, no, this feels like the truth as I understand it, in God's eyes. This seems true. And it's the Church that Christ Himself ultimately started. And for the reasons God knows, and despite every...

• 16:59Speaker 04

  Every effort to thwart it, especially the largest empire in the world at the time, despite the Roman Empire's attempts to stamp it out.

• 17:08Tucker Carlson?

  Through murder.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, it didn't happen. It's still going. And that means something to me.

• 17:17Speaker 04

  And so, doing this show, playing the character of Jesus, working with the Hallow app, you know, doing all these prayer and meditation challenges with them, learning more about other stories of faith, other people of faith, through like the challenges that we have coming up for Lent here. I've grown deeper in my faith. It's drawn me closer to the Church, to want to know more about the aspects of the Church that I didn't necessarily grow up learning, you know. I went to public school. So, I had the Tuesday afternoon catechism, or whatever the day was where you went to catechism.

• 17:59Tucker Carlson?

  CCD.

• 17:59Speaker 04

  CCD, after school. And, you know, I didn't learn any of the things that I've learned in the last several years, because it's just not, that's just not designed that way. And it's, the Church has such a rich history and tradition. It's so vast. It's such a storehouse. There's so much to know and to learn. And through the experiences of playing Christ and getting to force myself to go into prayer and meditation prior to every season, through these periodical prayer challenges, like we just did one in Advent

• 18:43Speaker 04

  for Hallow, and now we're doing the Pray Forty, which starts today, Ash Wednesday. It's forced me to just spend more time in the presence of God, and it wants me to get closer to Him.

• 18:58Tucker Carlson?

  What is Lent?

• 19:00Speaker 04

  Lent is

• 19:01Tucker Carlson?

  Begins today.

• 19:02Speaker 04

  Begins today is forty days of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, leading up to Good Friday, the Friday before Easter, the day Jesus Christ died on the cross and gave his life for humanity. Two days later, three days later, we say, if you include Friday, Easter Sunday, Jesus resurrects from the dead and original sin on, you know, the stain on mankind is lifted through our belief in Christ. And so Lent, you know, for me Lent is a time to, I think,

• 19:43Speaker 04

  simplify, and it's a time to sacrifice, and it's a time to draw myself closer through, you know, the way of the cross. Basically, the theme of Hal's Pray Forty Challenge this year is called The Way, and it's the way of surrender, you know, the way of Christ, basically. And everything that he did, leading up to his passion, death, and resurrection, is something for us to meditate on in that forty days. Typically, we try to, we try to make some sort of meaningful sacrifice. Some people say, oh, it's a time to give up chocolate.

• 20:25Speaker 04

  Well, if chocolate is something that gives you joy and happiness, then yeah, that might be a good thing for you to give up for forty days. And it can be really hard. For some people, like me, it'd be coffee. For some people, it's alcohol. For some people, it's cigars or cigarettes or something.

• 20:46Tucker Carlson?

  I do asparagus every year. It's not the toughest Lent program, we say.

• 20:50Speaker 04

  Does asparagus give you joy? Because if it doesn't

• 20:54Tucker Carlson?

  Just kidding.

• 20:54Speaker 04

  Tucker, I would think you may want to revisit.

• 20:58Tucker Carlson?

  Lent is here, the period before Easter, the 40 days, and it's a unique chance to get closer to God. That's the point of it. Hallow, the world's number one prayer app, can help you do that. Joining their Prayer 40 Challenge. It's a great way to connect with Christians all over the world and unite in preparation for Easter, which is the payoff of this season. It's called the Way. It helps participants focus on how Jesus is the way to heaven. If you join the challenge, you'll embark on a spiritual journey with some of America's most convicted Jesus followers. Powerful stories, prayer, you grow in your ability to sacrifice, that's what Lent is, it's the sacrifice, and taking thought-provoking sermons and true stories of faith in action, which are amazing. This year is going to be the

• 21:40Tucker Carlson?

  best Lent ever. Thousands of people praying together all over the world, and you can be part of it through Hallow, which by the way, is in use in my house, and a nightly topic of conversation. So you can sign up at hallow.com/tucker. When you join, check out thousands of guided prayers, meditations, music, and everything. There is a ton on Hallow, all designed to help you find peace and closeness to God. Download the Hallow app and jump onto the Lent Pray 40 Challenge right now.

• 22:08Speaker 05

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• 22:53Speaker 05

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• 23:08Speaker 00

  Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Witness the beginning of the revolution.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Filmed for IMAX.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Make them remember you.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Leaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.

• 23:23Tucker Carlson?

  So what, how do you observe it?

• 23:27Speaker 04

  Well, I start typically by going to mass, getting ashes, which I have not yet done. And then fasting on, well, especially Ash Wednesday. But typically, and it's not an obligation, but I like to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. Sometimes it's nothing but maybe water. Sometimes it's just no meat. Fridays in Lent, especially, no meat.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  Fish, soups, broths are even okay. It's like fasting from the flesh. You're denying the flesh, you're denying yourself. It's about denial, you know? And it recalls Christ's 40 days in the desert prior to the start of his ministry when he denied himself everything, food, water. The temptations that he was faced with in the desert. He held steadfast and came out ready to basically start his ministry. And there's, the practice of fasting is, spiritually speaking, is super powerful.

• 24:40Speaker 04

  I mean, if there's, if there's obstacles or challenges that you're experiencing in your life that just don't seem to be resolved through traditional prayer.

• 24:53Speaker 04

  You know, Jesus himself was confronted by the disciples at one point. I think they were trying to cast out these demons of these, in this, in their community. And it wasn't working and they had been given the power to do that and. He comes up on them and they basically said, "We tried everything. We tried, you know, casting them out in your name and everything. It didn't work. Why didn't it work?" And he said, paraphrasing, "Some demons can only be cast out through prayer and fasting." And so that's, there's an extra, it's like an extra superpower level that you get given when you commit to denying yourself the things that the body needs with the intention that

• 25:38Speaker 04

  you are offering something up to God.

• 25:40Tucker Carlson?

  Have you experienced that?

• 25:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. I've, there have been decisions that in my life that I'd really been, or not even people, I'll go even more personal, people that I prayed for that were, were sick, were in like a comatose state and through prayer and fasting remarkably on a particular day that I did this, I came out of it. And they, for like weeks, just unresponsive.

• 26:24Tucker Carlson?

  Really?

• 26:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's a game changer.

• 26:28Tucker Carlson?

  Fasting?

• 26:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. In fact, in fact, so to tie it to, to, to part of the reason why I'm here today, it's on Fridays in this prayer challenge on Hallow, Mark Wahlberg and Chris Pratt handled the fasting portion of the challenge. So you, you go through this challenge seven days a week and on Fridays, which is the day we typically fast from meat, they get into the spirituality and the psychology of fasting, but the potent spirituality of denial and what that means. And it's super powerful, man. It, it affects change like few things do.

• 27:11Tucker Carlson?

  Really?

• 27:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 27:14Tucker Carlson?

  And, and that's like a true fast, not eat?

• 27:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean...

