Jim Caviezel starred in The Passion of the Christ 14 years ago and he’s taking on another Biblical retelling with his latest film, Paul, Apostle of Christ but the actor’s not worried about being typecast with his more religious roles. In fact, he’d like to keep making faith-based films, as long as the scripts are good.
“We don’t go to Will Ferrell and say, ‘Will, you’ve done a comedy. Why do you keep doing comedies?’” Caviezel tells Guideposts.org when asked why he decided to sign on to his latest spiritual film written and directed by Andrew Hyatt.
According to the actor, he’s been offered plenty of bad Bible movies since starring as Jesus in The Passion but with Paul, Apostle of Christ and Hyatt’s script, Caviezel, who plays Luke, saw an opportunity to do justice to one of the most inspiring figures in the Bible.
“What I loved about this, as opposed to other stories that have been big box office films is that the performances in this movie are strong, but the words are still stronger. We don’t need to change them.”
The movie follows the final days of Paul, as he’s imprisoned by the Romans, tortured, beaten, and persecuted for his faith. When one of his followers, Luke, risks his life to visit Paul in prison and write down his testimony, the two form a close bond and work together to spread the message of Christianity. Luke, a Greek and a doctor who comes to know Jesus through Paul’s preachings, dedicates his life to serving the faith.
Most of the dialogue in Paul, The Apostle comes straight from the written text of the Good Book – a selling point that appealed to the actor. But he also had a personal reason for signing onto the film. Last year, Caviezel’s long-time friend and attorney Frank Stewart passed away after a long battle with cancer. Caviezel says he’s dedicating the movie to his friend because it was Stewart who led him to a closer relationship with God.
“He showed me Christ,” Caviezel says of Stewart. The two would often take long walks by the water, discussing issues, bantering back and forth, and debating one another, much like Luke and Paul do in his new film. “He was my teacher. I was the student. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Paul really is Frank to me.’ We bantered all the time. It was funny. I’d go rounds and rounds with him, but he’d always go back to, ‘Okay, you’re right. This is unfair, but what are you going to do about it?’ A big part of being Christian is forgiveness and understanding. If you love only people that love you, what does Jesus say on that?”
Caviezel hopes his film will challenge people to open their minds and their hearts, the same way Frank challenged him all those years ago.
“This film is about forgiveness at all costs,” Caviezel says. “It doesn’t mean weakness. It doesn’t mean the acceptance of evil, it means that we can meet evil face to face, with love.”
It was important to the actor that the film – which spends most of its time with Luke as he talks with Paul, encourages his fellow Christians, and is forced to constantly escape the wrath of the Romans – mirror the Bible, but that it also showed these famous religious figures like Paul through a very human lens.
“These people were real, breathing human beings that suffered. They had pain,” Caviezel explains. “The most important people in that theater are the people watching it, going, ‘Wow. I can relate to these guys.’”
The movie doesn’t shy away from explicit violence, another selling point for Caviezel. The actor knew it was important to the integrity of the story to tastefully show as much as possible when it came to the struggle and suffering of early Christianity. These men and women endured plenty of hardship in order to share their faith. In Caviezel’s opinion, there’s a lesson in their perseverance that we can all learn.
“Why do we read history? So it doesn’t repeat,” Caviezel says. “The Bible’s different. When you read that, it literally speaks to you. It talks to you. It really has a power. There’s a voice that speaks to you as you’re reading it. It’s extraordinary, but why is it so important now? Because each of us is playing a different character. Now, me, I get to play Jesus, but then I get to play Luke. Some of us get to play Matthew or John, but let’s be honest here, on a certain day, when we are sinning, who are we like? Are we like the Pharisees? Are we Pilot the politician? That’s what this film does. It challenges people to answer those questions.”
