Jim Caviezel Shares What He Learned About Jesus While Playing Him During 'The Passion Of The Christ'

Actor Jim Caviezel recently shared what he learned about Jesus Christ while playing him in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

In an interview with Raymond Arroyo on his Arroye Grande show, Caviezel was asked, “What did you learn about Jesus in playing him that you didn’t know when this started?”

Caviezel responded, “I always say I never played Him. He played me. Let God play you. He knows you better than you know yourself. He knows the greatest things about you, the gifts that you have. Many people, they go through their lives, they never know they could have done something.”

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He later stated, “Well, He was with me. When I was on the cross the last, I had this internal locution. And He said, ‘Am I too close?’ And that’s when the doctor is putting the stethoscope on my heart and I was struggling breathing. And I said, ‘You’re not close enough.’ And I cried when I said that. And this was at the end, and I was blue. You watch that movie there’s nothing fakery about that. I was freaking- I was blue.”

“First, the devil comes and he takes away your career, your job, your reputation’s ruined, everything,” Caviezel continued. “But I thought if I died here—. How many pastors or priests say, ‘What will you say to God when you’re at judgment?’ ‘I tried to play you. I tried.’”

From there he recounted all the physical suffering he endured after being struck by lightning and having to go through multiple heart surgeries.

Later when he was asked how he was preparing to return to the role in The Resurrection of the Christ, he shared, “When you’re 33 years old you think you’re going to be 33 forever. You will always be this way. … There’s something there that I’m the controller of my destiny and you’re not. And I don’t control time. And I think that had to be wiped away from me. It’s a gift: time. We have no control over it.”

He then referenced C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, “I was reading C.S. Lewis today and the Screwtape, big demon, is talking to Wormwood and he says, ‘Those humans think they have control 24 hours a day. Hah. What a bunch of idiots!’ Until the end and it’s over and that’s where they go, ‘No, no, no, he’s mine.’ I don’t want it to get to that.”

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Caviezel was also asked what he sees when he looks up and sees a Crucifix. He answered, “I remember how I used to look up. Now, when I look up, I go into Him and look out all the time.”

He elaborated, “Because it takes me back to what my perspective on the Passion. So the gift I have is looking from our Lord’s perspective, not mine. I start from my perspective and then I go up into Him and I look out and I see, I feel what He feels: People that don’t love Him. And I think that’s the key.

I wanted for people to have an experience that they would know Jesus from watching a movie. And I would say to Him, ‘Why not you come through me?’ And I begged Him, begged Him over and over again, ‘Will you come through me? Will you present yourself to the world? I saw a vision of Jesus. It was silhouetted, but I could Him and He was sitting Indian-style and He was very sad. And I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And He said, “It is not a requirement of you as a Catholic to do this movie.’ And I said, ‘Good. I won’t. Get somebody else.’ And He says, ‘I don’t have anybody else.’ And He was so sad when He said it. And I said, ‘Why?’ He says, ‘They won’t ask me what you’ll ask me.’ ‘What am I going to ask you?’ He wouldn’t tell me. So when I got my shoulder dislocated I went down bit through my tongue, looked over to Mary when I was down, I was in such pain, and I said, ‘I don’t want them to see me. I only want them to see you.’ And then I turned to Mary, I said, ‘Behold Mother, I make all things new.’”

A little bit later he shared, “The greatest things in life come through these horrible pains that you have. And if you just hang in there.”

He then shared that he received a purpose, “It’s a purpose. The book, The Purpose-Driven Life. That book is the saints. Isn’t that the treasure though? I could have asked him for anything, but I wanted a purpose.”

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Caviezel is expected to begin filming The Resurrection of the Christ in August. Director Mel Gibson recently shared in an interview with Mel Gibson shared that the film will include the fall of the angels and Christ’s descent to hell.

He said, “I think in order to really tell the story properly you have to really start with the fall of the angels, which is you’re in another place, you’re in another realm. You need to go Hell. You need to go to Sheol.”

Rogan then asked, “So you’re going to have Hell? You’re going to have Satan all that?”

Gibson responded, “Yeah. Sure. You got to have his origin.”

When asked how he would depict it, he said, “This is a good question and I think I have ideas about how to do that and ideas about how to evoke things and emotions in people from the way you depict it and the way you shoot it. So I’ve been thinking about it for a long term. It’s not going to be easy and it’s going to require a lot of planning and I’m not wholly sure I can pull it off to tell you the truth, it’s really super ambitious. But I’ll take a crack at it. ‘Cause that’s what you got to do, right, walk up to the plate, right?”

“I think I can get it,” he added. “But it’s not about me. It’s about something else.”

Gibson later stated, “It’s about trying to find the way in that’s not like cheesy or obvious, but actually-. It’s almost like a magic trick in a sense. It’s diversion. It’s obfuscate this, show that. Look over here.”

He then shared, “It’s very ambitious. That’s all I’ll say. It took a long time to write. It’s really ambitious and it goes from the fall of the angels to the death of the last Apostle.”

What do you make of Caviezel’s comments?

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