• 27:24Speaker 04

  It's something that I would pray about. Like if, for some people, having just bread and water is extremely difficult. Or even just like a bowl of soup, or water, or like, you know, there's, the church, Catholic church has sort of a, as a suggested guides. So it's essentially one meal and like, partial meals, not, not a full second meal, I believe, is one meal a day. But if that's, if that's too easy for you, and you're like, well, it's not, I, I, I don't feel like I'm sacrificing anything by just one meal.

• 28:08Speaker 04

  Like, I want to go no food at all, and maybe just some water, or a couple of pieces of bread, you know, bread and water. Then that becomes your fasting. So I think it, it depends, but it's always something that I, I take to in prayer first. Lord, what do you, how, how do you want me to approach this fast? How can I deny myself? What, what do you need from me in this fast? And how can I serve you better through this fast?

• 28:41Tucker Carlson?

  It's funny, fasting is the one piece of religious observance that has pretty much disappeared in public conversations about religious observance. I mean, fasting sounds like a medieval practice.

• 28:54Speaker 04

  Well, especially here in the West. You go to the Middle East, it's like, what are you talking about? Of course I'm fasting.

• 29:00Tucker Carlson?

  Or it's a full month.

• 29:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:02Tucker Carlson?

  We're in it right now. Yeah, no food or water, or tobacco or sex during the day, period.

• 29:08Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 29:08Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. No water. But there, you know, it's considered like a celebration.

• 29:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:15Tucker Carlson?

  As you know, but.

• 29:17Speaker 04

  Well, I also find like even the, the Middle Eastern Christians, like Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, they, um, they're.

• 29:29Speaker 04

  Much more culturally rigorous when it comes to fasting. Not just meat, but no dairy. And same thing with Muslims, no dairy, no, I believe, no meat, no dairy, no oils, like, there's a, there's a number of different levels, but the same thing with, with the Christians in my family, like, wow, we don't, we don't do, the Catholics don't do the no dairy thing, but yeah, you're right. I mean, here in the West, it's

• 29:59Tucker Carlson?

  It does make you wonder if

• 30:01Speaker 04

  You say you're fasting, people say, why? Then you got to explain, you know? It's foreign.

• 30:06Tucker Carlson?

  I mean, it's, it's all over the New Testament references to fasting.

• 30:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:11Tucker Carlson?

  And, and as you just said, it's, it's not simply Christianity. It's like, it was just a feature of religious observance, like, from the beginning of time.

• 30:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:19Tucker Carlson?

  And it's gone, and you, in the mainstream, it's gone. So you wonder, like, is there a connection between eating and spiritual awareness? Clearly, there is. Is there a connection between overeating and spiritual dullness?

• 30:32Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 30:33Tucker Carlson?

  Maybe there is, and if you wake up and everyone's fat, which is true, including me from time to time, so I'm not judging. There's just, there's like a spiritual component there, no? Or am I like

• 30:47Speaker 04

  Well, I mean

• 30:47Tucker Carlson?

  It's a crazy suggestion.

• 30:49Speaker 04

  One of the seven deadly sins is gluttony.

• 30:51Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 30:53Speaker 04

  Doesn't have to be food, but it can be. Like, how are you being gluttonous in your life? Is it, or are you hoarding things? You keep, is it food? Like, is it just not putting any kind of boundaries on your satiety? Like, just like, you know what? And, and, and I think it's, it's something that can, can fuel other sort of

• 31:21Speaker 04

  Leeches into to breaking that spiritual connection to the divine.

• 31:27Tucker Carlson?

  I mean, there's no doubt. One of the most striking things about having grown up and living in the modern West is realizing things later in life that are like glaringly obvious. And you think to yourself like, how did I not notice that?

• 31:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:39Tucker Carlson?

  Of course gluttony is bad, right? Greed is bad. Worshiping money is bad. These are all, violence is bad. These are all the things that I've realized in the last couple of years had never occurred to me, not one time.

• 31:48Speaker 04

  Well, then you see movies. I mean, here's the power of entertainment. You see a movie like Wall Street. You got Michael Douglas, who was a superstar at that time's height of his career. Greed is good. I mean, isn't that the phrase from that movie?

• 31:59Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, but the funny thing is like, I'm old enough to remember when that came out, which I think was in the late eighties.

• 32:03Speaker 04

  Eighties, yeah.

• 32:04Tucker Carlson?

  And it was used, it became political immediately. And it was like, this is what the Reagan era is like, and they're all greedy and whatever. And so of course, you know, I was not a liberal. So I was like, oh, shut up. But I do think that was the, it's been almost 40 years. That was the last time I remember anybody in the United States saying greed was bad. That was the last time.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 32:24Tucker Carlson?

  Have you heard anybody say that? Maybe some like far out wacko protester or something, but no one you'd ever meet.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:33Tucker Carlson?

  I really have ever heard anybody say greed is bad.

• 32:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:35Tucker Carlson?

  Since then. Have you?

• 32:36Speaker 04

  No, no, it's, it's, I mean, it's, yeah, but it's everywhere too.

• 32:42Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 32:43Speaker 04

  It's everywhere, which is maybe why you don't hear.

• 32:45Tucker Carlson?

  Eating every day till you get fat, also bad. Again, not judging. I've been greedy and I've been a glutton. So like, I'm not, again, not judging, but it's bad. Like, why not say, I don't know. Sorry. I'm just, I'm just coming to these very obvious conclusions.

• 32:59Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, I think luckily we have, I mean, that's what repentance is for.

• 33:04Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 33:04Speaker 04

  You know, in the Christian life, it's, it's, you know, becoming aware of your faults and the way that you've hurt people or hurt yourself even. And if the body is truly a temple of the Lord, a reflection of the creation and of the Creator, God, and you're hurting yourself, then it's like it's an affront to God, which is why things like gluttony are sinful.

• 33:30Tucker Carlson?

  But it also dulls you. It's like a bong hit or, you know, three beers or something. It keeps you from experiencing anything beyond yourself, kind of.

• 33:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. You're now creating a wall around the ability to be connected to from the divine. You know, it's like you're walling yourself off from God in a way.

• 33:56Tucker Carlson?

  It puts cheesecloth over your hole.

• 33:58Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 33:59Tucker Carlson?

  You know what I mean?

• 34:00Speaker 04

  I love that you used food as a reference.

• 34:02Tucker Carlson?

  No, I'm just thinking of like, something that kind of dulls the camera and makes the edges softer and you sort of don't fully perceive what's happening. You eat two Big Macs, you know, you're not as aware of anything.

• 34:16Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh. It's like, talk about comatose.

• 34:19Tucker Carlson?

  It's a head injury, right?

• 34:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, 100%.

• 34:22Tucker Carlson?

  And so fasting is the opposite. You're hyper aware.

• 34:25Speaker 04

  That's right. And your mind is just like, you sense everything.

• 34:30Tucker Carlson?

  Interesting.

• 34:31Speaker 04

  And the longer you do it, it starts to, you know, I once, I tried, I know people who have done like 40 day water fasts. I don't, like with electrolytes and stuff, that's not, you know, where they're, it still sounds dangerous, but I don't know how, I tried it for a week, one Lent. I got through four days of it and I'm like, this isn't going to work. Your body starts to do stuff that you have no control over.

• 34:58Tucker Carlson?

