Top 10 ‘The Chosen’ stories of 2023

2023 was a big year for “The Chosen.”

After the release of Season 3, the cast and crew went to Midlothian, Texas, and Goshen, Utah, to film Season 4. “The Chosen” released a Christmas special in theaters and announced the release of Season 4 in theaters, too.

Deseret News reporters were in the thick of it. From interviews with the cast and crew to spending time on set, there were several different stories published in 2023 about Dallas Jenkins’ show “The Chosen.”

Here are the top 10 most read stories about “The Chosen.”

‘Season 4 is where it starts to turn’

With filming underway in Midlothian at Camp Hoblitzelle, “The Chosen” showed some glimpses into the filming of Season 4. From quips about laundry to behind the scenes of stunts, “The Chosen” took viewers backstage.

“Season 4, I think, so far is going to be our most emotionally challenging season,” Jenkins said. “There was the year of preparation, the year of population is happening and he’s increasing in popularity. Season 4 is where it starts to turn.”

It’s official: Season 4 of ‘The Chosen’ will have a unique release

“The Chosen” announced its release date and it was a bold move: all episodes of the season will release in theaters. The show told media including the Deseret News in a press conference.

Tickets are available now.

“Every time we’ve dipped ours toes in the theatrical waters, viewers have overwhelmingly told us they want more,” Jenkins said. “After seeing the Season 4 episodes, we knew we’d be doing our fans a disservice if we denied them the chance to see them all on a big screen with others they can laugh and cry with.”

‘We have a chance for a new Christmas classic,’ ‘The Chosen’ creator Dallas Jenkins says about new project

Jenkins finally got to tell everyone that he landed his dream project: he’s adapting “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” to the big screen for holiday season 2024.

“It’s similar to what ‘The Chosen’ is trying to do actually. It’s trying to take the story of Christmas and story of Jesus and taking down from stained glass windows and pretty paintings ... and revealing what it actually is. And through the eyes of these kids, they actually do that,” Jenkins said.

The rumor involving Latter-day Saints that producers of ‘The Chosen’ want to squash

“The Chosen” addressed a rumor that the show is produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “This is not an anti-Christian show produced by Mormons. Be very careful about this show,” the comment said.

“They happen to be correct in the first sentence ... we’re not anti-Christian, we’re not produced by Mormons,” the team for “The Chosen” wrote. “But we’re going to go out on a limb and guess there was a typo’ which wouldn’t be surprising, as most of our hate comments aren’t written by English majors. That said, go ahead and be very careful with us — that advice is solid.”

The actor who plays Jesus on being religious while in Hollywood

Jonathan Roumie, the actor who plays Jesus in “The Chosen,” opened up about what it’s likely to be openly religious in Hollywood. Roumie is a practicing Catholic.

“I’ve had people at one time or another, even people on my team, that were like ‘Hey you might want to downplay your faith,’ ... and I didn’t quite get that,” Roumie said on a podcast.

The actor who plays Jesus in ‘The Chosen’ on filming, faith and the future

Could you have guessed that Roumie wants to do a Western or sci-fi film?

That’s what he said in a livestream after the filming of Season 4.

In an interview with The New Yorker around this same time, he spoke about what it was like to play the role of Jesus. “Jesus is the only character who I would hope to stay in character as all the time. But some people want a spiritual encounter and that can be hard to live up to. I’m not Jesus.”

Before Jonathan Roumie was cast in ‘The Chosen,’ he was broke and praying to God for help

Roumie opened up about his experiencing being broke. He was “out of money and out of food” and then, decided to pray.

“I just realized in the moment that I had no other alternative than to completely and wholly rely on my faith and to just offer everything up in prayer. To surrender my notions, my concept of what it meant to have a career, to be successful, to survive and just offer that up to God,” he said. Not long after that, he was cast in “The Chosen.”

An inside look into the set of ‘The Chosen’

I traveled to Midlothian, Texas, to tour the set of “The Chosen” earlier this year and wrote about that experience in this article.

How the latest ‘The Chosen’ Christmas special is connected to the origins of the show

“Christmas with The Chosen: Holy Night” is a mash-up of two other Christmas specials “The Shepherd” and “The Messengers.”

“The Shepherd” is the pilot episode of sorts for “The Chosen.” It’s a short film Jenkins shot on an Illinois farm that later dovetailed into “The Chosen.”

From high school teacher to Hollywood: how a former MGM content head joined ‘The Chosen’

In a lengthy interview with the Deseret News, vice president of original content at “The Chosen” Katherine Warnock opened up about her path to “The Chosen.” She dreamed of being an actress and eventually became a line producer.

After working a few different jobs, she landed a job as head of faith and family content at MGM Film Studios when a pilot that really moved her came across her desk.

A few years later, Warnock would learn that the pilot was for “The Chosen” and she would eventually start working there.