God created laughter and it is such an important part of our human experience. Can you think anything better than the belly laugh of an infant? We bond with friends through laughter. It helps us cope and heal. Proverbs 17:22 says it best: “A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones.” So why do some Christians get uncomfortable when a biblical story is told in a humorous way?
That is why I love Studio 523’s series, The Promised Land, about Moses and the great exodus from Egypt. It’s funny, but all also deeply human. Mitch Hudson, the show’s creator, wanted the characters to be portrayed just like us. Surely there was laughter in the desert, right?
I recently had the pleasure of having a conversation with Wasim No’mani. You might recognize him as Yanni from The Chosen. In The Promised Land, he has big sandals to fill as he plays Moses in the comedy series. I asked him what his thoughts were when he was first approached to play Moses for the show.
“Well, you know, I saw the breakdown of it – the character as well as the entire project,” he says. “It was essentially The Office merged with the Old Testament. And I thought it was a great idea on paper, a little bit skeptical. You can have a cute idea and fail in the execution. It occurs more often than not. But I read the pilot, and I really wanted to be a part of it.”
Even so, Wasim admits that he hasn’t been completely comfortable with the project.
“As I booked the gig, that’s when all the ‘Moses feelings’ came in – the anxiety, the inadequacy, the immenseness of the responsibility, etc., etc., you know? It’s such a delicate line to navigate. Does comedy make something less sacred? Does laughing make something less sacred? I don’t believe he does. However, a lot of people can have that interpretation.”
Though the series has just started airing on YouTube, the pilot for the show has been online for over a year now. I ask if he’s received any negative feedback.
“No, I mean, I try to stay away from outside of the circle of production, just because there are as many different interpretations as there are minds. My job is not to contend with them.”
Then he shared a thought that struck with me.
“I don’t know if this is true, but they say you need 17 positive thoughts to negate the impact of one negative thought because it’s so much more dense. And I think it’s the same thing with comments. You have 30 gracious and very complimentary comments, but for one guy, [the series] sucks. And then we’re devastated, you know?”
He’s right. Today, people are more likely to share what they dislike about a show rather than what they like about it.
“The negative is so immediate,” says Wasim. “It causes a chemical reaction instantaneously. I think that it can become an addiction for people who post this much and put all this thought into a bunch of negativities.”
We shift gears and talk about the ensemble cast – which are all great by the way. I told him that it looks like they’re all having a blast. He smiles and nods but he gives a lot of credit to Hudson for the comradery.
“Depending on the scenes and the days, for the most part – it’s Mitch. He has really nurtured and fostered a very welcoming, safe, lighthearted environment. To get into the outer reaches of your artistic sense of self, you need to feel safe. We’re like a little family. We all stayed at the same hotel and every night we would gather around the pool and talk about our day and everything. That familial connection is actually there. If it does show up on screen as you think it does, it’s because it’s real, you know?
Though the show is very funny, I tell Wasim how impressed I am with the show’s balance of dry humor and some of the show’s more serious content. One moment you’re laughing and then you’re hit with some sobering context.
I told Wasim about my thoughts on one particular scene that hit me. It was when Moses is coming down from the mountain and he sees his people bowing down and worshiping the golden calf. That look on his face. Without even saying a word, you know exactly how disappointed he is. It’s pretty incredible.
“Thank you. I do really appreciate that because that was a scene that I had pinned in my calendar and it’s so instrumental in the story. And I needed to make sure that we were taking this as seriously as possible. I was basically in a state all day when we shot it. Over the course of the day, I had lost my voice. I really just juiced myself dry. And I get a text a couple of days later. Mitch is like, ‘the lighting was off, we got to reshoot it’ and I’m like, ‘oh my gosh.’ That was a tough one.”
Changing the subject again, I mentioned that while looking at his credits on IMDB I noticed that all of his roles listed appear to be all very serious.
“Yeah, I think people’s first impression [of me comes from] seeing my ‘thinking face.’ I think I look more serious than I really am.”
When asked what Wasim hopes audiences will take away from the series he says that he hopes that the show’s comedy element will lower their guards down so that its message can penetrate even deeper.
“It’s just us trying to do the most justice to the material if we possibly can,” he says.
I haven’t seen the final episode of the show, so I don’t really know how far this story goes. So, I ask if there is a possibility for a season two.
“There is a potential possibility for a season two,” says Wasim, “but I can’t comment any more than that.”
Given that over 2 million people have watched the pilot and nearly 400,000 people have watched episode 2, I think there is a good chance that there is more to come.
New episodes of The Promised Land are loaded weekly on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EST
Main Image: Wasim No’Mani
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