  You're like, I can't imagine.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  And it's like, I think we're dying, so let's just get rid of everything. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm at work. This isn't, I'm on a, I'm on a set. This doesn't work. I can't keep running to the, so I said, Lord, please forgive me. I can't continue this if I'm going to work for the rest of the week because I just, unless you make it stop, it's not stopping. So I gotta.

• 35:23Tucker Carlson?

  A friend of mine, last winter, who was coming off a three week fast, he's a very spiritual man, and I happened to be at his house when he broke his fast, and he, the first course was soup, and he put, he hadn't had one thing in his mouth for three weeks other than water. That's it.

• 35:40Speaker 04

  Three week water.

• 35:41Tucker Carlson?

  Three weeks, 21 days, and he puts the spoon in the soup, and he holds, he's talking, and he holds it in front of his mouth, he's making a point, and I'm watching, everyone's looking at it, and then he puts it down, and then he does it again, and he's making this point, and then he puts it down again.

• 35:56Speaker 04

  It's like, eat the soup.

• 35:59Tucker Carlson?

  That's self-control.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:01Tucker Carlson?

  So as you're-

• 36:02Speaker 04

  Well, at that point, I would think you almost don't want to break it, and you're like, how long can I go?

• 36:06Tucker Carlson?

  That's totally right.

• 36:07Speaker 04

  How far can I go with this?

• 36:08Tucker Carlson?

  So funny, though, people go like, you know, climb, you know, pay to climb Everest, or, you know what I mean, or go, you know, participate in some radical sport, or, and they take these crazy risks, and they push themselves to, you know, past obvious boundaries, and I'm not, Chris, I admire that, it's great, but no one ever thinks to just like, not eat for a week and see what happens. That is a pretty bold thing to do, and maybe worth trying.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  I, I think everybody should try fasting if they've never fasted, everybody should try fasting. I mean, you know, if you've got medical conditions, I'm not a doctor, but, but, but I think discern and pray about it, and like, it, I've only found it helpful, and I think it just, even if it's just like for a day, like, see what denial, denying yourself food, what does that do for your mind, for your spirit, you know, I mean, if, I don't know, if you don't have a sense of spirituality, it might not mean anything, it might just be like a challenge, like, I wonder if I can do it, you know, but I think-

• 37:17Speaker 04

  The point is not to do it for the sake of doing it.

• 37:19Tucker Carlson?

  Of course.

• 37:20Speaker 04

  To do it for the sake of depriving yourself and offering up the pain and the discomfort and for some people, the suffering that that might cause.

• 37:32Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  Taking that pain and suffering and discomfort through the fast and offering it towards an intention, a sick person, the decision to move to a new home, problems that a child is having in school.

• 37:49Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 37:50Speaker 04

  Any kind of obstacles or challenges that seem insurmountable, fast, fast about it, pray and fast about it and see what the Lord can do with that and with your heart. Because then it's, what you're doing is you're opening up your heart. You know, it's not about, well, if I do this exactly X, Y, and Z. I mean, Jesus' whole thing, issue with the Pharisees, you know, you cleanse the outside of a cup, but then you, the stuff that's already inside you is just, is rotten. Your thoughts and your heart is rotten. So it doesn't matter that you wash your hands before you eat this and you eat that. Like he was calling out the Pharisees at one point for being so specific and attentive

• 38:34Speaker 04

  to the law, but meanwhile, he could see in their hearts that they just had malice and they had evil and they weren't doing the right thing for the priests of the time, what they should have been doing. The same thing, it's like fasting for just to see if you can get through it, doesn't really serve anyone other than your own ego.

• 38:56Tucker Carlson?

  That's right.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  But offering up the pain that comes with the fasting, the denial that comes with fasting, the hunger pains, that then gets applied in a spiritual way. That then assigns spiritual rewards to you by offering that for someone.

• 39:16Tucker Carlson?

  No, that's right.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  And it's, by the way, just for, in point of fact.

• 39:19Tucker Carlson?

  I know, because I've done a lot of fasting, actually. And I love it. But it's not.

• 39:24Speaker 04

  What's been the biggest thing that you've you've seen?

• 39:26Tucker Carlson?

  It's not an effective weight loss.

• 39:30Tucker Carlson?

  In fact, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who's Muslim. He said, I always get fat during Ramadan. You know, because the second the sun goes down, you know, you're pounding a dozen dates and

• 39:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:39Tucker Carlson?

  going crazy with the hummus. Which is awesome, but I don't think I'm not, don't ever go to me for medical advice, of course. But I, you know, I don't think going to fasting to lose weight is like effective at all. But I do think, I think this way, it's like, if they're pushing on you weed, Xanax, and endless bread baskets, maybe there's an agenda, which is to make you duller and less aware of what's going on around you. And I think

• 40:07Speaker 04

  Sicker.

• 40:08Tucker Carlson?

  And so, and of course, sicker. That's exactly right. But I, I must say, I'd rather be dead than dull.

• 40:13Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 40:14Tucker Carlson?

  You know what I mean? It's like, sick is bad, but unaware is worse.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:18Tucker Carlson?

  In my opinion.

• 40:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:20Tucker Carlson?

  There are a lot of really enlightened, sick people out there, actually. You know, joyful, sick people.

• 40:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 40:26Tucker Carlson?

  Of all the New Year's resolutions you're likely to put off, the one you're most likely to put off and keep putting off is buying life insurance. And you should have life insurance. It's kind of crazy not to, because the future is unknown. You've got to have life insurance. But you may not have life insurance because it's a huge hassle and it can be a huge ripoff. But there is an answer. Policygenius, it makes it very easy and much cheaper. You can find life insurance policies that start at just 292 bucks per year for a million dollars of coverage. And some options, and this is the best part, are 100% online and lets you avoid unnecessary medical exams, the guy with the gloves. You don't want that if you can avoid it, and you may be able to avoid it.

• 41:11Tucker Carlson?

  Forty percent of people wind up looking back and wishing they'd had better life insurance, or any life insurance. It could have helped their families enormously. Policygenius can fix that for you. Peace of mind, that's what they're really selling. The address, policygenius.com/tucker, or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much money you could save and how much hassle you could save. Policygenius.com/tucker.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  You've been trying to take down these games from the start.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Filmed for IMAX.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Make them remember you.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, made in PG-13.

• 41:54Speaker 06

  Bonjour, compadre. It's the

• 41:58Speaker 06

  How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget, the Priceline app. It's got hotel deals, flight deals, rental car deals, all of those deals in a bundle. Deals, game day deals, concert trip deals. No one deals more deals than Priceline. Hold your horses, there's more. The app lets you filter hotels by neighborhood, vibe, star level, and amenities like pools and spas and beachfronts. Wait, I'm not done. Stop cutting me off.

• 42:24Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, so you said you made reference to Jesus's exchanges with the Pharisees. I'm reading Matthew right now. I'm really struck this time by the intensity of his rage at the Pharisees. He doesn't, he's pretty gentle with everybody else, including like the, you know, the Roman officer, the occupying army pagan worshipping the stars or whatever.

• 42:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:49Tucker Carlson?

  Jesus is really kind to him. Pharisees, I mean, it is just, Matthew goes on for like five pages. Like, he's mad.

• 42:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:58Tucker Carlson?

