ICYMI: Jonathan Roumie and Jon Erwin Interview (2022 Crusade)

Hey there. Thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you.

If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org. And I have two very special guests here, and I'm going to be talking to, to my immediate left, this is Jonathan Rumi who plays Jesus on The Chosen. Hello. And he also plays the role of Lonnie Frisbee in the upcoming feature film Jesus Revolution, which is directed by Brent McCorkle and John Irwin right here. How are you guys?

The director. So great to have you guys here. Oh you got one of our shirts. That's cool.

You got a one-way t-shirt right here. Perfect. Perfect. So John, tell me, you're holding in your hand the Time magazine. What is the date of that magazine? This 1971.

Seven years ago when I met you, I was directing some other movies. Hold it up so they can see it. Do you guys know Jesus was on the cover of Time in 1971? Because there was a revolution going on in America.

Right. Let me show it to you. Go ahead.

And I found that magazine, and I'm like, I've never experienced anything like this before. It was a revival that was sweeping America at a similar time of despair. And I just began to pray like, I wanted Jesus Revolution in my own life, in my family's life, in my city and in our country again, and that led to making this movie. And so our prayer is that this can happen again and it can be in right now.

Yes. And so I remember when you were casting this film, and I think the cast is brilliant, starting with Kelsey Grammer who plays the role of Chuck Smith. Brilliant performance. He's here tonight. Kelsey's here up there. So hello Kelsey.

Kelsey Grammer. Great to have him here. And then of course when you were casting the role of the man who was preaching when I came to Christ, Lonnie Frisbee, I remember I said to you, we have got to get Jonathan Rumi from The Chosen. And then when I met Jonathan up in LA, I thought, oh he's the guy. So Jonathan we are used to seeing you in the role of Jesus.

Yes. But now you are in the role who is the son of God, fully God, fully man, but now you are playing the role of a guy who was fully man but was used by God. How did you kind of get from the role of Jesus to the role of playing Lonnie? So I don't know what it is like to play the perfectly sinless son of God. Nobody does.

And I don't pretend to know. I tend to try to stay out of the way when it comes to playing Jesus. But I know what it is like to be fully human, fully fallible in all the ways humanity can be fallible and broken and weak.

And so I use a lot of my humanity in all these other, especially in a role like Lonnie Frisbee where he had such a wild and broken childhood. But God used that despite his weaknesses, despite the trials that he went through to make him this beacon of hope, this dynamo of the Holy Spirit with the charism of healing and touching people and reaching people's hearts and knowing that Christ was looking for them. Just like he's looking for everyone here tonight that has not encountered Christ yet. Christ is looking for you. He wants to know you.

He wants to get to know you on a deeper level. And so he used Lonnie in that way. And Lonnie brought thousands and thousands of hippies to Christ in the early 1970s. And the world was never the same.

That's right. So John, there was a moment when we were filming down at Pirate's Cove in Newport Beach where a lot of the baptisms happened during the Jesus movement. And life imitated art. Meaning you made us film about something that really happened. But then something really happened while you were making a film.

We were filming the baptisms. And I have had the privilege of making a lot of great films like I Can Only Imagine and American Underdog. And I love the films that we get to make. But I have never had a day filming. This guy is an amazing filmmaker I am telling you.

American Underdog. I can only imagine. I still believe. An incredible director.

Thanks for the plug. But what I was saying is I've gotten the privilege to work on a lot of films that I love. But never ever have I experienced a day like that. We were doing the baptisms. I remember Jonathan was out in the water doing the baptisms.

And he came to me between takes and he's like, man, I'm doing it just like Greg taught me. Just like we had a baptism school. But people are really getting saved.

These sag extras and the other people that came in. I've never felt anything like that before in my life. Like God was just there. So I hope that happens when people see the movie. Yeah. So I think it is really captured in this film. Let me say something that might sound odd. This is the most unChristian Christian movie I have ever seen that has more gospel than any Christian film I have seen.

Let me define what I mean by unChristian Christian. A lot of times some Christian films they always are very neat and tidy and everything works out perfectly. This is an honest film. At times gritty. Telling the story of a young Greg and a young Kathy searching for God in all the wrong places.

Conflicts that Lonnie had with Chuck and how things were ultimately resolved. It is honest. But then it has gospel in it because there is a scene when you baptize my character played by Joe Courtney. And you did such an amazing job leading him in a prayer to accept Christ. And I believe when people see this scene from the film people in movie theaters are going to be praying and asking Jesus Christ to come into their life. Praise God. Praise God.

I hope so. You know I wanted to for that scene especially you and I spoke extensively. I said, well what exactly would you say to somebody wanting to be baptized? And you told me exactly what the prayer was and I drilled it and I drilled it and I drilled it and then the sun was setting really quickly. And so we had just like one or two takes to try to get it right. And so Joe comes into the water and it just clicked. And we got it and what you will see ended up in the movie. So it was a really beautiful experience. It was a great moment.