'Passion' actors take center stage

By Melissa Olson
Daily Trojan

LOS ANGELES (U-Wire) – When James Caviezel first started acting, a casting director advised him not to pursue dramatic roles. "I was auditioning for this drama up in Seattle, and I was doing a comedy and the person looked at me and said, 'I don't think you have much of a career as a dramatic actor. I'm not trying to discourage you, but I think comedies are the place for you,'" said Caviezel.

Now, years later, he's following a string of dramatic roles in "Angel Eyes," "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "High Crimes" by taking up one of the most solemn and dramatic roles imaginable. Caviezel was tapped by director Mel Gibson to play Jesus Christ in Gibson's controversial new film, "The Passion of the Christ."

The decision to portray Christ in the film was a difficult one for the devout Roman Catholic.

"I never thought of ever playing Jesus. In fact, I'd been offered twice to play [Jesus] in TV and once in a play, and I said 'no,'" Caviezel said. "I wanted to know what [the director] wanted to do. If he's going to have Jesus walk down and get pizza at Domino's, I wasn't interested in that."

Gibson however, intended for his project to closely follow the Gospels, and Caviezel agreed to take up the part. No one understood at the time, however, how much of a controversy the film would stir up. Some Jewish leaders have renounced the film as being anti-Semitic, while others take issue with the film's accuracy. "It's a step above politics when you enter into religion," Caviezel said.

Maia Morgenstern, a Romanian actress who plays Mary, mother of Jesus, in the movie, was stunned by the people who took the film as anti-Semitic. "From time to time I feel like I'm in an American movie trial, and I am a witness, and I raise my right hand. And I have to defend Mr. Gibson. It's nothing to defend, it's nothing to excuse, it's nothing to explain. The film is not at all anti-Semitic."

With "The Passion of the Christ," Gibson has tried to be as factual as possible -- including depicting the extreme violence that Jesus encounters.

"One of the Mystics said that he received over 5,000 blows to his body. That includes everything. Mel wanted it to be authentic," Caviezel said. "He didn't want any passive onlookers watching this thing."

Caviezel endured eight hours of makeup a day to film the scenes in which Jesus is scourged and crucified.

During the course of filming the scenes on the cross, however, Caviezel suffered from various physical ailments. "You die on a cross by asphyxiation, I couldn't breathe," he said. "I couldn't keep anything down as far as food, and I had an enormous headache. The skin that they put on your body makes you itch, and I kept itching. And then a lung infection."

Before filming was completed, Caviezel also got a separated shoulder, pneumonia, hypothermia -- and was even struck by lightning shooting one scene.

Caviezel shrugged off the physical hardships. "As there are no passive onlookers, there are no passive actors. This is something you take with you for the rest of your life, and I knew that before going in."

"It's a universal film. It's a film for all people, for all time," Caviezel said. "It transcends even whether you are religious or not.

"It is about the vision of an artist," Morgenstern agreed. "It's emotion and pure art."