Meet Me at Crafty

Dallas Jenkins’ cultural juggernaut had to recreate the most famous meal in history for Season 5, starring Jonathan Roumie as Jesus.

The Chosen has been telling the story of Jesus Christ’s life since 2017, in the process becoming the kind of cultural phenomenon that transcends streaming. Over and over, Dallas Jenkins’ series has succeeded on its own terms. A measure of its power? Episodes released to multiplexes routinely top the box office charts over mainstream Hollywood fare.

Season 5 is currently airing on Prime Video, with the final three episodes premiering Sunday, June 28. Subtitled The Last Supper, it required its cast (led by Jonathan Roumie as Jesus) and its production team to recreate possibly the most famous meal in history, and certainly one of the most recognizable, thanks to Leonardo DaVinci. How do you craft a Last Supper that satisfies the mental image every viewer carries with them while staying true to the show’s aesthetic?

 “That’s probably one of the most daunting sets, because everybody knows it,” production designer James Cunningham says. “Originally, we were going to do it very historically accurate with a triclinium, which is a three-sided table where they would be reclining. And the DP didn’t love the idea of that. And we were going to be filming it for a week, so we decided lying on the floor for those actors would be pretty difficult.”

Instead, Cunningham put stools and benches around the three-sided table to keep everyone upright. But that was just the beginning. “We found out when we taped it on the floor that it was too big for the space, too big to light,” Cunningham says. “So a week before filming, we had to reconfigure the whole room so it would work for lighting and the DP. That set was kind of a pain, but when it was all said and done, I was very happy.”

After all the work and last-minute stress, Cunningham found himself having a strange reaction when the cameras finally started to roll.  “When I saw it lit, and when they set the shot, I started crying in the back corner,” he says. “And then Dallas was like, ‘How do you like it?’ I’m like, ‘I gotta leave a second. I need a moment.’”

Cunningham works closely with costume designer Leila Heise, both of whom were delighted to go a little more luxe as things become more corrupt in Season 5. “ As the story progressed and we moved more towards Jerusalem, we started amping up the color,” Cunningham says. “As they get richer, they get more color, they get this wealthy look to [their homes and buildings].”

That extended to the costumes as well. Heise came on in Season 1 after a handful of episodes, “And  the first thing that James said to me, ‘No blue, only on the rich, and a lot of textures,’” she says. “ I love textures and I love to work with leather and stuff like that, so that wasn’t a problem for me.”

The cast of The Chosen is enormous, and even more so in Seasons 5 and 6. Luckily, many of the extras are in charge of their own costumes.

 “We send them this booklet of our color palette and the fabric choices that we’d like to have,” Heise says. “And there’s also a lady who has a website called Last Looks Creations and makes costumes from head to toe. She’s with the LDS. It really helped us, because we don’t have the time or the staff to build that.”

Heise also tries to remain historically accurate while being humane; she’s not putting any of the cast in wool sheep herders’ clothes for the outdoor shoots, no matter how many fans point out that they would have worn that fabric. But if viewers notice a subtle difference in costumes in Season 5 and 6, that might be due to Heise’s recent discovery. “ This year (and I wish I would’ve found them earlier), I bought a lot of fabrics and so did James from Siam Costumes in Thailand,” she says. “They have people who actually weave fabric. So I got to bring some of that stuff in, which is great.”

Accuracy is top of mind for Cunningham as well, though he is navigating what historically existed with the emotional accuracy of what viewers have long imagined. “We have a lot of artwork, mosaics, frescoes [from the Romans and Pompeii], but the Jews weren’t able to do a lot of paintings and frescoes and mosaics [because] that was idolatry,” Cunningham says. “We do have archaeological digs, so we try to keep historically accurate when we can, but when we moved to Jerusalem, we had to create this wealthy look. And some people love [what we did] and some people hate it, but we went with it. And we also found out that the first century was more colorful than we thought.”

Still to come might be the most daunting aspects of Christ’s life: designing the crucifix, crown of thorns, and Roumie’s crucifixion costume. The crown of thorns at least falls under props, to Heise’s relief, but the Season 6 shoot is an emotional one.

 “It’s gonna be a really hard couple of months coming up,” Heise says. “We’re on the road, and it’s already emotional here because we’re a family. We’ve been together for six, eight years.”

That heavy emotion extends to the viewers as well, who have welcomed the show and Roumie into their homes and lives for almost a decade. Never before has a project about the life of Christ spanned so many years; audiences have formed an emotional connection with the show that even a brilliantly done movie couldn’t accomplish in its limited time. Jenkins and everyone involved has always brought an immediacy to its oft-told story that sets it apart. That’s the power of The Chosen.

The Chosen: The Last Supper is currently streaming on Prime Video.