Why Jim Caviezel Was ‘Scared’ to Play Jesus
By Movieguide® Contributor
Jim Caviezal is opening up about how he got the role as Jesus in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST and how movies like IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE hold “power.”
At a meeting for a movie other than THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, director Mel Gibson pivoted the conversation. It suddenly hit Caviezel that Gibson was going to give him the most challenging and greatest role of his life.
“I went back to when I was a young man in the theater and I said, ‘Oh m* G** this is why he called me to become an actor,’” Caviezel recalled on “The Shawn Ryan Show” last year. “And I said, ‘You want me to play Jesus, don’t you?’ And he looked at me — he was smoking a cigarette — and he [said], ‘Yeah,’ put his head down, and he was really scared, and I said, ‘Okay.’”
“So I had all that preparation,” he said.
Two days later, Gibson called Caviezel to make sure he wanted the role.
“He goes, ‘Do you still want to play this Jesus guy? If you do, you may never work in this town again’ and I was like scared. It scared me… I just bought a Lamborghini, and…I’ll have to give all this stuff back, and I was scared for a moment, and then this peace came over me, and I could feel it was from heaven, and I said, ‘Look, man, we’re all called to carry our cross. If you don’t pick up and carry your cross, you will be crushed by the weight of it,’” Caviezel said.
“And then he got really quiet on the phone, and then I said…’I just realized my initials are JC, and I’m 33 years old and he goes,’…You’re freaking me out.’ He hung up the phone.”
Jesus is estimated by some scholars to have died at 33 years old.
Caviezel said Gibson’s fear about the role came from knowing that no one is “good enough” to represent Jesus.
“It’s because of who we are, our past, everything that we’re talking about. But the shame…you know. I told my friend about that, his name is Yvonne and…he said, ‘You know, Jim, God doesn’t always choose the best, but he chose you. What are you gonna do about it?'”
In all of Caviezel’s roles, he tries to bring in authenticity and elements that keep the audiences “entranced.”
“Every film has something in it that it [has] a power, and then you go okay what’s necessary, what’s not necessary,” Caviezel explained. “That does not mean that I will not play the devil in a movie, but the difference is I don’t go to the devil to ask him how to play him. I go to God to teach me how to play this because when I do, it should unearth you.”
“It’s always about committing to what this film needs to be. If you use every profanity in in the book constantly, eventually you get numb to it,” the COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO actor continued. “But you use it once, it’ll hit you, if you need it, if it’s necessary. In the film like for example — if you watched IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, that film was very profound in its time and very hard to watch and during Christmas the most beautiful time of year, and you don’t want to drop an F-bomb in that movie, you know?”
“But if you watch it, it’s very powerful because this guy wants to end his life. It’s over. He doesn’t see what his value is in his life. This angel comes to him and shows him. ‘George, don’t you understand if you weren’t around these people, they would [have] never made it without you?” he said.
Caviezel believes that everyone should view their lives with value and see them as the angel sees George in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE.
“One of the most profound scenes in that movie was when Jimmy Stewart, that [director Frank] Capra had that camera on him, he says, ‘God if you’re out there, please help me,’ and those were real tears,” Caviezel said. “[That] man flew 26 missions in a liberator over Germany, World War II, and you understand that when you’re flying over in that tight formation and one of those planes goes out, everybody has to remain quiet on their coms. Stewart lived with PTSD his entire life and especially in that scene, and I’m sure that that trauma played out there.”
“But God used it in the most beautiful way,” Caviezel continued. “Just as some of the trauma that I grew up with, God used it in the most profound way in films like SOUND OF FREEDOM [and] THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.”
In truth-based movie SOUND OF FREEDOM, Caviezel plays the role of Tim Ballard, a Homeland Security Special Agent who rescues children from trafficking.
Caviezel “described the experience of portraying Ballard as ‘a meaningful journey,’ like THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. ‘This is the best film I’ve done since that movie,’ he said,” per the National Catholic Register.
In both movies, Caviezel went through takes as he endured physical suffering. In SOUND OF FREEDOM, he got extremely ill and laid on a bed between film shots. His character pretended to vomit in one scene, but Caviezel vomited in real life.
In THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, Caviezel got struck by lightning and was accidentally whipped by an extra, which left him with a “14-inch gash” on his back. He also dislocated his shoulder when the 150-pound cross fell on him.
Despite his trials in PASSION OF THE CHRIST movie, he is proud of the role. “I got to play the greatest superhero there ever was,” he said.
Movieguide® previously reported on Caviezel’s acting outlook:
As he looks to the future, Cavizel plans to continue making movies with redemptive stories.
“The light is much brighter in the darkest of places,” he said previously, explaining why he chooses hope-giving roles. “In those darkest of places, I want to be the center of it. I was drawn to that.”
“I’m looking forward to making more films that tell stories that bring characters to some sense of redemption,” he revealed. “At this phase in my career, I want to make sure the writing is strong and the creative team is top-notch so that I continue to grow, too.”