  What do you make of that?

• 43:01Speaker 04

  Well,

• 43:04Speaker 04

  I think you have to ask yourself, well, why is he mad?

• 43:07Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 43:07Speaker 04

  And what is he mad about? And who are the Pharisees to him?

• 43:13Speaker 04

  And I think it's, it goes back to what I was referencing in that here you have

• 43:23Speaker 04

  who are people that are supposed to be models of God's law and rule and grace. The Pharisees, like the priests, the people that, the people look up to for spiritual advice and wisdom and guidance.

• 43:45Speaker 04

  And because Jesus can read souls and know what's in their hearts, he sees they're probably the worst of them. And he knows that they have ill will towards him and they don't have the interests of the people in their hearts because they're so enraptured by the letters of the law. He said, "You're so concerned about the letter of the law that you're not even concerned about the heart of the law, which is God's mercy and justice. And how are you treating these people?"

• 44:28Speaker 04

  I mean, the fact that they would go every year on Passover, the poorest of the poor trying to bring their offerings and sacrifices that through extortion were getting charged 500% or probably more than what they should have. I don't know the exact numbers, but the point was that they were being extorted every step of the way by their own leaders, these Pharisees. And that for him was the straw that broke the camel's back. And the next day, he's clearing the temple.

• 45:06Tucker Carlson?

  Flipping the tables over.

• 45:07Speaker 04

  Flipping tables, whipping, using a whip to clear money changers' stands and just outraged, God's righteous anger.

• 45:20Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, it's not the gentle Jesus at all.

• 45:23Speaker 04

  No, no, excuse me. No, it's not. It's the fury of the Lord really, come to visit them. It's not fire from heaven, but it's fire on earth in this man's eyes.

• 45:38Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 45:42Speaker 04

  Also, you know, the precursor to what sets him up for the crucifixion. I mean, I think on some level, he knows, number one, he has to, he has to make an impression and he, and he is vindicated through his actions because of who they are, who the Pharisees truly are, deep down inside. But also that this will then continue the chain of events that have been set into motion that will put him on the cross so that he can redeem mankind.

• 46:17Tucker Carlson?

  Seems like all of his anger is reserved for hypocrites.

• 46:22Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:22Tucker Carlson?

  They get singled out repeatedly. He seems to really hate that.

• 46:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:27Tucker Carlson?

  And the people in charge, the powerful.

• 46:30Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 46:31Tucker Carlson?

  That's my read. I mean, I'm the opposite of a theologian.

• 46:34Speaker 04

  I mean, I think, I think, you know, with power, you know, there's greed, there's hurting people at, you know, the, at someone else's expense.

• 46:50Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 46:51Speaker 04

  There's, you know, taking advantage when you have the, all of these forces that try to, I think, take control over a society and the people through, through power, through influence.

• 47:09Speaker 04

  And there's nothing that those people can do. I mean, there's, it's, it's the definition of injustice.

• 47:16Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 47:16Speaker 04

  And God is about justice.

• 47:20Speaker 04

  Blessed are those who thirst for righteousness, who thirst for justice, basically.

• 47:27Speaker 04

  It's, it's, it was, it was the thing that, one, it was one of the things that was most important to him, that people experience, you know, to have justice and feel human and be seen and be, and be not discounted because of their status, because of their, you know, financial, you know, situation, because of who they were, who, what family they were born into, or what, what, what, what, what caste, for lack of a better term, that they were born into, you know?

• 47:56Speaker 04

  So I, I think it was, it was something that he, it was a last stand for him, basically, in, in the, when he cleared the temple. And it was all the preaching and, and the teaching. Didn't have enough of an effect on the Pharisees for them to change what they were doing.

• 48:13Tucker Carlson?

  No, it didn't.

• 48:15Speaker 04

  So, I think he had to, he had to show, don't tell. He had to show and not tell.

• 48:22Tucker Carlson?

  So, when you're reading your scripts, when you're preparing,

• 48:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:25Tucker Carlson?

  You're basically reading the gospel.

• 48:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, gospel plus, I'll say. It's, you know, because as a TV show,

• 48:37Speaker 04

  it's not always, you know, the scriptures as they are, don't always give us the full picture of a conversation.

• 48:43Tucker Carlson?

  They definitely don't.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  Of a character, of a person. So, we have to, through, you know, biblical, a group of biblical scholars that, and advisors that help us and give insight into the things that we're writing. We, we have to craft these plausible, hopefully authentic backstories that create believable characters that could have existed in the first century, that augment the world that the gospels give us a glimpse into. So, a lot of it is scripture, yes, but then there is some creative license taken

• 49:29Speaker 04

  just to be able to make a good TV show. Because at the end of the day, this isn't, this isn't the Bible. We're not saying this is the Bible. We're, we have a TV show, first and foremost, that is based on the gospels and hopefully is compelling enough for you to really, you know, get hooked into it and binge it just like you would binge any other TV show. And then start asking yourself, well, what, what did Jesus really say? Did he say these things? Is this, is this character really like this? Like, let me, I want to explore. And then if you can get people to read the Bible and then want to have a relationship or even explore what it means to have faith if you've never had faith,

• 50:14Speaker 04

  or even be curious about Christ. I mean, inevitably, that is the relationship in a person's life that will change their life irrevocably, I mean, forever. So, if we can create an entertaining story that is based on the truth of the gospels and who Jesus and the disciples were. Maybe it'll introduce people to Christ in a way that the audience has introduced to him. And maybe they'll want to follow him too.

• 50:48Tucker Carlson?

  How did it change your life, the gospel?

• 50:51Speaker 04

  I think the more I read the gospels, the more I discover. The Bible is alive. It's the living word, right? They say the Bible is alive. And so, at any given time, you can read a passage from scriptures, from the gospels, even from the Old Testament, the letters of Paul, the Acts, that somehow will apply to your own life. Especially when you're struggling with something. You know, if I'm struggling with something, I just can't figure it out.

• 51:36Speaker 04

  I just don't, I have no ideas about where to go to resolve it. Inevitably, the answer is somewhere in the book. And it's a matter of sitting down with it and reading it. And, I mean, it's remarkable the amount of times like I've had something in front of me that I just didn't know how to deal with it. And then I would flip to a random page. And it's like, the answer is right there. It's right there. So I stopped being surprised about it. I just like, of course, that's, this is, yeah. And I take notes.

• 52:21Tucker Carlson?

  Sincere Christians never seem surprised by anything. I've noticed that.

• 52:25Speaker 04

  It's amazing.

• 52:26Tucker Carlson?

  It is amazing.

• 52:27Speaker 04

  And I've met those people where, and we kind of talked a little bit about this at one point, where the craziest things are happening that they kind of already had an intuition was going to happen. Like,

• 52:54Speaker 04

  I don't even know what's a good example. There've been so many times where it's like somebody wanted to, to, uh, trying to get rid of their house or something like that. Try to sell their house and, uh, like, you know, they had like a certain amount of time. It's just an example, like they had like a week to get out of their house for somebody to buy their house. And, you know, somebody just comes knocking on the door and says, "Hey, you got a beautiful house. You're not selling this by chance, are you?" And you're like, "Well, as a matter of fact, I am." And it just so happens that they're like, "Lord, just let us find somebody that wants this house." Like, "We didn't even put it on the market yet." But, and then somebody knocks on their door like an hour later.

