A closer look at Jim Caviezel
Jim Caviezel meeting Pope John Paul II
Jim Caviezel interview by Catholic Digest
Favorite prayers: Our Father, Hail Mary, prayer to St. Michael
Role he’d like to play: “I think I finally found a comedy, but we’ll see. I used to do Neil Simon. And [now] they go, ‘Oh no, he played Jesus.’”
Best advice he's received: “Someone told me a long time ago what a man does in private is who he really is.”
One of his favorite things to do with his family: “I like swimming. That’s when I can get physical with my kids — actually pick them up and throw them. They say, ‘Daddy, do it again!’”
What he’s learned about family from basketball: “A family to me can be a really bad team or a really good team. I refer to teams because I played on basketball teams for 17 years into college, and I played on good ones and bad ones. I have a wife who is a basketball player, and both of us have that mentality that some days you don’t particularly want to go out and play that day or practice that day. But the only way to [succeed] is to practice. It can’t be tied to feelings. That’s not what it’s about.”
Did “The Passion” go too far? Jim Caviezel on movie violence
“The Passion of the Christ” was both lauded and criticized for its brutal depiction of the Crucifixion. Caviezel’s new film, “The Stoning of Soraya M.” (from the producers of “The Passion”) is rated R for its depiction of the stoning of an innocent woman in Iran. Besides the fact that such depictions, Caviezel says, are less brutal than the realities they reflect, Caviezel says showing such atrocities is part of telling the story of what really happened.
“What I don’t understand,” he says, “is that [these events are] so horrific, but when good filmmakers try to tell a story, it’s almost as if it’s a greater evil that those filmmakers and actors — who are putting their lives on the line to show a story — are showing what really happened than for those men (depicted in “The Stoning of Soraya M.) to have taken that girl and beaten and killed her like that. And that’s what I feel we’ve become in the culture — that (people think) it is a worse evil to show the world what real evil is. It’s 'How dare you take away my naïveté.' That to me is like Marie Antoinette saying 'Let them eat cake.'”
Why Jim Caviezel nearly turned down the role of Jesus. And why doing the film was one of the toughest decisions of his life
“There were four things in my life that were really hard — where I could have easily said, ‘No, I don’t want to do this,’” says Caviezel.
“Number one, becoming an actor.
Number two, meeting my wife and deciding [whether to marry]. In this society when the girls are plenty and the world is like, “Keep taking your time,” I knew I met a special lady and I knew, If I don’t do this, it’s going to be a mistake.
Third was "The Passion of the Christ". There were many, many people on my team who said, “Stay away from this thing.” And I would go to bed and I would say, "Okay, I’m not doing it." And then I couldn’t sleep. I had every indicator that this thing was not going to be the right thing to follow, but something in me just kept saying Do it.
The fourth was my children, this situation (of adopting disabled children).
“[These four things are] all familiar, they’re all tied together. If I had been tied to feelings, I would have said no on all four of them. I think upon death, judgment, [God would have] said, 'This is what I had planned for you. And you said no.' And I (would have) said, “Well, because I was scared!” So that became the thing. I can’t make a decision based on feelings. Whenever I feel [Jesus] I feel a peace and a calm. And I don’t say that just goes with me everywhere. But I know it when I feel it and I say, ‘That’s the right way.’”