The Knockturnal interviewed Daniel And The Fiery Furnace stars Mena Massoud, Elijah Alexander and Directors Daniel and Matthew Kooman about their new film.
Daniel and the Fiery Furnace is a historical epic about four young men Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who are kidnapped from their home and brought to Babylon. They are pressured to conform to a new way of life, they face a series of tests and are confronted with the danger of standing up for their faith. This film is directed by Daniel and Matthew Kooman and stars Mena Massoud, Elijah Alexander, Roberto Zenca, Sophia Decaro, Sunjay Midda, Adam Lahraoui and Zaki Ali.
Image from Ekkl Entertainment
We spoke to the film’s stars about this film and Mena Massoud told the Knockturnal about playing such a famous character, “As an actor, that’s what I’m always looking for is playing the character honestly and truthfully. That’s really what I’m focused on. When I approach a character like this or any character, to be honest and, and how to humanize them.” Elijah Alexander told us about his background study for King Nebuchadnezzar, “I really used a lot of my imagination. I did the research that’s out there. There are some really good documentaries on the military exploits, a little bit about his relationship with his father, his upbringing, pretty broad-stroke stuff. So I get to fill in the blanks, and that’s part of the fun and the joy of being an artist.”
Image from Ekkl Entertainment
Matthew Kooman explained to us the pressure of being true to the original text of the story when they were developing the film, “there’s a lot of pressure on a biblical story because there’s a lot of a lot of opinions and a lot of thoughts that are already baked in. Our goal was really to just stay true to the Scripture.” In our interview Daniel Kooman discussed the scope of collaboration on this film, “when you have something that is a big a vision bigger than yourself, that actually really levels the playing field and one of the things we were able to go back to is let’s put ego and self and these things aside. I mean, if you’re going to do anything in filmmaking, well, you have to serve and you have to really as as directors, you’re essentially serving the cast and the crew.”
Daniel and the Fiery Furnace is now playing in theaters.
