‘The Chosen’ Creator Explains the Series’ Take on Judas in Season 5

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There may be no villain more famous than Judas Iscariot, the character who, in the Bible, betrays Jesus Christ. In the past, the part has been played by the likes of Harvey Keitel in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and Carl Anderson in Norman Jewison’s cinematic adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar. The latest actor to take on the role in a global kind of way is Luke Dimyan, who appears as the character in Dallas Jenkins’ The Chosen. Just like what was done in Jesus Christ Superstar, Jenkins and his team took a different approach to Judas, better filling the character out and giving him more of an empathetic backstory that leads up to the ultimate betrayal. While chatting with Variety, Jenkins opened up about the decision to put a more positive twist on The Chosen’s Judas and explained how nuanced the character really is.

Digging into their take, Jenkins said,

“He’s not a mustache-twirling villain, for sure. I would argue very strongly that our portrayal of Judas is extremely likely — meaning, that even though the Scriptures don’t explicitly say all of the things that we say took place, we do know that he was with Jesus for three years. We do know that, like in the show, he had moments where he was healing people and casting out demons and preaching, and so the notion that all of those things took place with him all along planning to be a villainous traitor is irrational.”