For years, faith-based storytelling had a reputation for being a low-budget endeavor that pushed a theological agenda instead of a good story with a compelling narrative arc. That all changed with The Chosen, an episodic historical drama about Jesus of Nazareth shot on location in Texas and Utah. Set in first-century Judaea and Galilee, the story is told through the eyes of those who interacted with Jesus, including his disciples, apostles, and regular people.
Creator, director, and co-writer Dallas Jenkins was raised in a conservative Christian home. His father, Jerry B. Jenkins, is co-author of the popular Left Behind series of books. Jenkins used crowdfunding to finance the first two seasons, breaking television records in 2019 by raising more than $11 million from some 16,000 investors. Episodes were offered ad-free on The Chosen app, which allows viewers to enjoy exclusive bonus content like after-shows, Bible roundtables, and behind-the-scenes extras. Since then the pay-it-forward business model has evolved to include traditional monetization strategies, theatrical releases (a Christmas special in 2021 grossed $1.2 million in its first 12 hours), merchandising, and global licensing rights. With a dedicated audience of loyal fans (viewership ballooned to 280 million between 2022 and 2026), The Chosen has become a worldwide phenomenon. Guinness World Records confirmed that Season 1 has been translated into 125 languages, but the long-term goal is to translate all seven seasons into 600 languages, effectively reaching 95 percent of the world’s population.
Since 2023, The Chosen has offered summer internship opportunities for university students that enable them to work alongside film crews in positions that vary from season to season but have included costume and wardrobe coordination, videography and editing for behind-the-scenes content, talent coordination and cast logistics, set and costume design observation, and general production support. Film students are encouraged to apply early and show initiative by creating fan content or connecting with the show’s community. Being open to multiple roles may increase one’s chances of being selected.
Aundrea Suhl-Borbón, a 2025 Baylor graduate, was a sophomore when she landed an internship on Season 4. Assigned to the costume department, she worked her way up the ladder to a position as videographer and editor with the behind-the-scenes team that provides content for the show’s fanbase. In the summer of 2024, she was being paid to work on the series. When she overheard that there was an opening for a production assistant in the costume department, she called her friend, Major Hargraves, a sophomore at Baylor with a double major in religion and film and digital media.
“I was working on a short film I wrote called Body Language when I noticed that I had a few missed calls from Aundrea,” Hargraves said (more about his unique first name later). “She said that she had already put my name in and told me to call the costume supervisor. By the time we wrapped Body Language and I went to lunch, I had an actual job, not an internship, on Season 5 of The Chosen.”
Hargraves spent the summer in Midlothian, Texas, working in the costume department where he spent a lot of time sweeping floors, scrubbing Roman sandals, and organizing the disciples’ underwear.
“I also worked with background actors, taking their IDs to make sure that no one ran off with their costumes,” he said. “It was my responsibility to make sure everything was returned at the end of the day.”
By the time Season 6 started filming, Hargraves had been hired as a videographer tasked with documenting the making of the show for social media and The After Show, a companion series that features interviews with cast members, writers, and the director, and offers behind-the-scenes details, on-set anecdotes, and deeper historical or emotional content for the show’s storylines. Season 7 started filming in the summer of 2026, but Hargraves, again working as a videographer, was unable to share any stories from the set because of a nondisclosure clause in his contract designed to protect unreleased scripts, plot details, and behind-the-scenes material from leaking. Security on the set is so tight that crew members as well as extras and volunteers are prohibited from taking unauthorized photos or sharing spoilers with the public before new episodes premiere.
For Hargraves, a typical day on set starts with a healthy omelet from catering with “chicken or turkey, veggies, avocado, and salsa.” After grabbing a mic for the director, he records his interactions with the cast as they film the first rehearsal. Then the actors go off to hair and makeup before changing into their costumes. Hargraves is on standby while the Director of Photography (cinematographer) Akis Konstantakopoulos lights the scene. Then he’s off to the races documenting everything that happens throughout the day.
Sometimes things happen, he said, that make an ordinary day more interesting, like the time some pigs managed to escape from their first-century pens, sending everyone on a wild pig chase.
