April 16, 2025 • 60 mins
In this unforgettable conversation, Jim Caviezel opens up about the pain, purpose, and divine calling behind his iconic role in The Passion of the Christ — and why he’s stepping back into the role of Jesus for the upcoming sequel, Resurrection. From near-death experiences and intense physical suffering on set to spiritual revelations and the search for purpose, Jim shares never-before-heard stories from his journey as a faith-driven actor.
👣 A must-listen for fans of The Passion, Sound of Freedom, and anyone navigating faith, calling, and creative sacrifice.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I'm rating to Royo. Welcome to a Royal Grande. This
is an exclusive a lot of you have been asking
for and look I aim to please. He's an actor
whose intense performances have moved audiences for decades. He burst
onto screens in The Thin Red Line and then from
the Countermanty Christo to the Passion of the Christ. Jim
(00:32):
cavizl leaves a deep impression on every role he touches.
His Sound of Freedom was the breakout hit that made
more than two hundred and fifty million dollars at the
box office and shook the industry. And now he's poised
to play Jesus again in Mel Gibson's sequel to The Passion.
By the way, go subscribe to a Royal Grande show
(00:54):
right now on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts
and turn the notifications on. I don't want you to
miss an episode like this one. Jim Cavizil sat down
with me to discuss how he is preparing to step
into the sandals of the Savior once more, how this
will be different for him and his personal life, his career,
and much more.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Watch.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I want to start with where this acting thing came.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
From probably junior High. I was well, I was I
was impersonating everybody that I saw, from Christopher Walking to
Eddie Murphy and who was kind of a knack. And
people would say, gosh, she should get into acting. And
he'd be around your family and impersonating people and say
that's really good. Actually, And I was doing a Christmas
(01:41):
play at Immaculate Conception School in Notunt Vernon and there
was a character named Simeon in the play and it
was had a lot of lines. The music teacher was like,
it was kind of pushing me to do it. So
I ended up doing it, and just we're getting to
the end of the play, the there was a piece
(02:03):
in there the Lord is My Shepherd, and I just
went into a zone and people were crying in the audience.
And afterwards the people would say you should be an actor,
and the nuns were saying you should be a priest.
And two things I said. I do not want to
(02:25):
be as actor or a priest. I don't want to
be an NBA basketball player. But God had other plans. Yeah,
of course.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Tell me about the movie theater incident you go to see.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Was it Hoosiers? What was the movie. That movie was
a Ghost. Oh it was Ghost. Every day I would
go and work on I would chart all my basketball
shots and different things like that. And afterwards, I walked
down the College Way and there was a Cinema five
theater and I went in and watched Ghost several times,
and at presence landed outside the movie theater, I knew
(03:02):
it was God. It was a thousand yards away. I
don't know why until I did the passion that happened.
Something similar happened, but it was a thousand yards away.
Your soul has this kind of knowledge, and it came
into the theater and presence came over me, and it
was like I was God's only child, that he loved
(03:27):
me that much, and I couldn't believe he loved me
that much. And then went from love to peace. And then
there was a voice and I heard it and he said,
I'd like you to be an actor exactly that I
left an indelible mark on my heart. How were you?
That was nineteen, I mean I was flirting with it now.
(03:47):
Around those time was I had gotten my screen Actor's
Guild card with the Gus Vans movie and I was
a ticket taker and.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
I faked out the I have had Idaho, which I
did not know you were in until this week.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, I saw the images. I was just a ticket taker,
but I didn't. They don't give you the script, They
just see if you could. But I pretended that I
was Italian and I faked it, and I and I was.
It was a terrible accent. But if you believe when
you're speaking and you're convincing, and people go, oh, he
must be familiarly, you know. So they believed it and
(04:26):
it got the part until the casting director called me.
She says, I'm calling for Jim Cavizel and I said, yeah,
this is me, and it was no, this is not
Jim Cavizel and I said, oh, yeah it is. And
she says, you liar, Oh, because they thought you were
Italian and I said no, I was acting. Yeah, and
so but anyway, they cast me and they used me
(04:47):
without the Italian accent.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
And and you shared screen time with Keanu and River Phoenix.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, spend a little time with them.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, that's that stunned me when I saw that. Tell
me about the dean who was your manager, whom we
know the way we met was Beverly Dan. Tell me
about her. I know, she managed your career really up
until the passion.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I met Beverly through a co management deal with a
woman named Bev Cheney. She's the one that saw me
in Seattle, I say, and she said, young man, I
think you're going to be a star, okay, And she
put me in a car with another guy named Brendan
Fraser and we would drive down to auditions together. We
(05:30):
flew to audition for General Hospital with Jeanie Francis. Both
him and I neither one of us got it.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
But he's from Washington State as well.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, I think he's Canadian at some point, but he
went to Cornish Institute, I believe. So anyway, I came
to LA and Beverly was this woman who did the
you know she if you read about her, it's really fascinating.
But she worked for ABC as a psychic and she
(06:03):
picked the whole schedule for ABC and she got blacklisted.
And anyway, I was down there and she could pick
talent and she had me on taking this young girl
to auditions and it was Reese Witherspoon. So I was
kind of a you know, a chow for for a
lot of stars at that time. Future stars. But she
(06:28):
always believed in me, and you know, uh and I
at some point I auditioned for Juilliard and got in,
and then I really started belief. You know, I think
I can do this. I really think that this is
a gift. Well you turned it down.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You turned Juilliard down because you got a film gig.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
No. No, they gave me a well no, I asked
them for a deferment. If Juilliard said no one or
the other, I would have gone to Juilliard. And I
did the movie with Kevin Costner to play his little brother.
But it gave me sixteen twenty weeks on a movie
where you know, I was able to put some cash
in my pocket. And then I got a full scholarship
(07:09):
to Juilliard. And then Juilliard renigged on their degreement. Michael
Kahn at of the school. What it did was, I said,
if I'm not famous in four years, I'm out. I'm done.
Right at the tail end, there was the thin red line.
And when Julliard were nigged down their agreement with me.
John Kirby, my acting teacher, and Beverly, both of them
(07:31):
were Catholic. We went to Mass together and it's important
because you know, there's a lot of things that young
actors can get involved in. It Drugs is just the
beginning of it. And you know, they were going to
clubs and they were the poor guys like me, or
guys that had a lot of money that were on
(07:52):
Beverly Hills nine on TU and O or those shows.
And that was it. So it was ten years of
just you know, barely getting by. But Julliard did something
to me. It lit a fire. I said, okay, I'm
going to be famous in four years. So what I
would do is I'd get up in the morning, I
would go to Mass at six thirty, got out of
(08:14):
six thirty Mass and went right direct to Loyla Marrimount
University where I was working out with the basketball players
because remember I played all right, so these guys are
working on going the NBA and got to play with
some phenomenal great players. But that level of intensity and
discipline and discipline goes on to you. So first was
(08:36):
the spirit, the soul, the Eucharist. Second was you know,
the training physical, and then the third is the mental,
which was the acting that I was working on. You know,
how did you meet Terry Mallock? Well, remember I was
going to Mass. So my wife we married, and she
taught me how to do the rosary. Now, I went
(08:57):
to Catholic school for many years to do it. They
didn't teach us. I didn't know what the transubstantiation was.
I learned that when I was around thirty. Obviously the
Rosary is powerful because it's through Jesus to marry to Jesus.
But it's Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It's the Gospels,
it's the story and much you're meditating. Owners you're meditating,
(09:19):
but you're I'm meditating on the Gospels. And also you
know why am I here? What's the purpose? And everything
like that, and if you go back to the movie theater,
I had a strong premonition that this was that moment.
