Interview: Kirk B.R. Woller on playing Gaius in The Chosen

The actor talks about exploring the more domestic side of his character, his character's status as an outsider to the Jesus movement, and what he wishes he could do that the other actors get to do.

This is the third of three interviews that I have done with actors from The Chosen, the life-of-Jesus series that is about to launch its third season in theatres tomorrow. My first two interviews were with Jordan Walker Ross (Little James) and Vanessa Benavente (Mother Mary).

Kirk B.R. Woller is one of the more experienced actors on The Chosen. Not only does he have over 100 credits going back to the late 1980s—including several episodes of The X-Files and big-budget blockbusters like Ang Lee’s Hulk and Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report—he has also worked on several projects with The Chosen’s co-writer/director Dallas Jenkins going back to Hometown Legend, a football movie that Jenkins produced with his father, Jerry B. Jenkins, twenty years ago.

So it was only natural that the younger Jenkins would turn to Woller as he tried to get his crowd-funded series about Jesus off the ground. Woller plays Gaius, a Roman officer who starts out as a sort of bodyguard to the tax collector Matthew, and he makes his first appearance only 15 minutes or so into the first episode.

Gaius has been a recurring presence ever since, even after Matthew left his post to follow Jesus. Along the way, fans have come to appreciate the fact that Gaius, far from the harsh or villainous type you might expect of a Roman soldier, actually seems concerned about Matthew—and the trailer for Season 3 (the first two episodes of which are coming to theatres this Friday) suggests that we will see a whole other side to Gaius soon, one that might even tie into a certain story in the gospels…

I had a chance to talk to Woller about his work on The Chosen, and you can watch our interview above; paid subscribers can also see a transcript of it below. Woller could neither confirm nor deny what the trailer seemed to be hinting at regarding Gaius’s identity, but in the meantime, some of the main points we covered include:

• How long Woller has known and worked with Dallas Jenkins (00:47).

• How The Chosen breaks the mold in developing its characters (05:41).

• Playing a more domestic side of Gaius than we have ever seen before (9:51).

• What it’s like not faking a Middle Eastern accent, and not letting his beard grow, unlike most of the bearded, accented characters on the show (11:56).

• Gaius’s perspective as an outsider to the Jesus movement (17:24).

You can also click on the links below to see some interviews I did with the makers of The Chosen during earlier seasons, as well as detailed analyses of each episode.

The Chosen interviews:

Dallas Jenkins on Season 1 (December 2019) | Dallas Jenkins on Season 2 (May 2021) | Derral Eves on Christmas with The Chosen: The Messengers (November 2021) | Dallas Jenkins on the ‘The Chosen Is Not Good’ marketing campaign (April 2022)

The Chosen recaps:

Season 1: review | scripture index
Episode recaps: The Shepherd | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight

Season 2: The Messengers review | scripture index
Episode recaps: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | The Messengers