‘The Chosen’s Paras Patel Reveals How His Character Gave Him “Purpose” in ‘I’ve Never Said This Before’ Sneak Peek [Exclusive]

Over the last five seasons of The Chosen, Paras Patel’s Matthew has faced a multitude of challenges and celebrated some incredible wins. The same can be said about the actor behind the character in Dallas Jenkins’ series adaptation of stories from the Bible, as Patel recently opened up about his journey during the newest installment of I’ve Never Said This Before With Tommy DiDario. In an exclusive to Collider sneak peek of the episode (which arrives today), Patel was eager to share how Matthew has shaped his career and helped him to discover his “purpose.”

Reflecting on the early days of the series and landing a promising part after plenty of rejection, Patel said, “It was kind of like, ‘What am I doing here? What is my purpose? I don’t know why I’m doing this.’” Admitting that at first, he was just excited to land a gig that would pay the bills before realizing the opportunity that he was granted, Patel added,

“Then as I realized, ‘Oh, I’m like this character more than I thought’ and then I just really loved the way it was written by our writers and just the story. It kind of rooted its way into my heart and I felt like I was given this opportunity for a reason and I wanted to put my thousand percent in it and just commit everything to portraying this character, because I am not only representing my community but also the neurodivergent community who really hasn’t seen someone in this role, and I’ve really taken it upon myself to be an ambassador to this community.”

Paras Patel Says the Support of Fans Has Meant the World

As he continues to serve the neurodivergent community through his performance, Patel says he sees the fruits of his labor constantly thanks to the love of the fans, revealing,

“I get so many messages. I get messages from parents who don’t realize that their child might be somewhere on the spectrum and watching Matthew’s mannerisms and having your child interact through the TV, excited that they’re seeing someone that’s like ‘Oh! Matthew’s like me!’ It gives them the opportunity to figure that out — or just figure out a way to communicate with their child more. So it’s really making a difference, and it was maybe a few years ago where I just realized, I had that moment of ‘Oh, this, this was my purpose. This is what I’m meant to be doing.’”

You can check out Collider’s exclusive first look at Patel’s episode of I’ve Never Said This Before With Tommy DiDario above, and listen to the whole thing when it arrives later today. The first two episodes of The Chosen Season 5 are now streaming on Prime Video.