Right now, everything was on it, and I'm I get
out of the car and I went I didn't do
my rosary, and I went, Okay, that's not gonna be
(09:41):
a good thing. So I went boom. I went back
and I did the whole rosary. But now now about
fifteen minutes late, and I did that as about as fast
as I could. I go to the house, knock on
the door, and this maid answers the doorbell, and on
her neck is a miraculous medal, so I knew. I
was like, oh cool, you know, because a lot of
people there are not you know, they're kind of uppity,
(10:02):
and say they are. And so you go in and sure,
here she is and I said, oh yeah, mak smell
in your neck. And I said you're Catholic and she says, no,
I'm not Episcopalian. Come on in. So we come in
and we're talking about this and that. And I had
my wife's grandmother's rosary on me and that was the
(10:26):
rosary I prayed, and I said, here, this is for you,
and she couldn't believe I gave it to her. And
she starts crying. And then Terry Mellick goes in and
he goes, honey, what's wrong. Well occurs to me, the saint,
the mate, it's his wife, and then it's a rosary
in between us, and you know, she's crying and I
and I said, why'd you do that? I said, I
(10:47):
don't know. She said, well, I lost my rosary that
mother Teresa gave me from a friend of mine, and
I pray that I would get another one. And you
just so it was a miracle.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
You said to me that Terry Malick is your father
in film. Yes, what did you learn from him? What
did you take from him in that first in Red Line?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Terry Malick is a big ruth, is a generational player.
Michael Jordan is a generational player. I've worked with two
generational directors in my opinion of a lot of good ones,
but I would say Mel Gibson and Terry Malick, it's
my father in film because he's a man that could
have gone by a way of the world and done
(11:30):
a lot of that. He seemed to hold on to
his scruples, his values. He's still extremely private and you
know what, you really kind of have to be and
in a lot of ways he'd like to be an
open book. I think you can be, but you got
to be an open book to certain people, and you
got to keep that circle of trust pretty close.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I don't want to pass by Count Monte Christia, which
was so's a great, beautiful film in many ways and
was a statement of faith because, as you said, it
was true to what Dumas wrote. Ultimately, But you worked
with Richard Harris, what was that like? What effect did
he have on you?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
He opened up a side of himself of God. He
plays the priest in the movie. And we were going
through back and forth on the scene where his death scene,
and I said, God saith vengeance is mine and Kevin says,
don't say that, and Richard liked that, and so he
wrote that and said, Dantes, now your final lesson, do
not commit the crime. You know, serve the sentence for
(12:37):
remember God saith vengeance is mine. And I said, and
I just looked at him how he did it, and
I just gave myself to the scene and I just
lost it. It kind of hit me as a part
in your life where I had no God, I didn't
feel like I had. I had a hole in my
heart and it just came out. And he says, it
(12:58):
doesn't matter, and I said, even Maces doesn't matter. He
believes in you. And wow, it wasn't written that way,
you know, it was just and you're learning a lot
kind of on the job, and a great actor like
him when they sees that those guys have always you know,
(13:19):
at some points I'd keep working. That was very special.
What we did.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
In fact, he said, what you and I did, Jim
was absolutely brilliant. If you go down to Malta and
f it up like Oliver did, because they did. Oliver
died down there, you know, Oliver Reid and I was
in the bar a joke. We were in there and
Carrie the guy goes, yeah, Oliver Reed died right there.
(13:45):
And this was like three days later after having this
scene with Richard. We were in Malta. It was like
he died right and Richard had just told me this.
And then we were working on the Passion and my
hair person had Richard Harris on the.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Phone and he's like, what are you doing? Now are
you guys doing because we were.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Getting just pummabled at that point. Yeah, I want to
get to that in a second. Let's go back to
the beginning of that story.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Sure, Mel approaches you not to play.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Jesus or or in a movie called The Passion. He
approaches you about a surfer movie. Yes, and you go
and meet he and Steve.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Mcavidie out here. Yes, in Malibourne. Yeah, yeah, there is
a store who was down on Canaan had burned down. Well,
actually they're building it back up again. But I was
just supposed to meet mcaviatie, who's Male's producer, they did
Braveheart together, and Steve shows up and he's got a
(14:52):
book on Mavericks. It's a big wave. I think Tom
Hanks was going to be involved in it somehow, producing
or whatever. So I read the script and I think
Kevin Reynolds was getting directed. Who did Money Crystal with me?
I'd never served before, but I thought, I could, you know,
probably do pretty good here. But anyway, the script wasn't
(15:14):
there yet. I didn't know. Back then I would read
it as it is. I could not. It was the
next ten years that I started learning how to massagic
the things. Something going Okay, it's not there, but there
could be something there. I couldn't do it back then,
i'd read it. I made some decisions where I can't
(15:35):
believe I turned that movie down. How'd you turn it down?
I said, well, that script wasn't there when I read it,
you know, And I eventually did get there with some
other actors. You put the right people in and get
it there. Well, your meeting with Steve shows up, and
probably forty minutes into the meeting, Mel Gibson shows up
and Mel, I'm Mel, was like right here, Steve's here,
(16:00):
and I'm there, and we were talking about surfing movies
and everything, and then it pivots into christ movies. You know,
Jesus movies. Well, it's not a surfing movie and it's
not Jesus on his surfboard, right, how's that gonna work?
And I just went and now I go back when
(16:23):
I'm nineteen years old in the movie theater and I went,
oh my god. I mean, I'm not blaspheming God, I'm
not taking his name in vain. I literally said, oh
my god, this is it. And I said, you want
me to play Jesus, don't you? And just honest, and
(16:44):
he just went. He was smoking a cigarette at the time.
He doesn't even smoke anymore, but back back then, he
just went. I thought he almost swallowed me. And he goes, yeah,
he put his head down. Yeah. And I said, okay,
I'm in. And because of the movie theater, I said,
I'm supposed to. I don't need anybody to tell.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Me whether, no script, no outline age, nothing.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I didn't ask Beverly, I didn't ask anybody else. I
said I'm in. Yes. He called me at home two
days later and he goes, you really want to do
If you do this movie, you may have a work
in this town again, and.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
I went, why what are they talking about? I mean, no,
what I wanted to make was what really happened.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
So I was okay with that, but I didn't realized
because I really didn't know my faith much at that time.
I remember, I tell you, at that point, I didn't
even know if you said what transubstantiation was. I didn't
know what that word was back then. Even though I
went to Catholic school for years, they didn't They didn't
teach us any of that stuff. And I never when
I got married, you come in as honor as a Catholic.
(17:46):
My wife when she was in bed and she had
something underneath, what are you doing? She had a rosary,
grabbed it through it across. We get that at you know, Sahgat.
I get out of here because I thought it was
like voodoo stuff. I didn't know it. I don't know anything,
but I do now.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, I can tell. So how did you prepare those
for this role? I mean, this has got it. There's
no more difficult role because you're not dealing with a
conflicted character. He's God, He's perfect. There's no obstacles really
except people in your case in the case of the passion,
they're throwing rocks at him. There people blocking them.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
But he's perfection.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
How do you approach that as an actor practically speaking.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Well, I'll tell you, but you know, he might not
like my answer when the answer is really simple. I
had the Bible. I read that I had as a Catholic,
we have sacraments as all Christians, we have some of
the same. Baptism the Rosary was an important weapon for
(18:55):
me because it was the Bible without being able to
read it. For example, you have the Annunciation, then the Visitation,
then the Nativity, then Simeon, and I'm contemplating, I see
the vision in my mind. I see it, and so
I was able to go there while I'm kind of
you go into a kind of a trance when you're filming,
(19:18):
and I had to because of the makeup times from
two in the morning till ten, from ten thirty to
four to thirty, I was frigging freezing. And every day
I went to confession. Because he's the Messiah, I can't
have any sin on him.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Other things that I mean, you personally couldn't have any
sin during that peer.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Of course, it was like a temple. Just keep my
temple as pure as I can, so that He could
come through me, and I would meditate on through the sacraments,
through the Eucharist, I would receive the Euchrist. So I
had Jesus in my body. I had the Rosary that
(19:56):
I was meditating, because look, I can't take the Bible
while I'm up on the passion holding it. My hands
are tied up and I couldn't count on my fingers
anymore because I couldn't feel him. And that was a
good thing, because this hurts so bad. And I was
tied so the shoulder kept you separated, your shoulders separated.
