House of David star Stephen Lang spoke to News about playing the Nazirite Samuel in the new Prime Video series. Lang discussed his beard in the show, speaking the word of God, and his great scenes with Ali Suliman. The show will be available on Prime Video on February 27, 2025, with the first three episodes premiering.

“House of David tells the story of the ascent of the biblical figure, David, who eventually becomes the most renowned and celebrated king of Israel. The series follows the once-mighty King Saul as he falls victim to his own pride,” says the synopsis for House of David starring Stephen Lang. “At the direction of God, the prophet Samuel anoints an unlikely, outcast teenager as the new king. As Saul loses his power over his kingdom, David finds himself on a journey to discover and fulfill his destiny, navigating love, loss, and violence in the court of the very man he’s destined to replace. As one leader falls, another must rise.”

Tyler Treese: You’ve got a great one today, but in House of David, the beard that you had going on was quite the scene-stealer, if I may say. How was it working with that extremely long beard? It looks like it hadn’t been cleaned in a while. How was acting with that on?

Stephen Lang: Well, that’s an interesting question. Of course, Samuel was a Nazirite and one of the marks of the Nazirite was they never, never, never clipped any of their hair. Any of their body hair at all.

Which isn’t to say they didn’t groom it. I mean, they can groom it. Samuel actually is pretty well-groomed. Actually, the beard was quite clean most of the time. He does get in the dust and the dirt occasionally, but the hair and the beard, it’s all integral to the character, you know what I mean?

I don’t truly become Samuel until I am in full hair and beard. And then I feel very much the Nazirite. There are only three Nazirites I think that are mentioned in both Testaments. Of course, Samson is known for his long hair, and he was a Nazirite, Samuel’s a Nazirite, and the other Nazirite of note is John the Baptist was a Nazirite as well. But of course, he’s a thousand years down the line [laughs].

Samuel plays such a key role in the Bible. How is it finding your voice for him? Because he is pretty much saying the word of God, and it has to be powerful. So, how do you channel that as an actor?

How do you channel it? I don’t know. It’s a great question I’ve asked myself. Look, in the end, it’s a fairly mysterious process. You do what you need to do, which is to say you absorb the source material — in this case, the good book — to the extent that you can. Maybe you look at lots of commentaries, you talk to people, you experiment, you try to work it out with the dialect people. You kind of wanna understand the world that the producers wanna create here.

So what I’m saying is that it’s a combination of some fairly concrete and mechanical factors such as how you look, how you sound, what you wear, and then other more esoteric kind of things like what is your relationship with the Lord? How do I literally hear the words of God spoken to me? Do I speak literally to Him, or do I speak without speaking?

Those are decisions that one makes as an actor, and you use your powers of imagination and observation to make those decisions in concert with your director because it’s the world that they are creating. You’re part of that.

One of the most impressive traits I feel you possess as an actor is just your intensity. You get to have these great, very tense confrontations with King Saul, especially in the opening episode. How is it working with Ali Suliman as a scene partner? Because he can give and take it too, so you can feel the electricity on the screen when you two are going back and forth.

I don’t think they could have cast that role any more powerfully than they did with Ali to me. I told him, Ali is every inch a king as far as I’m concerned. To be Saul is a very, very difficult job because Saul was a gnarly, gnarly guy. You know what I mean? There’s so much, so much that is admirable about Saul, and there’s so much goodness in Saul.

And yet, there’s the flaw. Unfortunately, it’s an unforgivable flaw. Samuel cannot erase that. Samuel cannot look past that. It’s not Samuel’s place to look past that. So acting with Ali is always, it’s a pleasure and a challenge because he’s beautiful. He’s big, he is regal. He can be loud, he can be soft, he can be nuanced, he can be blatant. He is a good package.

Thanks to House of David’s Stephen Lang for talking about the show.