WASHINGTON — It took the combined clout of an actress best known for playing an angel and her big-ratings executive-producer husband, but Roma Downey and Mark Burnett have pulled off the making of a 10-hour miniseries, “The Bible,” that gets its premiere Sunday, March 3, on the History cable channel.
The miniseries runs 7-9 p.m. Central time each Sunday in March through March 31, Easter Sunday.
Downey’s career role was playing the angel Monica for nine seasons in the TV drama “Touched by an Angel.” Husband Burnett, whose U.S. TV hits include “Survivor,” “The Voice,” “The Apprentice,” “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” and “Shark Tank,” added his Hollywood muscle.
“He doesn’t take no for an answer. When he hears ‘no,’ he just thinks of a new opportunity. When it was a tough sell, he just persevered,” Downey said of her husband. “He’s just like (St.) Paul, very courageous.”
Unlike other biblical films and TV miniseries, “The Bible” splits its 10 hours evenly between the Old and New Testaments.
Another difference, according to Burnett: “For example, in a lot of older biblical films, it looks like a lot of the disciples, Jesus, the Romans, stepped right out of a dry cleaner. Not a speck of dust on them. And the lighting didn’t feel real.”
He surmised that such films were made “over the years (by) people with great hearts for service and faith, but with very little budget and very little experience, and sometimes the result isn’t optimal, and it’s not the best movie or show. … History Channel provided us with a great budget, and I knew we wanted to make this emotionally connective, and very real for today’s audiences.”
Burnett and Downey were interviewed by Catholic News Service prior to an invitation-only screening Feb. 5 in Washington. The day before, they were in Dallas, showing a 45-minute grouping of miniseries scenes to about 60 U.S. Catholic bishops.
Downey singled out “Cardinal (Donald W.) Wuerl (of Washington), who has been a great supporter and adviser to us for the last year or so,” said Downey. She and Burnett added later there were about 40 theological and biblical advisers who helped before and during filming.
“The Bible” used the same special effects team that won an special-effects Oscar for the period film “Gladiator.” It borrows a page from “Gladiator” and “The Passion of the Christ” in its depictions of violence and brutality. While some violence takes place off-screen, the fighting between the Israelites and their opponents, including the Roman occupiers of Jesus’ time, sliced, diced, thrust and gouged their way to victory or conquest.
Even for Christians such as Downey and Burnett, “it’s very daunting to take on the Bible,” she told CNS. “We only had 10 hours to tell the story. We wish we had ten hundred hours."