The shoulders was rols. So what I did was I
(20:17):
picked out eleven things. One guy was the our Father,
and then I would just look at ten things, so
our Father, and then Hail Mary, Hell Mary, Hall Mary,
and that I would start with the wedding all over again,
all over this, and that I would do the entire uh,
the sorrowful mysteries. That's what you did while you were
on the girls. I was doing that while I was
(20:38):
on the cross because the pain was excruciating, right, you
can't keep You had to go somewhere, and he took
me somewhere and I would start to because we were
so cold. They would take you down off the cross.
I'd go in into this cave and they had a
heater and the wind was just blowing and they couldn't
get me warm enough, and so I'd shaking. Now look
(21:01):
at this, when you have a torn shoulder and you're shaking,
that hurt. That hurts so bad. So the the then
the these heaters and the wind would come up, and
so the heater would be too far away. I'd tell
the move it closer. The wind would die down. It
started burning my legs. They had latex all over your
bodies that they build. Yeah, correct, they built because it's
(21:23):
scourging and everything. So that was the awful part about it.
And then again from lack of sleep is when the
infection started in my lungs and then I had double pneumonia.
I was on antibiotics the whole time, and then that's
when the aphibs started coming. And then I the last
shot of the movie, I got ripped right in half
(21:45):
from that lightning bolt. And then my then two heart surgeries.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
And you think that that's what contributed to the heart problems.
Lightning strike and the hypothermia and the and the.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well that was a phib. When I was on the cross,
the doctor put the stepth of scope on my heart
and he turned to Melanie said he could die because
he's listening to fluid in my lungs and he's also
listening to a.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Herd in the hypothermy when you were going through a hypothermia.
But remember this, I'm not getting sleep, right, I remember.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah, So from two till ten, eight hours of makeup
at the worst parts, because we end up getting if
you ask Christian Tinsley, and this guy's a genius. Literally
he was able to start. We can do it quicker,
we can do it quicker. But I would literally they
made a cross on a if you watch the making
(22:39):
of you'll see across they had a bike seat. I
would sit on that, hold my head up here and
hold him. And I slept the whole time, just sitting
on that bike seat, just I couldn't couldn't stay awake.
Then I'd go in the chair. And as they were
building the beard, you know, because the beard had to
be built because the scourging, you know, right, So they
(23:01):
had to lay that in and it was hand down.
It took an hour. I loved it because this man
was massaging my face as I was sleeping, and then
you'd have someone to hold my head. I would just
sleep in the chair.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Well, I remember at the end. I remember being with
you at a time in Rome when you would come
back after that day and you were in the full
lateex the body, all the scourging, but you couldn't if
they took it off, it would take another eight hours
to reapply. So you slept with it, and I remember
(23:36):
you in the morning it was burning you and you
could they couldn't pull it off.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yes, it was started your skin. I did take it
a two hour after every day I would go in
the shower for two hours and they turn up really hot,
and I would start drinking tons of water, just drinking
drinking drinking water, and what in the heat would start
sweat and it would start to separate. And then Christian
(24:04):
Tinsley and his assistant would get in hazmat suits in
this big you know, like a regular shower you would
see in a locker room, and they start feeling peeling
it off, and then I had to put this appointment on.
All the rubbing caused the skin to you know, get
(24:25):
infections and get you know, it's just and.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
What do you think was the purpose of all of
that was that to bring you closer to the suffering
that he actually went through.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Oh, no doubt, no doubt, I mean it, you couldn't.
It took it physically, mentally, spiritually, at all three, all
three factors. It was constant torment and just that you're
going to fail. Just the fact that how am I
going to learn this aramaic? I don't have enough time
(24:56):
in day to even learn it. And and I come
home and you know, I would go get home and
I would go to the gym and I'd start doing
because I had to make sure that I had to
keep my legs strength up to be able to hold
myself up. All my weight went into one leg. So
(25:17):
you know, years of playing basketball and staying in a
defensive stance was really actually critical for this role because
all my weight went into one leg and I'd have
to hold it there for you know, twelve minutes. Every
time they had a mag then they'd bring the post
in and I try to you know, I'd stand up
and they'd have to undo me, and then they take
(25:40):
a break. And then because you know, the makeup. If
that falls apart, we use the day you lose. So
they had to keep it, preserve it. And so you know,
if you put that heater to close, you know it
destroyed the it melted, it would melt it.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
There's a moment in the Passion where you're carrying the
cross and it's on screen. Yeah, and you you stumble
with it. And I know you were suffering awful during
that shoot, but melt left a chunk of that in.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Where you hurt yourself. Yeah, bit through my mouth. You'll
see when I go down, I come up, you'll see
a stream of blood. I bit through my tongue and
my cheek. And he's got a high speed camera on. Yeah,
so it's just like a slow motion. But really it
went like that. And then I got up. But this
(26:38):
thing really got the shoulder separator. That really screwed me
up right there. That that was like, oh, so now
you're going into the crucifixion scenes and I don't know
if I could pull us off because of this, Yeah, this, this.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
That that hurt extending your arm.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
It's just from that point on it was all I
had a problem. And you know, I'm up there and
I'm naked, so I can't put a brace on, I
can't pull it in. And what happened was they tied
me up and so when that cross is bending, it
would go snap and it would throw that shoulder out.
So you know, the the idea that you and I
were talking one time, and it forced me into the
(27:19):
arms of my God because I had nowhere else to go.
I really it took me back to the movie theater.
It took me back to the whole life, which is I,
I'd like you to be an actor and I and
you felt this was the purpose. I Oh, what was
I was connected to was the fact that the moment
(27:41):
I learned how much he loved me, I was I
wanted to do it for him because I didn't feel
I deserved it, you know, none of us really do.
But the fact that he loved me like that he
knew who I was, and that that's what that was
my That was it. That was the whole deal for me.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
There was also a lot improvised on this movie. There
were moments that were not there. Tell me about the
merry moment, which is such a sweet and beautiful moment
where Jesus and Mary are together and it's really one
of the few light moments in the Passion, but it
wasn't originally there.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
So it was the very first scene I ever done
in Aramaic. And when I came in, Maya is so beautiful.
She came over and she starts speaking to me in Aramaic.
She goes right into the scene and I looked at
her and I wasn't used to her voice or anything.
We didn't even rehearse it. She went right into it
(28:39):
and we were doing the thing with the chairs and
sitting at the table, and then working with her, we
were able to find the you know, kind of lighter
moments of it when you look out and you know, roughness, fulfillment.
But it was brilliant that mel put those moments in
(29:01):
there to kind of lighten it up to well, brought
a humanity to it. Yes, they did. And then the
second part of that was like, okay, I forgot oh yeah,
we got to do the thing where we're walking away.
It's just so we did it for through four times
or whatever, and he goes, you know, can you just
(29:22):
do something you know kind of you know, give it
like a connection or whatever. I mean, it's just got
what come here, I'll show you you know, and I said, okay,
I just looked at it. Okay, go walk home. Down
she fan and she was like, hey, we're and I
was washed my hands and then went right to her
face immediately kissed her. And I was able to do
(29:44):
that like that because of how she wasn't when we met,
and there was something very endearing about her. And then
just and then up Mell was like you could hear this.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Meaning that good?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
That's the one that's the Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Do you are you excited.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Or worried about.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Being on set with my Morgenstern and getting back into
that particular toga again.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
You went through hell on the first movie Each Other? Yeah,
it was okay though, because it was part of the
purpose of why I was born, I take it very seriously.
