In-depth with Judas Iscariot

judas welcome judas i'm sure you're gonna love this sermon oh i wouldn't miss it luke dimian you are judas can you say it out loud can you are you do you feel comfortable saying because we've been telling you not to say anything to anybody for so long i don't know honestly it's become such a a personal life of mine not to say it i i don't know how i'm gonna deal with this now just being honest about it because most everybody everybody i'd walk on and say it's like who are you playing it's like oh i'm a an apprentice yes you're the apprentice no name right just an occupation what about your family and friends like how many of them know i told them that i got cast in the show called the chosen immediately my sister like lit up and she was like no way i know what this show is and i was like wait seriously i didn't even know what the show was until this point i said i wasn't allowed to say who i was unless you could guess it and my mom in that moment not even a second to her name just turned to me was like it's judas isn't it and she saw me and i was like what yeah your mom's like he got cast in a roll oh it's the greatest villain of all time whose name is used to describe betrayal and villainy my son has arrived yes like synonymous to just absolute betrayal and hatred it's just like congrats you did it right so you auditioned in season one i did it was you came in for a day and you actually did a really nice job but you weren't right for any of the roles that we were casting for but i just remembered i liked that guy like i i just remembered liking you when you came back to audition for season two you auditioned for philip i did right to be fair uh yoshi who plays philip was kind of cast about 15 seconds into us his audition uh he just did because he's amazing yeah oh my goodness and he embodies philip but you gave an extraordinary audition for philip my wife texted me in the middle of the audition and said uh crazy idea but i think luke is judas and i thought hmm but it was via zoom and and you were in your room and all i could see behind you was a bunch of nerf guns here's what i like about this guy for a he's clearly he's gonna put me on blast in front of all the chips and fans so i'm like i'm i'm i like nerf guns i'm a huge child i have gundams and anime mangas and all that stuff i have a literal lightsaber lightsaber collection thank you dallas well here's what's here's what's funny about it though is that i'm like okay clearly this guy's a nerd which i kind of like and uh my son's very much like that but but second thing is you had the the confidence to like do a zoom audition in your room with all your nerd things behind you and you're like i don't care i just thought that's that's something that i like about this because i i just felt like you had range and so we had you read a scene as the apprentice as you know judas from episode eight and amanda was texting me the whole time how's he doing how's he doing because she was just convinced she felt like god had like ordained it that you were judas and i know how to thank now yes oh 100 kids oh yeah no 100 she was this was she had like one of the she's done she's had this happen about half a dozen times when it comes to casting of like this person is this is gonna play this role and it's a role that is quite it's a big it's a big deal from the beginning of season one people were asking you know uh what are they how are they going to treat judas who's judas going to be how are they going to write him is he is he going to be look like a typical bad guy and what the chosen what we tend to do is typically do things a little bit differently than what you expect not only because we think that's good drama but also because i think it's more accurate and to us judas is a real person who didn't wake up one morning and think i'm going to become the most historically famous villain in the history of the world yeah i didn't read a snidely whiplash like brochure i was like ah so this is how you do it yes and i'm going to this day mustache twirling lessons exactly and so amanda has always had kind of a burden in her heart for this role and for whoever played it and she's because she's she's been like it's it's so important for them to understand uh what this role represents and that this was a human being who who played a part of this the greatest story ever told that can be so easily misunderstood and so she was praying for you before you even auditioned before she knew you and when you came on it was like he's the guy i'm curious so that's from our perspective i'm curious from your perspective when when i when you heard from me i want you to audition for judas uh what you thought i remember getting excited because also from i come from a christian background i'm a coptic orthodox so christianity has been a huge part of my life for like a long time and i'm very aware of its history and i've always been kind of like a black sheep in my family and a bit of uh how do i say like i've always looked at things a bit differently and so from from a very like young age playing a bit of a devil's advocate i i would look at things and i would look at judas differently than everyone else would because everyone would just come to the conclusion of like oh he betrayed jesus the end right we're good that's as far as we need to know but me i was always