Bruce Marchiano Interview – The Encounter Series – Part 1

We chatted to actor Bruce Marchiano who is known for playing the role of Jesus or ‘The Man’ in The Encounter movies and returns to play the role in Pure Flix’s new The Encounter Series.

The Encounter Series is streaming on PureFlix.com and a new episode is released every Friday.

The interview with Bruce is split into two parts, Part 1 Bruce talks about becoming a Christian, acting, playing the role of Jesus and how that has impacted his faith.

In Part 2 we talk with Bruce about the Encounter Series and what we can expect from the episodes.

Part 1:

Please tell us a bit about yourself and how you became a Christian

I’m one of those guys who grew up in the church, I went to Christian schools till I graduated high school, knew the Bible backwards and forwards but just wasn’t born again! I started my acting career, struggled for a few years than things started really flying for me and then, I’m cutting to the chase – it just suddenly fell apart and those are just the ups and downs of an acting career, but it became very obvious to me that I had built my life on ‘weak and shifting sand’ and in that realisation I turned to Jesus, I can remember just going to my knees one day all by myself and looking up and saying ‘Jesus, you gotta save me’ and the next thing I knew I was off to the Christian races if I can put it that way.

It seems to be common that a lot of young people grow up in the Church, knowing everything but haven’t yet given their life over to Jesus, do you find that to be the case?

Yes I do, in fact just recently I started pastoring the college age kids at my own Church, I look around the room and most of them grew up in Church and I told my wife, we don’t want to make the mistake of taking for granted that they’re born again, they know how to say hallelujah and they know all the stories but having a living vital relationship with Jesus is a whole different thing. I found its actually very common.

Did you always want to be an actor, how did you get into acting?

I can remember getting involved in a high school play at 13 years old and I knew thats what I wanted to do, I just loved it, a lot of guys would tell the exact same story. I just loved it, I couldn’t tell you what it was, I couldn’t tell you why, there could have been a lot of dysfunctional reasons why i liked it so much, I don’t know, but I’m very very thankful that the Lord took that love of acting and used it for His glory and His kingdom.

Talking about The Encounter Series, you have previously stared as Jesus in the Encounter Movies, what was it like to reprise your role?

It’s beyond wonderful, the first time I played Jesus was in a film called The Gospel of Matthew back in 1993 and it was a great and humbling honour then and it continues to be. It’s the greatest privilege of my life and at the same time its a tremendous responsibility. I’m very very aware that people are making decisions about who He is based on what I do in front of that camera, so I have a tremendous sense of responsibility.

In my head to me this is very much a ministry, we are dealing with the living God here and thats nothing to play games with or for me to be some acting genius, so I do my best to just approach every movie and every episode of the Encounter Series just really bowed before the Lord and on my knees seeking Him all the way.

Is it difficult to play the role of Jesus?

It is equally remarkably difficult and remarkably simple, who He is in terms of His heart and nature is actually very clear and very evident, its all through scripture. He is the personification of loving kindness and faithfulness and mercy and compassion and care. So there’s no mystery as to how to play Him and thats the ‘easy’ side of it, it’s very clear who He is. He’s just an outpouring of loving kindness and truth and authority at the same time.

The difficult aspect of it, is that there’s no way the greatest actors in the world all put together in one actor could even come close to the depths of loving kindness and the heights of faithfulness that He is. To try to strive for that is incredibly difficult and I’ve learnt along the way that you just got to trust God’s spirit to make up for your lack of ability.

How has playing Jesus impacted your faith in anyway?

It’s taken it from zero to 60 in terms of miles per hour. I was born again just a few before the first time I portrayed Jesus and then I went and did that film The Gospel of Matthew – without taking the time to go into the detail (I wrote a book about it – thats how many details there are) it just completely spun my life around. My priorities were all upended, what I though was important, my whole life was totally upended and I had this heart brimming with this tremendous encounter with the living God, to His word and to His Spirit, I just didn’t know what to do.

I remember having an audition for a television series shortly after I did that movie, this was a big break for my career, I was sitting in the waiting room of the casting agent and I just couldn’t get motivated, I was reading the script and it just looked so silly compared to eternity and thats one of those moments when you really realise you’ve changed.

Click here to read part 2 where we discuss the new Encounter Series