A friend of mine made this for me in Magic Goya.
On one side, it's JC. On the other side it's
thirty three and I have five diamonds on it, and
(30:43):
my wife had three children. It's all of us. It's
a family, and on the top is Saint Benedict's medal.
It's a good war against Satan and the forces of evil,
and this is a this is a great weapon against evil.
(31:05):
I was I'm not a sheep. I was born to
be either a sheep dog that was a wolf, or
I'm a converted wolf. But I'm not a sheep. And
God is in my heart. And when you say evil,
I look at it because what's in me is greater
(31:26):
than that, and I know weapon against that evil. And
the films that we make are controlling the world's narrative.
And they did. The world didn't like this film, and
that's a good thing. So we did a good job.
And so now I get these bonus years. And I
(31:49):
had no idea, but the time after I was done,
it was done. But around twenty thirteen was the beginning.
On February twenty to feast of my we were at Disneyland.
It was my son's birthday. If he stayed, just sent
him for Francisco. And he came to me and he
showed me that you know, there's another one and it's coming.
(32:15):
And this was in twenty thirteen, so you think, okay,
well it's gonna be next year. Now it took me
out fifteen years. He told me to get this movie.
I came on real quick, but it was kind of
like fifty ten years, fifteen years when I started in
nineteen eighty eight to get me to two thousand and
(32:36):
two when we made it. It takes a while to
make these things, but it just takes the right time.
And only got what was the years Jim for the sequel.
So going back to years, but going back, why you know,
why was it this time? There's a reason for it
and I don't. I don't know. But am I scared? Yes?
(32:59):
But if I wasn't, I wouldn't want to work with
that actor because you're not ready.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And this is a war, a quick free flow before
we go back to Jim Cavizel in KYSH. You haven't
been paying attention. Suddenly everywhere you look there are faith
inflected films on streaming at the cineplex. Just this past weekend,
The King of Kings, an animated feature retelling the story
of Jesus, made nineteen million dollars in its opening weekend
(33:32):
and it was number two overall. The House of David
was one of Amazon's most watched series. There was a
film about the Virgin Mary on Netflix. There's another coming
to screens at the end of the year with Cavizl
as Herod. Incidentally, then there's the Chosen and of course,
the most anticipated Jesus film ever, Mel Gibson's Resurrection of
(33:52):
the Christ. What amazes me is the industry is always
aghast when these films turn up huge audiences in box office.
Ye of little faith, as John Irwin, the director, told
me on a recent episode, and you should go and
catch that episode. The challenge is to have the art
match the subject matter. And let's admit it, a lot
(34:15):
of what passes for faith based films has so much
cheese in it you'd swear it were sponsored by Valveda.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
A perfect person encounters a little problem, they pray to
God that everything turns out okay, and they're more perfect
by the end of the film. It's a hack of
a lot easier to hit those magical God tropes in
the same old way than to dig deep and break
new artistic ground and layer in human meaning and doubt
and conflict and suffering. The faith audience, as I've been
(34:47):
saying for years and years, is starving and malnourished. This
audience was exposed by Gibson twenty years ago when no
one saw religious epic coming, But audiences today want something
more than sand, sandals and saccharin. They want these films
to have human relationships they can relate to, suffering an
authentic recognition of the divine that they feel all around them,
(35:11):
a supernatural sense of good and evil that only the
best artists they're capable of summoning. What I fear is
that Hollywood will start green lighting all kinds of shlock
based on the successes of just a few films. By
the way, the crop of recent films, all these faith
based films you're seeing, they're only around because of the
(35:32):
success of Cavizl's Sound of Freedom a few summers ago,
when that blockbuster crashed in, Hollywood took notice and started
trying to reach that faith audience. It's a worthy pursuit,
but unless creators have real beliefs and an understanding of
the sensibilities of that audience, they'll never be able to
attract and hold them. Any Time you touch this kind
(35:53):
of supernaturally charged material, especially a story based in the scriptures,
there is a hard, hard path, a spiritual path that
accompanies it. It's a cross for those filmmakers, anybody involved,
and a reminder of the tracks you think you're walking
in and a remembrance of what happened to the first
(36:14):
guy who got up and told his audience stories or
parables that were filled with such truth they struck a
nerve and rattled consciences. It ain't for the fate of heart,
but those are the only stories that truly change lives
and the world. As you'll hear from Jim cavesl what
in your life helped you connect to the suffering of Jesus?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
What in my life?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yeah, I mean we all look to our own lives
to connect with these. When you're an actor, you're looking
when did I go through something that was like this,
was similar to this? Was there anything like that that
you connected with?
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yes, it's my core, yes, but it's just not something
I want to talk about publicly. But I would say
that it was during that time that I reached out
to God and said, please help me, and he did,
and he came in a way which he gave me
(37:15):
my purpose and if and I always I ask people,
you know, you don't ask for money, don't ask for power,
don't ask for any of that. Just ask for a
purpose and you may get those things anyway. But when
you are a steward of God, much as given much
as expected you. That's a huge responsibility. What did you
(37:37):
learn about Jesus in playing him that you didn't know
when this started? 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. You know the gifts that you have that
(37:58):
you Many people that go through their lives they never
know that they could have done something. I was if
I had my brothers, Well, if I didn't go to
the NBA, I wasn't good enough. But I was just
saying that if I had gone into West Point, I
would have been in Iraq, I would have.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
What did you learn about him when it was done Jesus' time? Yeah,
that you didn't know before. We always learned things when
you particularly when you play a character. You know people
more intimately after you play them than you do than
even a historian does, because you put them in your
soul in some ways.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Well, he was with me when I was on the cross.
The last I heard I had this internal internal lucution,
and he said, am I too close? And that's when
the doctor is putting the stethoscope on my heart? And
I could I was struggling, breathing, and I said, you're
not close enough. I cried when I said that, this
(39:01):
is at the end, and I was blue. My body
was you watch that movie. There's nothing fakery about that.
I was freaking. I was blue, uh, and I but
I was.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
I was.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I thought, you know, first the devil comes and he
takes away your your career, your your job, your your reputations,
ruined everything. But I thought, man if I died here, yeah,
how many pastors or you say? What will you say
to God? You know, when you're a red judgment. I
(39:35):
tried to play it. Yeah, yeah, I liked it, but
it that went right up to the electrocution, and I was,
I was eerie. There was no enjoyment of that process
because boom, I was. I got shot right out of
my body. I saw my back. I was not. I mean,
(39:55):
if these are my shoulders and this is my head.
I was at this angle, not this angle, but this angle,
looking at my shoulders, and then I was scared. And
then I'm looking at Yeah. Mcaleney walks over and he
springs an umbrella, umbrella, and I'm looking at his hand
and his hand explodes, sparks fly out of his hands
because another one boom. He got struck. Both of you
(40:16):
got struck, but this one went boom, and it was
like my head imploded and then exploded. I'm at the end.
I'm there's they had a medic truck. I'm in the
back of the medic truck. This is the end of
the movie. That's it. I'm in a medic truck and
the whole thing, and they're reading my heart and everything.
And then eventually the big surgery I had was well
(40:39):
when was at the Stanford doctor patch Walla. But then
doctor gillen Off and doctor Griffin at Cleveland Clinic saved
my life and two heart surgeries, yes, and a full full,
full on open heart, and they I came out of surgery.