interested is like why and uh the the reasoning behind is like oh no the devil tempted him or was like oh he was just greedy the end was never that uh fulfilling to me right especially someone who loves characters and stories and these expansive worlds and stuff so when i got judas i'm not gonna lie i felt a little uh guilt because the thing that i wanted most was being like literally handed to me on a silver platter oh interesting reading the bible and knowing the story the character i was most interested in it was almost like the character that i thought about the most it felt like i felt guilt because this felt like the character i was preparing my entire life to play right not to over press my performance please don't look into that but i i was excited because i love this guy genuinely i don't i don't see him as a villain other than more than like a like a shakespearean tragedy because at the end of the day he wouldn't have been a part of this group he wouldn't have been fighting so hard to spread the the words of christ if he did not love and care for him yes and to get to that point that he eventually does betray him not only betray him but he betrays all the other disciples his brothers that he's done miracles and he's traveled with many years like that i'm so when you when you gave it to me you literally were like uh so here's like the thing that you always wanted uh the only way you like probably be like comfortable doing something and we see this in the same way it's like we're treating judas as a human being who when we introduce him in in this episode it's sincere the things you're saying are sincere we talked a lot about this is this is judas isn't spending the couple years leading up to his betrayal thinking about betrayal no yeah he 100 is like i'm in on this guy i want i believe in this i believe in this mission this mission is calling to me and um and you know we're not going to talk about now of course where we where we plan to take the the character but you can bet that of course it's going to be a a journey that is human that makes sense so you did the first few scenes which we filmed in utah such as the scene in the bar with josh there's a couple scenes in there so you did those and you still hadn't watched the show yet i i hadn't yes it was just out of at a principle i didn't know no no i get it you didn't want to be too and you wanted to be focused on your your role and not being influenced by all the other yeah exactly things that you've seen yeah and then i got back to utah my family sat me down and we were like oh so we're binging we're binging the entirety of the first scene it's like okay here we go we can we can wait and we watched all eight episodes of season one all the way to um i believe 1 30 a.m wow with my mom and my grandma i need you to understand like i'm a binger i love binging and watching shows into the late night if you told me that my grandma would have the ability to binge a show at all i'd probably tell me you're lying you don't know who i am leave right right but i was like so do we want to take a break she looked at me and she's like why there's another episode we we have more to watch and i was like so we're sitting down great i and then we finished we finished everything and i was like well dang it i'm a fan now right and i think i i literally became just an absolute fangirl the next moment you saw me inside when you came back to texas you were going up to the actors like you're andrew you're awesome like you were treated so weird because i knew them now i knew them on a first name basis beforehand i was like oh hey hey you know what's going on now i'm like no i know what you do and i was like paris like what are you ah you're so great as matthew and it was a really weird feeling i felt like a bit of a silly fella and i just even now sometimes i feel like i'm a bit out of my depth what i'm curious about is how you feel because you've been watching no doubt the reaction to season two and how the show is just since we've filmed has almost doubled in in popularity yeah and i don't know if you've been watching though people asking about judas what is you discovering is judas coming and we're actually we were filming i believe in february the sermon on the mount and there was the whole everybody went outside to meet everybody and there was the whole line yeah all the actors went out to meet the fans just to say hi yeah and i was just hanging out in the tent yeah because i had to you're not going out there i was walking and there was a lot of people so i was like right i was already like freaking out but i hid in the tent and then just like noah's doing his awesome speech to everybody thanking everybody and then just out of the corner of my ear i just hear judas oh really yeah i was i was like ah and then even the rest of the cast came and was like so did you hear that and i was like hear what yeah people are staining ignorance like i don't know what you're talking about nothing's happening no i don't i'm not here nothing's happening right because so many people were just really are have been so passionate about all right we've got 11 disciples now i means judas is coming how are they going to tell us all is now is like status yeah yeah so how how has that been for you knowing the i mean does it feel like pressure or do you have you kind of surrendered that a little