After years of hosting TV shows with celebrity guests, Prime Video’s The Chosen in the Wild allowed Bear Grylls the chance to be more outspoken about his faith.
“It’s like all of us in our lives. There’s times and places and relationships, and you should always adjust accordingly,” Grylls, 52, exclusively told Us about how he has navigated his faith in the public eye. “It’s emotional intelligence.”
Grylls didn’t want any guest to feel isolated.
“Sometimes on Running Wild, I never know the background to these Hollywood stars. They might be from all different cultures or faiths. So you feel your way a little bit more sensitively, and faith is only ever a small part of that journey,” he noted. “A lot of it’s hearing their life story and their battles and triumphs and all of that.”
The Chosen in the Wild With Bear Grylls, however, allowed Grylls to “get straight into that,” adding, “And viewers I think really want that. That’s why they’re watching the show. They want to hear how has it affected you?”
Prime Video’s The Chosen in the Wild follows The Chosen‘s Jonathan Roumie, Paras Patel, Elizabeth Tabish, Noah James and Luke Dimyan as they take on challenges across forests, deserts and canyons with Grylls by their side.
“I think what I was struck by on this series is how all of these actors — they weren’t chosen because they were people of strong faith necessarily,” Grylls told Us. “Actually, many of them came from very different diverse backgrounds of faith and culture, but none of them left the same. That was a powerful bit to hear.”
He continued: “It was a lot of emotion in those characters and in that journey for them. What I love about The Chosen in the Wild is the space and time to actually talk about those things in a real way — where it’s not just a sound-bite. You can actually say, ‘Actually, tell me about that. That sounded hard.’ And you sat around a campfire or on the edge of a cliff and you hear those stories in a very raw, real way.”
Grylls, who shares three kids with wife Shara Cannings Knight, was also thrilled to be on a family-friendly program.
“I want to stand for something good and that’s going to be empowering for families to watch together,” he said before the show’s premiere on Sunday, August 9. “It’s hard sometimes as a parent to know what to watch with your kids and the values that are going to come out. I actually do pride ourselves on that.”
For Grylls, positioning faith at the forefront was a point of pride.
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“That is an intentional kind of thing as a team is we try and keep integrity to what we do and true to how we are as individuals,” he explained. “Faith has been a part of my life, as is respect for the outdoors and a love of a fellow man and doing our best and all that good stuff. We try and keep those values at the heart of the show.”
Grylls concluded: “I’m proud that Chosen in the Wild is such a sort of firm, family-friendly, positive, faith-forward, family-impacting type show.”
The Chosen in the Wild With Bear Grylls premieres on Prime Video Sunday, August 9, with all six episodes debuting at launch.
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