I had the tubes, you know, and you're like, you know,
(41:00):
it's it's rough because you're you can't you can't talk
and you got all these tubes in your throat and everything,
and and all of a sudden boom, I It's like
someone took an egg and cracked it on on the
lower right side. It just I died right there.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Now.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Ma us'n coom oh. The and everything from that was
the put the Eucharist next to the camera. So I
went during the Last Supper. If you look in my eyes,
you'll see a camera and you'll see a Catholic priest
Folco sitting exposing the host. And how are you preparing
(41:45):
now for this resurrection?
Speaker 1 (41:50):
I mean, I'll return twenty years later to this world.
That really branded and marked your career.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
So I'm fifty seven, fifty six, I don't know, sixty five,
seventy four or not. But what's crazy about it is
just be the best you can at the age you're
at now. But it hurts a lot more. It's physically
a lot harder. You know, the joints that all the years.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
The good news is you don't have the beating, discouraging,
the cross. You don't have all of that in this movie.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
But there's a lot of wisdom left there and it's
where he needed me to be. Or he would have
done it earlier. He'd have done it right after the passion.
He would have said, let's do it. But they were
probably you know, I'm also when you're thirty three years old,
have you think you're going to be thirty three forever?
(42:42):
You always be this way or always be I don't
know why, But 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.
I was just reading see Us Lewis today the screwtape
(43:04):
Big Demons talking to Wormwood, and he says, those humans
they think they have control of twenty four hours a day.
What a bunch of idiots until the end and it's over,
and that's where they go, No, no, no, he's mine is.
I don't want it to get to that. I just
so maybe that's what Jesus taught you. You're not in command,
(43:24):
and the enormity of the physical suff I shouldn't be where.
They tasted a bit of it well, of course, but
it was enough to kill me. It was enough to
kill me. I mean, my heart shut off. The doctors
ran into the room and I watched them.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
I was.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Out of body experience. I watched the whole thing. I
told them that I watched all of you when you
were in the room when I was dead. And they,
you know, not all of them believe the way we believe.
But they were like they I could tell them everybody.
I told them what they were doing in the room.
I watched it and I felt the most peace, and
(44:03):
I felt the most love. And then they brought me
back and then I felt the most pain.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, then you got the most pain again. Then you're
back full circle.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Moment.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Look, this is we're coming up on Holy Week. This
is Holy Week when everybody spends a moment. Christians spend
time meditating on the sufferings of Jesus, the passion.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
When you look up at a crucifix in a church,
what goes through your mind? What do you see? I
remember how I used to look up. Now when I
look up, I go into him and I look out
all the time. What does it mean? Because it takes
(44:47):
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 look out, and I see I
feel what he feels, which is what people that don't
(45:09):
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
(45:32):
vision of Jesus. It was silhouetted it, but I can
see him and he was sitting in an Indian style
and he was very sad, and I said, what's wrong.
He said, he's 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.
(45:54):
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 said 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
(46:18):
turned to Marry and I said, alui me old mother, Dad,
completely different scene all the other takes, and that was
bit through my tongue, and I just said, this was
a fight from the get go, from thehold mother, I
make old things behold, I make all things new, and
(46:39):
that take my shoulders out. And I was like everything
I had, But I didn't make that face. I just
went into this, Oh my god, this hurts me and
it it. My arm went over and Mills said it
was like a precious child. I was in cruciating pain
to put my arm over. It was trying to find
(47:00):
a better position. And none of the other texts were
like that. Wow. So I said, okay, whatever it takes,
if it comes through that, the greatest things in life
come through these horrible pains that you have, and if
you just hang in there and you're ready to go
back down that path again. It I don't see it
(47:22):
the same way. It's a purpose. It's a the book,
the purpose driven life. That's what all those that's really
that somebody's of that book is the Saints. The lives
are the Saints. Isn't that the treasure?
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Though? That that That's what I could have asked them
for anything, but I wanted a purpose. What's different this
time for you? In your mind? I mean, obviously you're
not the suffering Jesus this time out.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
This is the resurrected Jesus, how do you approach that.
I read about it today in the screw tape letters
doing this recording. Don't worry about the future. The past
is dead, it's locked. The light coming through, the divine
light coming through in the present moment. Now we know
(48:11):
of eternity that's coming someday, but it's it's staying in this,
in this moment. It's hard to do. When you do that.
You know that one's coming, and I know the day
of Reckoning is coming. To do that film, but I'm not.
He's already putting the the devil is already doing and
what he has to do to me right now. Now
there's this protection there, but there's enough to where my coach,
(48:35):
god Father's son, Holy Spirit and all the heaven is
already guiding this right now. And so you're not worried,
of course I am. Yeah, that will never but I
was worried on the least one. Yeah, did I fail?
I will fail if it get if I get too
(48:58):
far out of all my skis. I have to really, really,
really stay in this moment.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
As we anticipate the resurrection. I was surprised.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
I want to enjoy this one more than I did
the other one, I got too far over my skis.
On the other one, I was concerned that it was
not an aramaic you know, I said, we're not doing this. Well,
that was a different world. But trust, I really do
trust what mel ads. Just because I don't do it
(49:32):
in or make doesn't mean Jesus goes away through the
sacraments is I won't do it without the sacraments. And
that's that's everything. Every day it's the Sacraments. But I
love that.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
I've never heard you say that before. I'm looking I hope,
I'm looking forward to enjoying this one more.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yes, yeah, so really experiencing the resurrection because you know
you're not going to get this many shots. You know,
I'm never going to get another shot at this again.
And I remember somebody telling me you should take a journal.
I said, my journal is right here. I remember at all,
but I wish I had, you know, documented some of
(50:13):
the stuff that I went through that you know, well,
now you get another chance.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Yeah, tell me about zero A D. You're playing King HEROD. Yeah,
you're in prosthetics for this role.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah. It was four or five hours every day and
that was the key to it. Oh yeah, you saw
yourself and that was it. Yeah, it was I knew
he was aramic and they were like, well, he's kind
of I said, no, this is how he's because they
were doing that freaking accent today I don't know. And
I was like, look, nobody here can do aramic like
(50:47):
I could do well, but I know how to do it.
And I said, this is an aramaic to him. Okay.
He said, well he's got this that. I said, yeah,
because he had. He would be meeting with this king
over here from Egypt, from right all these other air is,
so he wouldn't have he wouldn't sound like any of
these guys from a local town. He would be a king.
And when I first started, I was, you know, Richard
(51:11):
Harris was a great athlete, okay, and Brando was a
great you know, very athletic. Russell Crowe, very athletic. And
I said I think that you know, this guy was
a great herod was a great athlete. And then what
sin does to you, It just starts you, It destroys you.
And and I love history. I love the stories of
(51:35):
you know what, what what made those people change? And
what the devil had planned? This guy was going to
stop it at all costs. Nobody's going to get through
this guy. And what they did on Bethlehem was nothing
short of pure genocide like the Nazis. It was well orchestrated,
(51:58):
well done, and he saw to it to make sure
it was done. And where he was I think he
was like the head guy in Galilee. He'd done such
a great job with the shipping and the money. He said,
is family. Yes, it was like you're moving. He was
on a fast track. Now. His father was murdered and
(52:20):
taken out by a group of faction, and he moved fast.
And he's removed all of these and he ended.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
And he was a great builder. They didn't call him
heard the grade for nothing.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
That's right. He returned it was putting it back to
its old glory. So he understood the people and what
would keep him in power and also the factions of individuals.
That why those other kingdoms and areas Masada had to
be built for him to protect him, to protect what
were they?
Speaker 1 (52:47):
They were fortresses that he could run to.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
He needed to este based out. Amazing.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
Okay, I got to ask you my royal grande questions
that I ask everybody.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
You're ready, He's a rapid fire. I'm not good at that.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Will be who's the person you most admire?