• 53:38Speaker 04

  Or, you know, like, I mean, crazy, crazy stories. And they're like, "Yeah, I just, God just did it." I'm like, "But how? What? You don't seem phased."

• 53:49Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 53:49Speaker 04

  And that, to me even, is just...

• 53:53Tucker Carlson?

  I totally agree.

• 53:54Speaker 04

  Remarkable.

• 53:55Tucker Carlson?

  And to flip it over, they, they never seem shocked by how screwed up the world is. I'm shocked every single day. Like, "I can't believe they're committing abortion outside the DNC." Or, "I can't believe this, that, the other thing." I'm always like, "I can't believe the persecution of Christians. Why'd you persecute Christians?"

• 54:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:09Tucker Carlson?

  Like, "They've never mugged anybody." You know, like a nice, even if you think their religion's silly, they're like the most peaceful people in the world. Their religion commands them to be.

• 54:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:17Tucker Carlson?

  Why are we hating on them? And, you know, banning their apps in Europe or whatever we're doing? Putting them in jail for praying? But sincere Christians like, "Well, yeah. I mean, what did you think was gonna happen?"

• 54:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:29Tucker Carlson?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 54:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, because he kind of, Jesus kind of set it up that way.

• 54:33Tucker Carlson?

  Kinda did.

• 54:34Speaker 04

  He kinda told us 2,000 years ago, you know, "You'll be hated because of me, persecuted because of me." Like, he'd see, even, he lays it all out 2,000 years ago. But just know...

• 54:50Speaker 04

  It's okay. I overcame the world. It's, it's, you're good. Just remember that you're good when things hit the fan. Just remember that.

• 55:02Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I still find it infuriating.

• 55:03Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 55:04Tucker Carlson?

  Sorry, I'm obviously not a good person.

• 55:06Speaker 04

  No, it's a natural response.

• 55:08Tucker Carlson?

  There's a lot of persecution of Christians and I'm really bothered by it.

• 55:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:15Tucker Carlson?

  Your family, at least on one side, is Arab Christian. Awful lot of Arab Christians get killed in a bunch of different countries, all the time.

• 55:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:24Tucker Carlson?

  And no one says a word about it.

• 55:26Speaker 04

  No.

• 55:27Tucker Carlson?

  Do you notice this?

• 55:27Speaker 04

  I do. Yeah, I do a lot. Christian persecution is something really close to my heart. In fact, I just executive produced an animated short film called The Twenty-One, which came out towards the end of February on the 10th anniversary of the martyrdom of the 21 martyrs in Libya. And who were all, well, 20 of them were Coptic Christians from Egypt. One of them was non-Christian initially from Ghana. And they just rounded up all these guys. ISIS came and rounded them up and tried to force them to deny their faith. They were just migrant workers, like, just like,

• 56:12Speaker 04

  we're just trying to, they went off to work for a few weeks to try to make some money. And, and they got rounded up, just captured. And ISIS was like, "Yeah, deny your faith and we'll let you go. Don't deny it, we'll kill you." They're like, "Oh, well, we're not going to do that." So, and they tortured them for months. And even the guy from Ghana, ISIS said to him, like, "You can go. You're not, you're okay. You're not Christian. You're not one of these guys." And he's like, "No, no, no. Their God is my God." And so they say,

• 56:52Speaker 04

  "He converted." And he died with them. And so, six years ago, this producer friend of mine, named Mark Rogers, he, he was in Egypt and he saw, he knew about the story and he saw... The image of one of these martyrs who had who had like a lazy eye and it reminded him of the image, which actually is on this little medallion of Christ the pantocrat or like, you know, basically it's that figure of Christ that it's got two, both sides of his face have, one side of him represents the divinity of Christ, one side represents the humanity of Christ and in one of the side, oh, his

• 57:36Speaker 04

  eye in one side is kind of drooped and it reminded him of this image of Christ and he got this idea to create this animated short film about the martyrs and their story. And it turned out to be stunning, 21film.com, people want to see it. It's an extraordinary short film, beautiful, beautiful, that implements Coptic iconography into the animation. It was actually on the Oscar shortlist. It didn't get nominated, but it found its way onto this shortlist of 15 selections and then they whittle it down to the top five. It

• 58:19Speaker 04

  had no marketing, it had no advertisement, nothing, but somehow I think enough people saw this like, no, this is amazing. And it tells their story and, and the mystical nature of their experience and of actually their captors, what they experienced with these, you know, while they had these guys in captivity and like the divinely mystical experiences that they had. Their captors? Yeah, yeah, are represented in the short film. In fact, if you haven't seen it, I'll send you a link, but it's gorgeous. And at the end of the day, what people walk away with is that

• 59:02Speaker 04

  These guys had the opportunity to say, "No, no, I'm not Christian," and then live. But none of them did it. They would, they, they went to their graves, literally.

• 59:13Tucker Carlson?

  And they were just random migrant workers?

• 59:15Speaker 04

  Migrant workers.

• 59:16Tucker Carlson?

  Not evangelists, just people?

• 59:18Speaker 04

  Christian migrant workers, poor migrant workers, I think, construction or farming or something, and, and they, they wouldn't deny their faith. And so I got a chance to screen this film for the first time with the families of the martyrs 10 years later.

• 59:35Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 59:36Speaker 04

  Which was, words fail me because it was such an overwhelmingly powerful experience to be there with them and kind of have them sort of reliving this experience. But when you talk to them, full of joy, full of joy. And they, more than one of them thanked their captors because they, they, they feel, and, you know, as Christians, we believe this, that because they died for their faith, they got a straight shot right to the divine, right to God.

• 1:00:19Speaker 04

  They're like, "We thanked them because they sent them right to heaven." So the Coptic Church declared them saints, and then very recently, the Catholic Church, it's the first time it's happened, Catholic Church also considered them saints because they died for the faith in the way that they die. Yeah. It's so inspirational. It's unbelievable. And so, uh, right now, I'm trying to get the film out to, for more people to see and get it out there so people are aware of, that these stories exist, like this is a reality for people, for Christians in the Middle East. This is a reality, you know, that, that their lives are on the line for their beliefs.

• 1:00:58Tucker Carlson?

  That's for sure.

• 1:00:59Speaker 04

  You know?

• 1:01:00Tucker Carlson?

  Time for another true life Alp story. I got a call from a friend of mine yesterday, honestly, true story, who said his girlfriend had just broken up with him over Alp. He wouldn't stop. And I thought to myself, "That's kind of sad." And he said, "No, it's not sad. Imagine if I'd married her."

• 1:01:16Tucker Carlson?

  Now I know, I was saved. Then the next day, this same friend is driving at twice the speed limit through a major American city, pulled over by a cop in a speed trap. Cop takes his license and registration, goes back to patrol car, runs him, comes back, looks in the window and sees a tin of ALP on the dashboard. Pauses, stunned, says to my friend, "You use ALP?" "Yeah, I do," says my friend. "So do I," says the cop, "we all do." He looks at my friend thoughtfully and goes, "Drive safely, sir," and hands back his license and registration. No ticket! So in two days, he's saved from a tragic marriage to a girl who doesn't like ALP and a speeding ticket. All true. It's more than a nicotine addiction. In a nation of 350 million, people are guessing there are about 350 million ALP stories. Email us yours.

• 1:02:00Tucker Carlson?

  We want to know and read it on the air. Email [email protected]. [email protected]. Give us your ALP story.

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Witness the beginning of the revolution.

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Film for IMAX.

• 1:02:21Speaker 02

  Make them remember you.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.

• 1:02:30Tucker Carlson?

  You must learn a lot from playing this role.

• 1:02:35Speaker 04

  I have. Yeah.

• 1:02:40Speaker 04

  I've learned how much I have to learn.

• 1:02:42Tucker Carlson?

  It's just, I don't know how often we think of Jesus as fully a man, though, as you pointed out, he was.

• 1:02:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Tucker Carlson?

  What's that like, trying to get inside the head of Jesus?

• 1:02:55Speaker 04

  Well, I don't think I can ever do it successfully, like, completely. I can, the only thing that I, I mean, I can't do it successfully at all. The only thing that I can do...

• 1:03:09Speaker 04

  Beliendo Jesús era completamente Dios y completamente hombre, pero sin pecado en su humanidad.

• 1:03:16Speaker 04

  Lo único que puedo relacionarme

• 1:03:20Speaker 04

  es la parte de la humanidad.

• 1:03:24Speaker 04

  Y mi propia humanidad defectada en eso, defectada profundamente, humanidad profundamente defectada.

• 1:03:31Speaker 04

  Pero afortunadamente, no tengo que confiar en mí. No confío en mí, confío en Él. Y así mi trabajo es simplemente aparecer,

• 1:03:45Speaker 04

  venir con un corazón abierto. Hago mucho oración y almorzar antes de cada temporada. Oradoría antes de cada escena.

• 1:03:57Speaker 04

  Y luego

• 1:04:00Speaker 04

  hago lo mejor que puedo para simplemente ser, por falta de un mejor término, un espejo del Divino. Así que solo aparece y es como, solo estoy tratando de espejar al Divino, leyendo las palabras que tengo, siendo un vehículo para el que el Espíritu Santo puede usarme para llegar a la verdad del evangelio a las personas que ven este programa. Y si va más allá de entretenimiento para algunas personas, asombroso. Quiero decir, entre el programa y entre el app de Hallow, la cantidad de feedback y vidas cambiadas

• 1:04:46Speaker 04

  que han ocurrido,

• 1:04:50Speaker 04

  las historias que recibimos sobre personas que, ya sabes, que eran

• 1:04:56Speaker 04

  ateístas de toda su vida y alguien les dio el programa y de repente algo cambió en su corazón y dicen: ¿Por qué me siento de esta manera sobre este tipo? Como, quiero, quiero conocer a este tipo. O personas que no han ido a la iglesia en 30 años.

• 1:05:20Speaker 04

  Lapsed Catholics, like, I haven't been to church in 30 years. Started going back to church. Went to my first confession in 30 years. Went to my first confession in 15 years. Like, I've heard all of these things. I even once, I was in confession once myself and I, a guy came out of the confessional and he recognized me, he was like, "Oh, yeah." And so he starts talking to me and then he starts, starts to tell me what he was telling the priest in the confession. I said, "No, no, no, no, no, you see, you keep it in there." I wouldn't let him get that far. No, I said, "That's not for my ears. Save it for the confessor." So it's, uh...

• 1:06:03Tucker Carlson?

  I'm not Catholic, but I've always thought that, um, confession's the coolest thing they do.

• 1:06:09Speaker 04

  It's a, it's a gift, man. It's a lifesaver.

• 1:06:11Tucker Carlson?

  Of course. We, when it became psychotherapy and you put like an atheist with bad judgment on the couch across from you, it, I don't think we lost something. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:06:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:25Tucker Carlson?

  But the human need to connect, to unburden yourself, you know what's wrong, by the way, most people know. You know. You don't need to be a Christian to know what's wrong. Everyone, you, inside you, you know when you're doing something wrong.

• 1:06:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37Tucker Carlson?

  And to say it out loud, to articulate it in words.

• 1:06:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Tucker Carlson?

  Um, is to rid yourself of it, to some extent, I think, and...

• 1:06:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then, and then for, for the sacramental part of it, that's, that's where the healing comes in. That's where the spiritual healing comes in. So it's like, it's like if you're a cheesecloth full of holes, right? And you go into confession and you receive the sacrament of reconciliation from the priest. And the priest, you know, we believe he's been given divine authority that has a pot, maybe a not visible, but a tangible, physical, metaphysical effect on, on the casing of your soul. And it's like mending the little holes. Every confession is like you're, you're closing up those holes and restoring that

• 1:07:29Speaker 04

  connection with God in a way that, that is...

• 1:07:34Speaker 04

  Essentially repairing your soul. That's, that's what the sacramental part of confession is for us. Which, which is hugely comforting and also physically tangible. For me, I feel just chemically slightly different after every confession that I go through in a way that's like, okay, I can breathe a little easier.

• 1:08:03Tucker Carlson?

  I believe, I believe that completely. I've never experienced it, but I believe that.

• 1:08:07Speaker 04

  It's, it's, uh, it's like nothing else.

• 1:08:10Tucker Carlson?

  What's it like for you to be recognized on the street for playing Jesus? I know just from having dinner with you last night and telling people you were coming here, there's a lot of intensity. Like you're, I've been on television for 30 years. I've never experienced anything like what you experienced, for example, in my house last night. People are very intense when they see you. It's bound up in their feelings for you, but also their feelings for Jesus. What's that like?

• 1:08:40Speaker 04

  I, I give, I give God all the credit. I give Jesus the credit and, uh, you know, like I'm, like, like our buddy Russell Brand, like I was once his stand-in. I, I feel like I'm Jesus's stand-in. Jesus is the star and I'm his stand-in.

• 1:08:57Tucker Carlson?

  You're Russell Brand's stand-in.

• 1:08:58Speaker 04

  I was Russell Brand's stand-in.

• 1:08:59Tucker Carlson?

  Looking at you, I'm not that surprised. If I was casting a stand-in for Russell Brand, I think it would be you.

• 1:09:05Speaker 04

  Not too bad, eh? It's all right. So we had a good time with him. Yeah, he's all right. He's a good mate. He's a good guy.

• 1:09:11Tucker Carlson?

  He's a good man.

• 1:09:12Speaker 04

  I love that man. I love him so much.

• 1:09:14Tucker Carlson?

  I totally agree. Um, but I mean, it, without getting like too personal, it's kind of a fixture of life.

• 1:09:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:22Tucker Carlson?

  Like maybe not all positive. Like, what's Whole Foods like for you?

• 1:09:28Speaker 04

  Uh, depends on what part of town.

• 1:09:30Tucker Carlson?

  No, I was gonna say, probably, probably not too many people watching the shows in Whole Foods, but like in normal, non-atheist grocery store.

• 1:09:37Speaker 04

  No, but, I mean, let's take Whole Foods. So, in some parts of the country,

• 1:09:43Speaker 04

  I, you know, I gotta go in with a hood and glasses. And in other parts, especially the coastal cities like New York and LA, it's, it's just another day.

