Bear Grylls’ THE CHOSEN IN THE WILD gives him a chance to get personal with cast members from THE CHOSEN, including Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus on the hit Bible show.
“I think that the Jonathan episode was really special, actually,” Grylls said in an interview with Moveiguide®. “I kind of look back on that, and out of all the RUNNING WILD seasons we’ve done, and I don’t know, in terms of just my heart, that one was really beautiful. I just kind of sensed, here’s a guy really carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.”
THE CHOSEN IN THE WILD “follows the cast of the groundbreaking historical drama The Chosen as they take on challenges across forests, deserts and canyons. Cast members Jonathan Roumie (Jesus), Paras Patel (Matthew), Elizabeth Tabish (Mary Magdalene), Noah James (Andrew) and Luke Dimyan (Judas) join series creator and executive producer Dallas Jenkins as Bear leads them through Utah’s treacherous Castle Valley, Canyonlands, the Ausable River, the Colorado River, the Great Basin Desert and the Adirondack Forest,” a synopsis of the show reads.
“It must be a really brutal thing to have to carry and to play that,” Grylls said of Roumie’s role, “and I don’t know, I kind of sensed that from him in some of his interviews.”
“The great thing about THE CHOSEN IN THE WILD is there’s time to go a little deeper,” the survivalist explained. “There’s space for it to breathe, isn’t there? You travel with someone, and you cross a river and climb a cliff and sit around a campfire together. There’s time to talk about the real stuff.”
Related: Bear Grylls Talks Taking THE CHOSEN Into the Wild
Grylls added: “I just felt he was actually really honest and spoke really humbly about it all. And I don’t know, I feel it’s what so many of the fans around the world of THE CHOSEN who love it really want to know. They want to kind of get a little deeper and see how the show’s impacted their lives. But no, that one was special. I feel I made a good friend there. He was a wonderful guy.”
Roumie posted some photos of him and Grylls during their time together in the mountains.
“Trading in the sandals for hiking boots,” he wrote in the caption of the post.
“Arguably the episode closest to my heart… this one meant so much to me,” Grylls commented. “And I made a true friend…”
In the end, swapping sandals for hiking boots provided more than just a change of pace — it offered space for authenticity and friendship.
THE CHOSEN IN THE WILD premieres on Prime Video on Aug. 9.
Read Next: Everything You Need to Know About Bear Grylls’ Collab with THE CHOSEN
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