Speaker 2 (53:03):
My wife? Why this is my life pillar? As though
it's not even have to think about that? See that
was a bad question.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Well I'm starting easy.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
I'm not good at the who's the person you most despise?
I've forgiven them another good answer?
Speaker 1 (53:23):
What is your best feature?
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Feature? Yeah? Passion, passion? Passion? Yeah, I thought feature, not
feature film.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
What's your best feature as a person, as a as
an actor?
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Isn't that a feature? It can be anything.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
It could be a quality, it could be a physical trait.
What's your best feature?
Speaker 2 (53:48):
I don't know. I haven't thought about it.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
You know what people would say, your eyes they're older,
but that's probably what they would say, is your best feature?
Speaker 2 (53:59):
But they're smiling.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
What depends on if you're the guy you just forgave
or not?
Speaker 2 (54:03):
I guess I rish eyes or smile? You know it
goes well, they must be up to something exactly exactly. Okay,
Well what do you fear? Well? The first thing is
is is resurrection the film the greatest fear? Really? Oh yeah,
(54:28):
anything can go on that. But you got to remember,
though it's I was born to do so. But greatest
fear I worry my children, my my family. You know
I'm not the I'm a good husband, good father, I'm
not the best father I want to be. I'm one
(54:48):
of the best husband I want to be. You know
those are those are other things, but I do love
them deeply. What is the thing you know that no
one else knows? I've heard other actors say it before.
You know you're going to fail. You know that it
(55:10):
might be the great a gift that you have, but
you're always concerned about that. I just outwork everybody. I
think that's a big thing, is that I have to
out work on it and then the gift takes over
from there.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
What's your favorite book.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
The one I'm doing right now is Screwtape Letters. It's
what I'm into.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
It's a lot of fun, it's book and it's very wise.
Speaker 2 (55:37):
Well it's very wise, but it's getting me ready for
the Resurrection. Oh. I'm really studying it. So I'm breaking
it apart and going through it and getting into the
thoughts of evil, you know, the antithesis of what I'm
going to be playing. And there's something how Jesus works
(56:00):
is so simple there's a reason why I'm doing it,
and it's during Lent. I'm fasting. Even though you and
I are going to go to a nice restaurant after this,
I'm not going to have any wine.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Oh okay, well maybe we won't be going to dinner.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
What is your biggest regret. I don't really have any.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
You don't have a professional regret. No, a role you
should have taken.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
No, because there were reasons for it at the time.
They've worked out, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
For me, you know, no regrets.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
I would have had a major regret if I had
not married my wife. That would have been and that
almost happened. You know, I threw it away, and.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
But I.
Speaker 2 (56:44):
My soul was enough pointed in the right direction where
something from above said, you know, gave me a bit
of a broken heart and said she was in the
plan for you. Get back there, dummy, And I did.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
What's the best piece of it vice you ever got?
Speaker 2 (57:02):
I was talking to this this old priest and he says, Jim,
don't start any new addictions, and so I never did. Well,
that's a good.
Speaker 1 (57:13):
Piece of advice. What about the old addictions? They're there,
but don't add on to him, don't add on to it.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
Well, because you know, you think about it, like some
people get into drugs and they go just one time.
But if I think you measure that, you go, what
if I become so addicted to it, how's that going
to change my life? Well, just look at the people
that they couldn't get rid of it. I was working
on a movie called Pay It Forward, and I went
(57:45):
down to First Avenue and I was with the people
that were heroin addictions and they're all going to die.
And the man that was working with me was he
looked like he was in a concentration camp. He was
just getting bone, and he was teaching me how to
put the out looks. And I watched all of them.
(58:11):
But I hear people talking about all the time when
they say this is a pay it forward program or
we're going to pay it forward, and what. Yeah, I
was in that movie. I played a heroin addict and
I think of that guy, and so I always pray
for him when this is over. What happens again? Now
(58:32):
I'm thinking way too far out. I want to enjoy
the process. I'm so happy that my children get to see,
you know, their father at work. And but it's the
continual thing. I'm not going to buy Jesus. I need
him to play me. It's the only white way that
(58:53):
this thing is going to work.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
But what happens when this is over.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
When this is over, who knows if I'm still an actor,
you know, if I can't get a job, just be
a dad and be a husband, Maybe play a little golf.
Speaker 1 (59:13):
We're going to go out to dinner. That's what happens
when this is over.
Speaker 2 (59:17):
Thank you, Jim.
Speaker 1 (59:20):
Here's the hole what you and I can take from
Jim Cavizl's path. Two things jumped out of me. The
physical discipline he imposes on himself and the spiritual discipline,
which he credits for his greatest performances. No matter what
you're doing, The discipline of pushing yourself, maintaining these bodies
the only instruments we really have, and then spending time
(59:42):
with God to figure out what he's calling you to
and how you get there. Those elements are critical.
Speaker 2 (59:50):
It's not just for.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
Actors playing Jesus. God can play you too. The hardest part,
I guess is the mystery of suffering that Jim has
certainly tasted. We all experience when striving to do great things.
The hardship at times redirects and deepens our work.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
I think for the better.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
It certainly purifies your intentions and maybe that's why it's
there in the first place. I also like that he
didn't pray for things, but for purpose. That is fantastic advice.
Thank you for spending time with us. I hope you'll
come back to Royo Grande soon. Why live a dry,
constricted trickle of a life when if you fill it
(01:00:29):
with good things, it can flow into a broad, driving
Arroyo Grande. Thanks for being with us. I'm Raymond Arroyo.
Happy Easter and make sure to subscribe and like this episode.
Thanks for diving in. We'll see you next time. Arroyo
Grande is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is
available on YouTube, the iHeartRadio, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm rating to Royo. Welcome to a Royal Grande. This
is an exclusive a lot of you have been asking
for and look I aim to please. He's an actor
whose intense performances have moved audiences for decades. He burst
onto screens in The Thin Red Line and then from
the Countermanty Christo to the Passion of the Christ. Jim
(00:32):
cavizl leaves a deep impression on every role he touches.
His Sound of Freedom was the breakout hit that made
more than two hundred and fifty million dollars at the
box office and shook the industry. And now he's poised
to play Jesus again in Mel Gibson's sequel to The Passion.
By the way, go subscribe to a Royal Grande show
(00:54):
right now on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts
and turn the notifications on. I don't want you to
miss an episode like this one. Jim Cavizil sat down
with me to discuss how he is preparing to step
into the sandals of the Savior once more, how this
will be different for him and his personal life, his career,
and much more.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Watch.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I want to start with where this acting thing came.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
From probably junior High. I was well, I was I
was impersonating everybody that I saw, from Christopher Walking to
Eddie Murphy and who was kind of a knack. And
people would say, gosh, she should get into acting. And
he'd be around your family and impersonating people and say
that's really good. Actually, And I was doing a Christmas
(01:41):
play at Immaculate Conception School in Notunt Vernon and there
was a character named Simeon in the play and it
was had a lot of lines. The music teacher was like,
it was kind of pushing me to do it. So
I ended up doing it, and just we're getting to
the end of the play, the there was a piece
(02:03):
in there the Lord is My Shepherd, and I just
went into a zone and people were crying in the audience.
And afterwards the people would say you should be an actor,
and the nuns were saying you should be a priest.
And two things I said. I do not want to
(02:25):
be as actor or a priest. I don't want to
be an NBA basketball player. But God had other plans. Yeah,
of course.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Tell me about the movie theater incident you go to see.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Was it Hoosiers? What was the movie. That movie was
a Ghost. Oh it was Ghost. Every day I would
go and work on I would chart all my basketball
shots and different things like that. And afterwards, I walked
down the College Way and there was a Cinema five
theater and I went in and watched Ghost several times,
and at presence landed outside the movie theater, I knew
(03:02):
it was God. It was a thousand yards away. I
don't know why until I did the passion that happened.