• 1:09:53Speaker 04

  So, it, it can be.

• 1:09:56Tucker Carlson?

  They mistake you for a bike messenger, but, in Michigan, they know.

• 1:10:01Speaker 04

  That's, that's very appropriate. Yeah, that's very appropriate. It can, it can be interesting. I think

• 1:10:12Speaker 04

  because of who I'm playing,

• 1:10:17Speaker 04

  and because there is this, oftentimes, this front-loaded relationship that they already have with Jesus,

• 1:10:27Speaker 04

  and then I become standing, like, the face of that relationship that they now, when they read the Bible, I've been told this, my face pops into their minds, they're hearing scriptures or they're seeing, I mean, even for myself, when, when I'm at Mass and the priest is reading the Gospel, and he's talking about Peter, I'm, I'm thinking of Shahar Isaac, who plays Peter in our show, and I'm like, "Okay, yeah, I can't get him out of my head." And, uh, yeah, but, okay. I love Shahar, and he's great as Peter, and so, yeah, it's just, you try, even as an artist, like, you, you still suffer that, you, you can't quite make the separation.

• 1:11:07Tucker Carlson?

  Being, yeah.

• 1:11:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, because you've, you now have this relationship with these people and these characters, and so to be the face of what is often the most important relationship in a person's life, I mean, even beyond their family, it's like, God first, and then family, and then everything else. To be the face of that for people, uh, I, I don't often, I try not to think about that.

• 1:11:36Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, it's, it's more than being the sidekick on Seinfeld.

• 1:11:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, and, and I think.

• 1:11:45Speaker 04

  God's given me the gift and the grace of kind of being somewhat blinded to the magnitude of it and the weight of it.

• 1:12:00Tucker Carlson?

  That's good.

• 1:12:01Speaker 04

  Sometimes I can feel it. Most of the time, I think I'm shielded from it. Because I think if I was aware of exactly what that implication was, even for a single person,

• 1:12:17Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 1:12:18Speaker 04

  it would crush me.

• 1:12:19Tucker Carlson?

  Yes, self-awareness is a burden. I would not recommend it at all. I don't have any, so it's never bothered me. But I know people who are highly self-aware and they're like in agony all day.

• 1:12:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, other things, like I have a lot of that in other areas. But when it comes to playing this character, I'm glad I don't have much.

• 1:12:38Tucker Carlson?

  No, so that is a blessing.

• 1:12:40Speaker 04

  I, yeah.

• 1:12:41Tucker Carlson?

  What is Hallow? And how'd you hook up with it?

• 1:12:45Speaker 04

  Hallow is the world's largest, and for my money, the greatest prayer and meditation app a person can ever find. Like ever. There are thousands and thousands of ways, prayers and challenges and meditations that people can use in their daily life to the point of automation. They just set it up and you get reminders. Where you can just connect with God in the most creative ways. For me, it has been

• 1:13:28Speaker 04

  a way to keep me completely focused on God when I'm in the middle of life. It can be, it's an opportunity for me to access my faith in a consistent way and to get through life's biggest challenges.

• 1:13:50Speaker 04

  I mean, there's so many prayers on this app that I use daily, like daily. And, you know, for instance, there's a prayer called the Surrender Novina. Novina is just, it's a Latin word, just means nine days. So it's a prayer you say for nine days. And this particular prayer has been so valuable to so many people. Basically, it's very simple, but you repeat it like 10 times.

• 1:14:22Speaker 04

  And there's all in the app, like it walks you through it. But the essence of it is this prayer where you simply say, "Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything." "Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything." And you repeat that like 10 times. And the number of people that have experienced profound grace and

• 1:14:55Speaker 04

  just ease of their burden, a lightness of the weight in their life, has been, I mean, I've never, I've never heard of a prayer that's had such a profound effect. Like the rosary is another one. So there was this couple. They were trying to have their first baby. They had a miscarriage. They were in a pretty severe state, crisis, depression, everything that comes with that.

• 1:15:25Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:15:26Speaker 04

  They see an ad for halal. They download the app, they start praying. Specifically, they start praying the surrender prayer that I was telling you about. The Surrender Novina and the rosary. And they were Catholic as well, so they're familiar with them. So they prayed the rosary, super powerful weapon, and the Surrender Novina.

• 1:15:48Speaker 04

  And they get pregnant again.

• 1:15:51Speaker 04

  And their relationship is really growing together in faith and in God's strongest that it's ever been. Five months in, they lose the baby.

• 1:16:05Speaker 04

  And they're holding their past son, who'd passed away. And the words that come to mind for this woman is the surrender prayer.

• 1:16:20Speaker 04

  "Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything." It's the first words that come to her mind. And they told us, they said that if they hadn't gotten into this consistent routine of communicating with God through prayer, if their faith hadn't been strengthened, that second miscarriage would have destroyed their marriage. But it didn't. And they kept going. A year later, they had a healthy baby boy. And the first words that came out of her mouth that time was the prayer from Numbers.

• 1:17:04Speaker 04

  "Lord bless you and keep you. Put China's face upon you. Be gracious to you. The Lord look kindly upon you and give you peace." I think their son's name was Jack, I think. And so, the power of having that relationship, the power of prayer, the power of being in a constant dialogue with God, it's what we were made for. We were designed to worship. We were designed for that relationship. It's in our DNA. And the more we try to ignore it or squash it or bury it or ignore it or pretend it doesn't exist or that it's not there or replace it with something else,

• 1:17:47Speaker 04

  the more we just run in circles. The more we try to fill that hole with something else, with some other vice, some other endeavor, some other, you know, righteous indignation of something, some other effort that will never substitute, never replace our need for God. It'll never replace it.

• 1:18:16Speaker 04

  And so, for me, it's like playing Jesus in The Chosen. It's one of the most important things that I've ever done artistically. All of this for me feels like an apostolate. It feels like I'm a media apostle. I feel like that's what I was sent here to do. Like, at this time and place, to kind of be a part of this, what I see as this growing movement in film and television, in the culture that is truly counterculture to the current culture.

• 1:19:00Tucker Carlson?

  That's for sure.

• 1:19:01Speaker 04

  You know? And to be a part of the ushering in of this opportunity of expression that supersedes the previous iterations of what this looked like, because it's so attentive to quality. Like, The Chosen aims to be a great TV show first. And because of that, the fact that the people making it are really invested in the subject matter make it that much more powerful.

• 1:19:44Speaker 04

  And then, from a very myotically human level, and then God sees that, and He takes it, and He multiplies it. He multiplies the magnitude of it. The efficacy of it is then energized and multiplied globally.

• 1:20:06Speaker 04

  But even just reaching one person and changing one person's life, Dallas will tell you this as well. It's worth it just for one person. All the discomfort or whatever I may or may not feel in the world as people approach me, wanting to take a selfie in the gym or in the supermarket, when I'm clearly trying to like get in and out. I mean, all of that discomfort for me personally, and it's, I've been through worse. You know, like I've been through real discomfort. It's nothing. Something, but it's relative. You know what I'm saying? So all of it's worth it. Because one person decided to go get baptized. And now they have like, they have a whole new life.

