Killing Jesus isn’t just another miniseries about the life of Jesus Christ. Based on Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly’s book, the National Geographic show hopes to take a more political look at Jesus.
The series starts on Sunday at 8 p.m., but USA Today posted the first five minutes of it. In the opening scenes, we see Kelsey Grammer as King Herod, who had a nightmare about a new king coming to take his role. It turns out that it is the same day that Jesus is born.
The main cast features True Blood’s Stephen Moyer as Pontius Pilate and Lebanon-born actor Haaz Sleiman (The Visitor) as Jesus.
Producers had hoped to shoot the series in Israel, but instead opted for Morocco. And some of the sets may look familiar to anyone who saw Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings. Producer Teri Weinberg said that Scott, who is an executive producer on Killing Jesus, let them use a set he left standing after Exodus filming wrapped.
Killing Jesus follows NatGeo adaptations of O’Reilley’s other popular Killing books, Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln.