‘The Chosen’ Star Luke Dimyan Says Playing Judas Required a ‘Release of Expectations’ (Exclusive)

Luke Dimyan has spent three seasons entering into the advanced footwear of Judas Iscariot on The Chosen — and the actor says he’s lastly come to know him.

“We’re very lucky to have had three seasons with him now, for me to build and get to understand him,” Dimyan, 38, tells PEOPLE whereas discussing season 5 of the historic drama collection. “I’ve had this time to appreciate his in-depth viewpoints — what he cares about and what has influenced a lot of his ideals and beliefs.”

Dimyan describes Judas as “someone of very strong faith who cares about his people.”  He explains, “He is watching his whole society — his household, his family members — being abused and overtaken by this Roman society in a spiritual environment that isn’t appreciating its folks.”

“He needs and wishes change so badly that he finds a messiah in somebody he can belief, and when that messiah would not ship on the salvation that he so desperately wishes, you may see the very human lengths that he’ll go to try to trigger a catalyst to create a scenario for that sort of salvation,” he continues.

Portraying such a controversial and iconic determine hasn’t been with out stress. To do the position justice, Dimyan says he needed to method it with each reverence and launch. “I think it takes, first, a huge amount of respect for the source material, people’s beliefs and the way people view these characters,” he says. 

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“But then also a good, healthy, gentle release of those expectations and putting a good amount of faith and trust in the material presented before you, through the scripts given to us by our fantastic writers for this show. And then doing our homework, doing our work, realizing the history of these characters, knowing what’s going to happen and then portraying them as honestly and as grounded as we can and giving them our own little flavors.”

His costars agree. Noah James, who performs Andrew the Apostle, says they “definitely feel the pressure.” “We have to release it because otherwise we would just be paralyzed,” he says. “They are obviously some of the most important figures in our entire history, but finding the character is less so in the stained glass windows and more in the grit and dirt and blood and sweat and tears of these people.”

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The Chosen: Last Supper has debuted in theaters in three components — all of which are actually in choose theaters nationwide. All of season 5 will probably be accessible to stream on Prime Video later in 2025.