Jencarlos Canela and The Passion have both received more publicity since the live broadcast on March 20th.
Perhaps better promotion beforehand on the part of director Tyler Perry would have upped viewers of the musical or perhaps they needed a miracle to get viewers up to Grease: Live standards.
Even with stars like Jencarlos Canela, Seal and Trisha Yearwood, The Passion only pulled in 6.6 million viewers. Compare that to the 12.2 million viewers watching Grease:Live.
However, after the show, The Passion and it’s Jesus, Jencarlos Canela, are all anyone can talk about.
Jencarlos Canela performed smashingly as Jesus suffering through his last days on earth. However, interestingly enough, he doesn’t necessarily think that God has much to do with religion.
He said, “I was raised Catholic, but I consider myself more spitirual than religious.”
Jencarlos Canela said he feels that “human error” has created a “disconnect from religion.”
He added, “We make the mistake of attaching the word God to religion. The word God is way bigger than religion.”
But Jencarlos Canela also feels that the story of Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the grave is one that the next generation could get a better handle on.
He said, “The fact that it has that modern twist, that we’re dressed modernly, that we’re using modern, contemporary songs to tell the story, I think it’s beautiful because at the same time, we’re respecting the biblical sense of it.”
Jencarlos Canela added, “Nobody is putting any words into Jesus’ mouth. This makes the story accessible to our generation and so many more people and I think that’s awesome.”
Did you watch The Passion on Sunday night? What did you think about Jencarlos Canela’s portrayal of Jesus?