• 1:20:48Speaker 04

  They have a whole new, they have a spiritual awakening.

• 1:20:52Tucker Carlson?

  It's amazing to me how successful it's been. And it's amazing to me, the reaction to it. Banned in China.

• 1:21:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:03Tucker Carlson?

  It's not calling for the overthrow of the CCP. It's not calling for the-

• 1:21:06Speaker 04

  Hallo app is banned in China, yeah.

• 1:21:07Tucker Carlson?

  Hallo app is banned in China. It's also effectively banned in Europe. In a fact, because Mark Zuckerberg's company, Meta, has shut down all advertising for religious oriented, faith-based advertising.

• 1:21:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:21Tucker Carlson?

  So it can't operate in Europe.

• 1:21:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was a tough one. They just, they had just launched in Polish and Italian and I think German and like all these languages. And now they can't, people can't know about the app because they-

• 1:21:35Tucker Carlson?

  But why is that a threat? I mean, it just does tell you everything, right? I mean, it's like, it's like understanding things in reverse.

• 1:21:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:44Tucker Carlson?

  It's like, why would they be upset with that? That's like the kindest, least threatening, you know, only want to help people. Like, why is that bad?

• 1:21:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'd be curious to hear the EU's answer for that. Or Meta's answer for that.

• 1:21:58Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg's answer for that. And China's answer for that. Like, what's wrong with that?

• 1:22:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:06Tucker Carlson?

  It tells you a lot, but you don't seem shocked by that at all.

• 1:22:10Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:22:10Tucker Carlson?

  No, you're not.

• 1:22:12Speaker 04

  I mean, when you read of the stories for decades of people smuggling bibles into countries. You know, underground churches, even in the story that we cover in the Pray Forty Challenge for Hallow, the story of this guy, Takashi Nagai, I mean, he was living in Nagasaki, Japan, right around the time of the Second World War, when the bomb was dropped on his town, on Nagasaki. And Japan had just come out of 300 years, basically, of Christian persecution, like

• 1:22:49Speaker 04

  they had gotten rid of any, you know, I mean, I think in the late 16th century, they were crucifying people.

• 1:23:01Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:02Speaker 04

  And then 300-plus years later, Nagasaki is now the largest Christian hub in all of Japan. And it wasn't the first target for the bomb.

• 1:23:16Tucker Carlson?

  No.

• 1:23:16Speaker 04

  They tried to drop the bomb somewhere else. This is all in the story that people hear about this Lent. It's an amazing story. This man's story is amazing. Takashi Nagai, he's a radiologist, doctor. The first target, they tried to drop the bomb, it was too cloudy, they couldn't, they didn't, they couldn't see, and they didn't have the conditions appropriate to drop an atomic bomb. So their second target was Nagasaki, oddly enough, right above a cathedral. And it blew up, detonated right over the cathedral, and wiped out everything, and he survived. Nobody else, his family, everybody died.

• 1:23:58Tucker Carlson?

  Killed the majority of the Christians in Nagasaki, which was the Christian capital of Japan.

• 1:24:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, and, I mean, he killed-

• 1:24:04Tucker Carlson?

  Love to hear an answer for why people are very enthusiastic about that and think it's great. I don't think it's great. And I think there should be a law that American armaments can't be used to murder Christians abroad. That's pretty simple, but-

• 1:24:16Speaker 04

  I agree. There is a thing that I wanted to read, that he read, that he said right after the bombing, which he had converted from atheism, I think it was Shinto, and then he was atheist, and then he converted to Christianity and Catholicism. And he was influenced by the writings of Blaise Pascal.

• 1:24:38Speaker 04

  So he gave a speech to his community. He was one of the very few survivors in his community. And this just goes to show you the resilience and the mindset of him and how having faith can completely change the perspective, especially when you're effectively living in hell on earth, which is what Nagasaki was after the dropping of the bomb. People were walking around asking for water while their skin is melting off, like it's literal hell on earth. He said, "I have heard that the atom bomb was destined for another city.

• 1:25:20Speaker 04

  Heavy clouds rendered that target impossible, and the American crew headed for the secondary target, Nagasaki. Then, a mechanical problem arose, and the bomb was dropped further north than planned and burst right above the cathedral. It was not the American crew, I believe, who chose our suburb. God's providence chose Urokami, the suburb, and carried the bomb right above our homes. Is there not a profound relationship between the annihilation of Nagasaki and the end of the war? Was not Nagasaki the chosen victim?

• 1:26:03Speaker 04

  The lamb without blemish slain as a whole burnt offering on an altar of sacrifice, atoning for the sins of all the nations during World War II? Happy are those who weep. They shall be comforted. We must walk the way of reparation, but we can turn our minds' eyes to Jesus, carrying His cross up the hill of Calvary. The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Let us be thankful that Nagasaki was chosen for the whole burnt sacrifice.

• 1:26:46Speaker 04

  Let us be thankful that through this sacrifice, peace was granted to the world and religious freedom to Japan.

• 1:26:57Tucker Carlson?

  Wow.

• 1:26:58Speaker 04

  Is that not a profound perspective?

• 1:27:01Tucker Carlson?

  That is a, that is not a normal secular perspective, I would say.

• 1:27:06Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:27:07Tucker Carlson?

  That's amazing.

• 1:27:08Speaker 04

  That is the power of a relationship with Christ. That's what that does.

• 1:27:14Tucker Carlson?

  So for people who haven't heard it, tell us what you do for Hallow.

• 1:27:18Speaker 04

  So I am one of the main voices on Hallow for prayers. So if you want to pray a specific prayer, chances are I've recorded it and you can hear me pray it. Or for any of the challenges, like the Pray40 challenge, I will be guiding people through this challenge, telling people about Takashi Nagai's story. And I'm also kind of a creative advisor as well and come to them with ideas and work with them on different things that they're doing. Yeah, I love working with them.

• 1:27:57Speaker 04

  They've been such great partners and I think the reason is, is that they're believers themselves, you know, they're, they're doing this. I mean, you had Alex on the show and you heard his story. I mean, he originally created the app for himself and, you know, God took that desire and that intention in his heart and then amplified it. And now it's, it's the largest prayer app in the world.

• 1:28:27Tucker Carlson?

  It's a frequent conversation in my house. I told you yesterday, my wife's very kind, never scolds me for anything. But when she saw my schedule and saw you were coming and that we hadn't invited you for dinner, she actually did bark at me because she's like your biggest fan. What? What? Pretty detached from my schedule, but um, yeah. So yes.

• 1:28:48Speaker 04

  Thank God for your wife.

• 1:28:49Tucker Carlson?

  Thank God for my wife. Not the first time I've thought that. Thank you. It has really been wonderful, the last 24 hours to, to talk to you and.

• 1:28:58Speaker 04

  It's been my honor.

• 1:28:59Tucker Carlson?

  Thank you very much.

• 1:29:00Speaker 04

  Thanks, Thaker.

• 1:29:05Tucker Carlson?

  We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day. We know the people who run it, good people. While you're here, do us a favor, hit follow and tap the bell so you never miss an episode. We have real conversations, news, things that actually matter, telling the truth always. You will not miss it if you follow us on Spotify and hit the bell. We appreciate it. Thanks for watching.