bit not gonna lie dallas it's absolutely terrifying in the most surreal way uh as a performer i've come to terms with it it's it's not it comes with a territory so i'm not i'm not like actually scared i actually didn't think about it much mostly because i very much like to focus on the work whenever it comes to like i love i love my job and i love just like if i have anything to worry about i just push it aside and i focus on my work but when i'm done working i end up going to lunch and then i talk to the castmates and they were like oh buddy you're not ready right and they just keep reminding me of the impending doom that i face and so that's been that's been nice but genuinely i'm actually very looking forward to it i really hope that i give a performance that the fans will really enjoy and i just want to give them like a sense of judas and like a setup of what's to come like i'm really i'm really excited for them to see it well you're so likable on screen oh geez you mean it yeah until just now um crap but we went through a lot when we were first setting up the show of like how we gonna handle the judas thing because it's what's on everyone's mind and how do you create a character where the moment they come on screen everyone's thinking that's the one who makes everything horrible yeah like he's the bad guy immediately and yeah and then we're gonna follow this guy for five seasons um how do we do that in a way that where every time he's on screen people aren't thinking yeah but yeah or yeah you're doing something nice but we know who you are and and um and so we knew going into it we had to write it in a way to where the future was unknown we just have to write it as as a human being for whom the future is unknown and we have to cast it in a way that it's someone who has a healthy approach to this character so where you're not playing the end the whole time you know yeah and i'm so excited for the next few seasons to explore the role with you i'm so excited with who we chose to play this role um i am so excited about uh how the show is growing to the point where you are someone who is going to be you know i'm not overstating this but you're gonna be known around the world as the as as the judas and um i know that you're god's man for this role because my wife it was on her heart and mine leading up to it the moment you auditioned it was crystal clear and uh you know i i know that we all face these feelings of oh my gosh this is a lot of pressure can i can i do this and and that's the place we should be because we want to be in this kind of surrendered state of like i don't know if i'm worthy or not it doesn't matter all i can do is the best that i can and let this show kind of take over from there and let god do what he's going to do i think i think that's the best place to surrender when you know it's at like the peak of just terror when you're so uncertain right of how it's gonna go that's the best time to just like kind of let faith be have its purpose right right and let god like kind of send you down that path that's been honestly my my like guiding like memento from the past year of just continue doing good work the good work will speak for itself everything else will take care of it like the rest will be taken care of and that's it's worked so far we try not to think about this too much but what is it that you hope for from the from the fans now that now that you're in on the team now that they know who you are what are you hoping for there oh death threats so many death threats do i get to give a p.o box after the i really i'm hoping i just want to get one i don't know where in my career i might just be hoping for it because i just want to get it framed i want to just put it like right above my desktop and just like look at it every morning and just go my work mattered to somebody i did it at the point where they wanted me dead they they wanted me gone man no uh but besides that that's priority numero uno i want to do this role so much justice you made him an orphan you made him want you gave him all this ambition from the very beginning it's not detrimental to his character but it's the perfect building blocks as an actor you gave me so much to play with and like i told you the question that has been bugging me since i was a kid because i've seen a lot of stories they've all and they've always kind of been like man i want i can't wait to discover why he does it along with everybody else what is it he loves him so much what happens because that's the main thing everyone jumps to the end everyone jumps to the spoilers i want to see what happens yeah we've got a plan for it we know why you know why i'm still over here just waiting with everybody else right the challenging but ultimately really fun and beautiful part will be getting to know judas as a as a normal person before this happens and that's what hopefully a good show can do i mean it's it's doing it pretty far i mean we're we're on the right track hopefully well hopefully you can uh fit in and not screw it up here's hoping

Channel: The Chosen

Views: 154,908

Keywords: the chosen, the chosen tv series, bingeJesus, GetUsedtoDifferent, Faith-based, Bible show, Bible study, Christianity, church, Jesus show, what to watch, tv show, filmmaking

Id: 48n0B-EDgq8

Length: 16min 9sec (969 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 14 2021