Something similar happened, but it was a thousand yards away.
Your soul has this kind of knowledge, and it came
into the theater and presence came over me, and it
was like I was God's only child, that he loved
(03:27):
me that much, and I couldn't believe he loved me
that much. And then went from love to peace. And then
there was a voice and I heard it and he said,
I'd like you to be an actor exactly that I
left an indelible mark on my heart. How were you?
That was nineteen, I mean I was flirting with it now.
(03:47):
Around those time was I had gotten my screen Actor's
Guild card with the Gus Vans movie and I was
a ticket taker and.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
I faked out the I have had Idaho, which I
did not know you were in until this week.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, I saw the images. I was just a ticket taker,
but I didn't. They don't give you the script, They
just see if you could. But I pretended that I
was Italian and I faked it, and I and I was.
It was a terrible accent. But if you believe when
you're speaking and you're convincing, and people go, oh, he
must be familiarly, you know. So they believed it and
(04:26):
it got the part until the casting director called me.
She says, I'm calling for Jim Cavizel and I said, yeah,
this is me, and it was no, this is not
Jim Cavizel and I said, oh, yeah it is. And
she says, you liar, Oh, because they thought you were
Italian and I said no, I was acting. Yeah, and
so but anyway, they cast me and they used me
(04:47):
without the Italian accent.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
And and you shared screen time with Keanu and River Phoenix.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, spend a little time with them.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, that's that stunned me when I saw that. Tell
me about the dean who was your manager, whom we
know the way we met was Beverly Dan. Tell me
about her. I know, she managed your career really up
until the passion.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I met Beverly through a co management deal with a
woman named Bev Cheney. She's the one that saw me
in Seattle, I say, and she said, young man, I
think you're going to be a star, okay, And she
put me in a car with another guy named Brendan
Fraser and we would drive down to auditions together. We
(05:30):
flew to audition for General Hospital with Jeanie Francis. Both
him and I neither one of us got it.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
But he's from Washington State as well.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, I think he's Canadian at some point, but he
went to Cornish Institute, I believe. So anyway, I came
to LA and Beverly was this woman who did the
you know she if you read about her, it's really fascinating.
But she worked for ABC as a psychic and she
(06:03):
picked the whole schedule for ABC and she got blacklisted.
And anyway, I was down there and she could pick
talent and she had me on taking this young girl
to auditions and it was Reese Witherspoon. So I was
kind of a you know, a chow for for a
lot of stars at that time. Future stars. But she
(06:28):
always believed in me, and you know, uh and I
at some point I auditioned for Juilliard and got in,
and then I really started belief. You know, I think
I can do this. I really think that this is
a gift. Well you turned it down.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You turned Juilliard down because you got a film gig.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
No. No, they gave me a well no, I asked
them for a deferment. If Juilliard said no one or
the other, I would have gone to Juilliard. And I
did the movie with Kevin Costner to play his little brother.
But it gave me sixteen twenty weeks on a movie
where you know, I was able to put some cash
in my pocket. And then I got a full scholarship
(07:09):
to Juilliard. And then Juilliard renigged on their degreement. Michael
Kahn at of the school. What it did was, I said,
if I'm not famous in four years, I'm out. I'm done.
Right at the tail end, there was the thin red line.
And when Julliard were nigged down their agreement with me.
John Kirby, my acting teacher, and Beverly, both of them
(07:31):
were Catholic. We went to Mass together and it's important
because you know, there's a lot of things that young
actors can get involved in. It Drugs is just the
beginning of it. And you know, they were going to
clubs and they were the poor guys like me, or
guys that had a lot of money that were on
(07:52):
Beverly Hills nine on TU and O or those shows.
And that was it. So it was ten years of
just you know, barely getting by. But Julliard did something
to me. It lit a fire. I said, okay, I'm
going to be famous in four years. So what I
would do is I'd get up in the morning, I
would go to Mass at six thirty, got out of
(08:14):
six thirty Mass and went right direct to Loyla Marrimount
University where I was working out with the basketball players
because remember I played all right, so these guys are
working on going the NBA and got to play with
some phenomenal great players. But that level of intensity and
discipline and discipline goes on to you. So first was
(08:36):
the spirit, the soul, the Eucharist. Second was you know,
the training physical, and then the third is the mental,
which was the acting that I was working on. You know,
how did you meet Terry Mallock? Well, remember I was
going to Mass. So my wife we married, and she
taught me how to do the rosary. Now, I went
(08:57):
to Catholic school for many years to do it. They
didn't teach us. I didn't know what the transubstantiation was.
I learned that when I was around thirty. Obviously the
Rosary is powerful because it's through Jesus to marry to Jesus.
But it's Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It's the Gospels,
it's the story and much you're meditating. Owners you're meditating,
(09:19):
but you're I'm meditating on the Gospels. And also you
know why am I here? What's the purpose? And everything
like that, and if you go back to the movie theater,
I had a strong premonition that this was that moment.
Right now, everything was on it, and I'm I get
out of the car and I went I didn't do
my rosary, and I went, Okay, that's not gonna be
(09:41):
a good thing. So I went boom. I went back
and I did the whole rosary. But now now about
fifteen minutes late, and I did that as about as fast
as I could. I go to the house, knock on
the door, and this maid answers the doorbell, and on
her neck is a miraculous medal, so I knew. I
was like, oh cool, you know, because a lot of
people there are not you know, they're kind of uppity,
(10:02):
and say they are. And so you go in and sure,
here she is and I said, oh yeah, mak smell
in your neck. And I said you're Catholic and she says, no,
I'm not Episcopalian. Come on in. So we come in
and we're talking about this and that. And I had
my wife's grandmother's rosary on me and that was the
(10:26):
rosary I prayed, and I said, here, this is for you,
and she couldn't believe I gave it to her. And
she starts crying. And then Terry Mellick goes in and
he goes, honey, what's wrong. Well occurs to me, the saint,
the mate, it's his wife, and then it's a rosary
in between us, and you know, she's crying and I
and I said, why'd you do that? I said, I
(10:47):
don't know. She said, well, I lost my rosary that
mother Teresa gave me from a friend of mine, and
I pray that I would get another one. And you
just so it was a miracle.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
You said to me that Terry Malick is your father
in film. Yes, what did you learn from him? What
did you take from him in that first in Red Line?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Terry Malick is a big ruth, is a generational player.
Michael Jordan is a generational player. I've worked with two
generational directors in my opinion of a lot of good ones,
but I would say Mel Gibson and Terry Malick, it's
my father in film because he's a man that could
have gone by a way of the world and done
(11:30):
a lot of that. He seemed to hold on to
his scruples, his values. He's still extremely private and you
know what, you really kind of have to be and
in a lot of ways he'd like to be an
open book. I think you can be, but you got
to be an open book to certain people, and you
got to keep that circle of trust pretty close.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I don't want to pass by Count Monte Christia, which
was so's a great, beautiful film in many ways and
was a statement of faith because, as you said, it
was true to what Dumas wrote. Ultimately, But you worked
with Richard Harris, what was that like? What effect did
he have on you?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
He opened up a side of himself of God. He
plays the priest in the movie. And we were going
through back and forth on the scene where his death scene,
and I said, God saith vengeance is mine and Kevin says,
don't say that, and Richard liked that, and so he
wrote that and said, Dantes, now your final lesson, do
not commit the crime. You know, serve the sentence for
(12:37):
remember God saith vengeance is mine. And I said, and
I just looked at him how he did it, and
I just gave myself to the scene and I just
lost it. It kind of hit me as a part
in your life where I had no God, I didn't
feel like I had. I had a hole in my
heart and it just came out. And he says, it
(12:58):
doesn't matter, and I said, even Maces doesn't matter. He
believes in you. And wow, it wasn't written that way,
you know, it was just and you're learning a lot
kind of on the job, and a great actor like
him when they sees that those guys have always you know,
(13:19):
at some points I'd keep working. That was very special.
