Over the last decade Jon Erwin has gained a reputation as a trustworthy creator of quality faith-based entertainment. His movies like I Can Only Imagine (2018) and Jesus Revolution (2023) have raised the bar for Christian storytelling on screen. But this week marks a new high in Erwin’s career, with the global release on Prime Video of his first TV venture: House of David.

In addition to writing a review of House of David season 1, I recently chatted over Zoom with Erwin about the show. Here’s an edited excerpt from our conversation:

Brett: You have been part of what I would call a renaissance of faith-based storytelling in the last 10 years. It’s been discouraging over the years as the mediocre reputation of faith-based filmmaking is well-deserved in a lot of cases. But there’s some real good stuff happening, and I’m super encouraged. You’re a part of that. I just want to say thank you.

Jon Erwin: I tell people that we’re storytellers doing the best we can, but we’re serving the greatest storyteller of all time. Mass entertainment is such a powerful medium. Paul says of David [in Acts 13:36] that he served the purposes of God in his generation, and so you’re always trying to do that. You’re trying to say, “How do I serve eternal truth and an eternal cause in my time?” and “What does that translation look like?” Film and television is a great way to do that. I tell people House of David is not the source material. It’s a TV show. But it’s a love letter to the source material, and I hope it drives people to the source material.

Much of the quality issue over the last decade was just a lack of resources and a lack of the ability to develop your craft. It takes a lot of time. Almost like the layers of the Grand Canyon: it’s one thing building on another, building on another, building on another. We’re finally able to, hopefully, have enough craftsmanship to take on stories like this. And we have the good fortune of having enough resources to do them well. There’s 670 people who worked on House of David. It’s an enormous amount of people, and that’s what it takes. I hope we’re just the tip of the spear. I hope there are storytellers coming behind us who can go even further.

Brett: Adapting the Bible is a challenge with risks on both sides. You want the Bible to be made interesting to audiences of skeptics, who might assume faith-based Bible stories are going to be bad. But you also have the risk of faithful Christian audiences who hold up the Bible as sacred and are skeptical of Hollywood messing it up. How did you go about telling this story in a way that was good, creative, and compelling, but also tethered to the Bible and faithful?

JE: First of all, it’s just loving the story itself and loving the words, and trying to deeply understand the themes. And, then, it’s about getting as many experts around you as you can and really deeply learning the material: Christian scholars and Jewish scholars looking at rabbinic traditions. We were really trying to get the truth of the story right. Season one, eight hours of television, covers like three chapters of the Bible. If we just went with what’s on the page in the Bible, the whole season would be 20 minutes. You have to fill in the gaps. I love this term I heard from Ken Burns called “emotional archeology.” You have to really think, “What life would justify these events? What relationships would justify these events?” There are single sentences in the biblical story of David that are profoundly interesting and that you marinate on and develop stories around. Then, I think it’s important to just make a really entertaining show that you love, and that you feel honors the story, and not overthink it.

I love the conversation. Even people who don’t agree, I love that people are talking about the Bible. That’s the point.

Brett: I know you went through a long process of finding Michael Iskander for the casting of David. What did you see in him that stood out to you?

JE: We looked for months. We auditioned hundreds for David. And it’s like a bullseye within a bullseye, because I’ve directed two music biopics, and I’ve directed two football movies, and there’s not really actors in between those two. But this guy has to sing on the one hand, and then on the other, he has to slay this giant. He really is this warrior-poet. But at the heart of it, I really wanted this inner conviction. I had the privilege of directing Jonathan Roumie in Jesus Revolution. And his conviction is so palpable and real. It’s who he is. And I wanted that sense of conviction and also a depth of soul. I mean, this is the ultimate Bob Dylan kind of poet, so there has to be a depth of soul, and that’s a very rare thing.

When I saw Michael’s audition tape, we knew. I literally got a red eye that night, and I’m like, “I want to meet this kid in the morning.” It was his first role. And I just said, “Look, I’m not supposed to ever tell you this, because it gives your reps leverage, but I believe this is your role. I just need you to do the work at every stage. I gotta convince a lot of people, because this is a big Amazon global original.” But he did, at every step. He learned to play a lyre himself. He has an amazing voice. It was his idea to do the music in Hebrew, because we want it to be as authentic as possible. Even just the sling and how good he got with it—I feel like a very proud coach watching a star athlete emerge right in front of you.

BM: Is the plan to do multiple seasons?

JE: The dream is to do multiple seasons. To me, the great bookends of the story are two young people crying out to God. First, a young person in the fields of Bethlehem, as an outcast. Then—all of this story, tragedy, and triumph later—another young person, who is his own son (of his worst mistake) in Solomon, crying out to God, dedicating the temple to God. There is an odyssey in between those two events, and the dream would be to tell that entire story. The way this happens is when something is successful. So, tune in.