From the time he was a teenager, writer-director Jon Erwin has aspired to put what he considers the “ultimate” Hero’s Journey story on screen, he told the Deseret News.
Erwin’s decades-long filmmaking career has paved the way for his latest project: “The House of David,” a biblical TV series about King David of The Old Testament, which premiered on Amazon Prime Video on Friday.
When Erwin was 16 years old he traveled to Israel with his father. He carried his first video camera, a gift from his father, with him. A visit to King David’s tomb in Jerusalem sparked his lifelong passion for filmmaking and he set a goal to adapt David’s story for the screen.
“Every other project led to this one,” Erwin said. “All these other films that I’ve had the privilege to be involved in, really, were about trying to get good enough at this filmmaking thing to tell this epic story.”
He continued, “It’s kind of the story I’ve always wanted to tell ... so I was just trying to wait patiently and develop enough skill to tell the story and really do it justice.”
Erwin wrote, directed and produced “Jesus Revolution” and “American Underdog.” Most recently, he produced “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” and “The Unbreakable Boy.”
Erwin is also a co-founder of The Wonder Project, a production company specializing in faith-based and inspirational entertainment.
Many of Erwin’s previous projects, such as “The Unbreakable Boy," are based on true events. But this is his first attempt at putting a biblical story on screen.
He said it has been a “fun process” bringing “justice” to these biblical stories.
“The good news is the Bible itself is really entertaining. These are really good stories,” he said. “So you want to be faithful to the to the story, and to the themes of the story and to the deeper meaning of the story ... but I hope it draws people to the source. I hope it gets people talking. The words of David in the Psalms — there’s a reason why they’re still with us 3,000 years later."
Cast members of “The House of David” — including Stephan Lang, Michael Iskander, Martyn Ford, Aylet Zurer and Ali Sulima — said they prepared for their roles by reading the bible.
“Samuel is an extremely potent character, very interesting character, very challenging character to play,” Stephan Lang (“Avatar,” “Don’t Breathe”), who plays Samuel, said. “That requires really going to the source material, going to the good book, as it were, and kind of really getting as much as one possibly can through that.”
Lang said in addition to reading the bible, he studied a slew of commentary on Samuel and consulted with individuals who are experts on the ancient figure.
“Then you craft the look of the character, the walk of the character, the sound of the character, and then when they say action, you take the leap of faith and just play it,” Lang said.
Michael Iskander, who plays David in the series, took a similar approach to Lang in developing his character.
“The way I approached David was like any other character study that that I do ... but also the added aspect was scripture and finding anything that I could to learn about the life of David and what kind of man he was,” Iskander said.
He said reading the book of Psalms was “gold” and “really helped me infer the different things that he would do that what character he had.”
The first three episodes of “The House of David” premiered on Prime on Friday, Feb. 27, and will be followed by the release of single new episodes weekly.
“This is a story about destiny. It’s a story about overcoming fear, stepping beyond your fear to something you deeply believe in,” Erwin said. “There’s a lot of themes that are deeply resonant and and deeply meaningful to me, and I hope they are the people that watch as well.”