Actor charts course that led him to portray Jesus in 'Passion' movie
Jim Caviezel met Mel Gibson's requirements: initials J.C., 33 years old
Mark Pattison
WASHINGTON (CNS) � Actor Jim Caviezel, who plays Jesus in the Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of Christ," charted the course that led him to the Jesus role in an Oct. 13 address in Washington.
That course was an unlikely string of coincidences beginning with how he landed a role in Terence Malick's 1998 movie "The Thin Red Line."
Speaking to the 11th International Week of Prayer and Fasting conference, Caviezel said he had told his wife that, if he did not get a part in that film, he was quitting show business and they were moving back to his home town of Mount Vernon, Wash.
"I never stopped going to holy Mass, but I was just going through the motions," he told the crowd of more than 2,000 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Wracked with self-doubt, he said, he asked himself what he was doing there. In his car outside Malick's house, he prayed the rosary, using his wife's heirloom rosary, which made him late for his scheduled meeting with the director.
As he ran to Malick's front door, he realized he still had the rosary in his hand, and headed back to his car to deposit it there, but, he said, "I got this feeling in my chest that I should take the rosary with me."
At Malick's house, "the maid answers the door. Around her neck is a miraculous medal," he recalled. "I said, `Oh, you're Catholic.' `No, I'm Episcopalian.'" Caviezel gave her his wife's heirloom rosary, and the woman burst into tears. She told him she had lost a rosary a friend gave her that had originally come from Mother Teresa, and she was praying to get it back somehow.
Director Malick walked in, Caviezel said, and asked, "What's wrong, honey?" "It comes to me: This isn't the maid," the actor said. "It's Mrs. Terence Malick." Caviezel got the role and he and Malick remain good friends.
In 2000, when shooting in Ireland for "The Count of Monte Cristo," Caviezel said, his wife had alerted him to a speaking appearance by Ivan Dragicevic, one of the reported Marian visionaries of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Caviezel said he rejected the notion of attending, given the shooting schedule and his attitude about the apparitions. Then he got an unexpected afternoon off the day of Dragicevic's appearance.
Caviezel went to hear Dragicevic and met with him after his talk. He said Dragicevic told him, "Man always makes time for what he loves. If he does not make time for God, it is because he does not love God."
Caviezel claimed Dragicevic had an apparition during their conversation. "I felt a peace that I never felt before, " the actor said.
Last year, "Inexplicably, I get a call from Mel Gibson," Caviezel continued. "I wasn't politicking for the role (of Jesus). Frankly, nobody knew it (the film) was happening."
Caviezel added Gibson "wanted a guy whose initials were J.C. and 33 years old to play the part of Jesus." The conference booklet promoting Caviezel's
talk noted that 33 was "the same age of Jesus when he was crucified."
The actor noted that filming of "The Passion" began last year on the feast of the Assumption, Aug. 15, and finished on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, May 13.
Caviezel did not speak about making "The Passion" apart from telling some amusing stories about having met Pope John Paul II during filming in Italy.
He did not address the controversy over Jewish concerns that "The Passion" is anti-Semitic, nor did he take questions from the audience.
But he exhorted the audience to "express your faith in public." Like the Marines, Caviezel said, "God is looking for a few good men."
He said, "St. Maximilan Kolbe said indifference is the greatest sin of the 20th century. Well, it is the greatest sin of the 21st century. We are looking for men and woman ready to shed their lives for the truth. ... This goes for our priests and bishops as well. We need our priests to challenge us," he said, his voice rising, to applause.
Caviezel sported a cap while speaking in the shrine. "Forgive me for wearing a hat in church," he said. "I'm in a movie. They had to shave my head."
After he was introduced, Caviezel's appearance � already rescheduled from earlier in the day to accommodate his flight to Washington from Canada � was briefly delayed. The actor's contract, organizers told the audience, mandated that no videotaping or audiotaping take place and that no still photos be taken. After the contract stipulations were summarized aloud and photographers were ushered out, Caviezel appeared.
Still, Caviezel's appearance marked one of the first times that "The Passion" was used as a drawing card for a conference. Previous reported "Passion"-related activities were either invitation-only screenings of a rough cut or clips from the film, or hastily arranged appearances by Gibson, such as those at the U.S. bishops' headquarters or the Knights of Columbus convention.
Following Caviezel's appearance, conferees flocked to the Crypt Church level of the shrine to see a brief series of clips from "The Passion."
About half of the preview was a collage of "Passion" director Mel Gibson's own film roles, plus a brief message uttered by Gibson from the editing room where he was finishing up the movie. "I hope you're enjoying the event," Gibson said. "I pulled a few clips. ... I hope to see you next March or April, when the film is released in theaters."
Of the clips shown from "The Passion," which has raised many eyebrows in part for being spoken in only Latin and Aramaic, only three intelligible lines of dialogue could be heard: Pilate telling the crowd gathered outside his chambers "Ecce homo!" ("Behold the man!") after Jesus had been scourged; Jesus' last words on the cross, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"); and what was presumably the Aramaic equivalent of "This is my body" during a camera shot immediately following a picture of Jesus raising unleavened bread during the Last Supper.