“Christopher Durban [co-host and content creator for The After Show] dubbed it Jurassic Pork,” said Hargraves, “but we managed to find them all.’
Hargraves was raised in a Christian household in Beaumont, Texas, where his mother read The Chronicles of Narnia series to him when he was a child. The author, C.S. Lewis, was a Cambridge and Oxford professor known for his deep Christian faith, and all seven of the Narnia books feature themes of salvation, creation, and resurrection.
“I never knew that you could honor God through fiction,” Hargraves said, “but it became my mission.”
He considers Dr. SJ Murray, professor of Great Texts and creative writing at Baylor, a mentor. Along with creative writing and filmmaking, the Irish-born academic and Emmy-nominated filmmaker teaches the ethics of storytelling, and she had a big impact on Hargraves, who figured out that good stories inspire virtuous living. To that end, he’s working on two different projects.
One, the aforementioned Body Language, is about an introvert who gets transported to a world in which people communicate through interpretive dancing.
“It’s a story about courage,” he said, “and how fear suppresses individuality, while boldness in expression leads to a life well-lived.”
Pie Man is based on a true story about a masked vigilante who “pied” people on the Baylor campus from 1976 to 1988. The word “pie” refers to the act of throwing a pie in someone’s face. While he vowed that he’d never pie a professor, that’s just what he did at the end of his spree, which came to an abrupt end when the police arrested him.
The logline: Unleashed pranks lead to moral degradation.
“God intended a life of abundance for us,” said Hargraves, “but that requires moral boundaries.”
A screening of Pie Man will take place during this year’s Baylor Homecoming festivities, at 5:30 p.m. on November 6 at Castellaw Communications Center.
As a filmmaker, Hargraves has had to invest in a lot of equipment, which he uses not only for his own projects but also for his work on The Chosen. On Season 7 he’s using his new Sony FX3, a compact, full-frame camera designed for solo filmmakers, content creators, and videographers. But he also invested in a Shinobi monitor (a lightweight, external camera display by Atomos that lets creators check image focus, exposure, and color), a Sigma 24-70mm lens (a professional-grade telephoto zoom lens), and a Sennheiser MKE 600 (a professional, directional shotgun microphone). Still, the investment has been worth it.
“To have this show on my resume this early in my career will be huge,” said Hargraves, but he’s also grateful to be “at the heart of what God is doing in Christian filmmaking.”
Amazon Prime will drop the first three episodes of Season 6 on November 15, 2026, releasing additional episodes each week until December 6, 2026. Viewers can relive the events leading up to the crucifixion as seen through the eyes of Christ’s followers, the Roman authorities, and the Sanhedrin. The season finale, which was filmed in Matera, Italy, known as the “City of Stones,” will be released globally as a feature film in Spring, 2027. A three-week production schedule was required to film the crucifixion, which director Dallas Jenkins described as the “most challenging and grueling shoot the team had undertaken for the series.”
Hargraves remembers one scene in particular that they filmed in Goshen, Utah, for Season 6. Jesus, who is played by Jonathan Roumie, is dragging his cross through the streets of Jerusalem, and Jenkins is instructing the background extras to start taunting him and jeering at him. It had only been a week since Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and now the same people who had been cheering for him have turned on him.
“The first time we started to record, all these people filled up the set with hateful words, while we’re literally tracing the footsteps of Jesus from his point of view,” said Hargraves, who felt like all that toxic energy was being directed at three people: the camera operator, the boom operator, and him. “It was overwhelmingly emotional. The whole experience, the sounds, all of it seemed to go through my skull, and my eyes started to water. It was like I was taking in a tiny portion of what it felt like to be Jesus in that moment in time.”
Now that he’s nearly done working on the seventh and final season of The Chosen, what’s next for Hargraves?
“I’m looking for investors who can provide the financial support I need to help me tell virtuous stories that lead people to live out God’s values,” he said.
Sounds like the kind of work his parents imagined he’d do someday. Recently his mother posted this on social media: “Oh, Major, my beautiful boy. When your dad and I named you, we couldn’t think of a more important name to fit such an important life. Wow, my son, you have fully lived up to that name.”