What we did.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
In fact, he said, what you and I did, Jim
was absolutely brilliant. If you go down to Malta and
f it up like Oliver did, because they did. Oliver
died down there, you know, Oliver Reid and I was
in the bar a joke. We were in there and
Carrie the guy goes, yeah, Oliver Reed died right there.
(13:45):
And this was like three days later after having this
scene with Richard. We were in Malta. It was like
he died right and Richard had just told me this.
And then we were working on the Passion and my
hair person had Richard Harris on the.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Phone and he's like, what are you doing? Now are
you guys doing because we were.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Getting just pummabled at that point. Yeah, I want to
get to that in a second. Let's go back to
the beginning of that story.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Sure, Mel approaches you not to play.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Jesus or or in a movie called The Passion. He
approaches you about a surfer movie. Yes, and you go
and meet he and Steve.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Mcavidie out here. Yes, in Malibourne. Yeah, yeah, there is
a store who was down on Canaan had burned down. Well,
actually they're building it back up again. But I was
just supposed to meet mcaviatie, who's Male's producer, they did
Braveheart together, and Steve shows up and he's got a
(14:52):
book on Mavericks. It's a big wave. I think Tom
Hanks was going to be involved in it somehow, producing
or whatever. So I read the script and I think
Kevin Reynolds was getting directed. Who did Money Crystal with me?
I'd never served before, but I thought, I could, you know,
probably do pretty good here. But anyway, the script wasn't
(15:14):
there yet. I didn't know. Back then I would read
it as it is. I could not. It was the
next ten years that I started learning how to massagic
the things. Something going Okay, it's not there, but there
could be something there. I couldn't do it back then,
i'd read it. I made some decisions where I can't
(15:35):
believe I turned that movie down. How'd you turn it down?
I said, well, that script wasn't there when I read it,
you know, And I eventually did get there with some
other actors. You put the right people in and get
it there. Well, your meeting with Steve shows up, and
probably forty minutes into the meeting, Mel Gibson shows up
and Mel, I'm Mel, was like right here, Steve's here,
(16:00):
and I'm there, and we were talking about surfing movies
and everything, and then it pivots into christ movies. You know,
Jesus movies. Well, it's not a surfing movie and it's
not Jesus on his surfboard, right, how's that gonna work?
And I just went and now I go back when
(16:23):
I'm nineteen years old in the movie theater and I went,
oh my god. I mean, I'm not blaspheming God, I'm
not taking his name in vain. I literally said, oh
my god, this is it. And I said, you want
me to play Jesus, don't you? And just honest, and
(16:44):
he just went. He was smoking a cigarette at the time.
He doesn't even smoke anymore, but back back then, he
just went. I thought he almost swallowed me. And he goes, yeah,
he put his head down. Yeah. And I said, okay,
I'm in. And because of the movie theater, I said,
I'm supposed to. I don't need anybody to tell.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Me whether, no script, no outline age, nothing.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I didn't ask Beverly, I didn't ask anybody else. I
said I'm in. Yes. He called me at home two
days later and he goes, you really want to do
If you do this movie, you may have a work
in this town again, and.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
I went, why what are they talking about? I mean, no,
what I wanted to make was what really happened.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
So I was okay with that, but I didn't realized
because I really didn't know my faith much at that time.
I remember, I tell you, at that point, I didn't
even know if you said what transubstantiation was. I didn't
know what that word was back then. Even though I
went to Catholic school for years, they didn't They didn't
teach us any of that stuff. And I never when
I got married, you come in as honor as a Catholic.
(17:46):
My wife when she was in bed and she had
something underneath, what are you doing? She had a rosary,
grabbed it through it across. We get that at you know, Sahgat.
I get out of here because I thought it was
like voodoo stuff. I didn't know it. I don't know anything,
but I do now.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, I can tell. So how did you prepare those
for this role? I mean, this has got it. There's
no more difficult role because you're not dealing with a
conflicted character. He's God, He's perfect. There's no obstacles really
except people in your case in the case of the passion,
they're throwing rocks at him. There people blocking them.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
But he's perfection.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
How do you approach that as an actor practically speaking.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Well, I'll tell you, but you know, he might not
like my answer when the answer is really simple. I
had the Bible. I read that I had as a Catholic,
we have sacraments as all Christians, we have some of
the same. Baptism the Rosary was an important weapon for
(18:55):
me because it was the Bible without being able to
read it. For example, you have the Annunciation, then the Visitation,
then the Nativity, then Simeon, and I'm contemplating, I see
the vision in my mind. I see it, and so
I was able to go there while I'm kind of
you go into a kind of a trance when you're filming,
(19:18):
and I had to because of the makeup times from
two in the morning till ten, from ten thirty to
four to thirty, I was frigging freezing. And every day
I went to confession. Because he's the Messiah, I can't
have any sin on him.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Other things that I mean, you personally couldn't have any
sin during that peer.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Of course, it was like a temple. Just keep my
temple as pure as I can, so that He could
come through me, and I would meditate on through the sacraments,
through the Eucharist, I would receive the Euchrist. So I
had Jesus in my body. I had the Rosary that
(19:56):
I was meditating, because look, I can't take the Bible
while I'm up on the passion holding it. My hands
are tied up and I couldn't count on my fingers
anymore because I couldn't feel him. And that was a
good thing, because this hurts so bad. And I was
tied so the shoulder kept you separated, your shoulders separated.
The shoulders was rols. So what I did was I
(20:17):
picked out eleven things. One guy was the our Father,
and then I would just look at ten things, so
our Father, and then Hail Mary, Hell Mary, Hall Mary,
and that I would start with the wedding all over again,
all over this, and that I would do the entire uh,
the sorrowful mysteries. That's what you did while you were
on the girls. I was doing that while I was
(20:38):
on the cross because the pain was excruciating, right, you
can't keep You had to go somewhere, and he took
me somewhere and I would start to because we were
so cold. They would take you down off the cross.
I'd go in into this cave and they had a
heater and the wind was just blowing and they couldn't
get me warm enough, and so I'd shaking. Now look
(21:01):
at this, when you have a torn shoulder and you're shaking,
that hurt. That hurts so bad. So the the then
the these heaters and the wind would come up, and
so the heater would be too far away. I'd tell
the move it closer. The wind would die down. It
started burning my legs. They had latex all over your
bodies that they build. Yeah, correct, they built because it's
(21:23):
scourging and everything. So that was the awful part about it.
And then again from lack of sleep is when the
infection started in my lungs and then I had double pneumonia.
I was on antibiotics the whole time, and then that's
when the aphibs started coming. And then I the last
shot of the movie, I got ripped right in half
(21:45):
from that lightning bolt. And then my then two heart surgeries.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
And you think that that's what contributed to the heart problems.
Lightning strike and the hypothermia and the and the.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well that was a phib. When I was on the cross,
the doctor put the stepth of scope on my heart
and he turned to Melanie said he could die because
he's listening to fluid in my lungs and he's also
listening to a.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Herd in the hypothermy when you were going through a hypothermia.
But remember this, I'm not getting sleep, right, I remember.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah, So from two till ten, eight hours of makeup
at the worst parts, because we end up getting if
you ask Christian Tinsley, and this guy's a genius. Literally
he was able to start. We can do it quicker,
we can do it quicker. But I would literally they
made a cross on a if you watch the making
(22:39):
of you'll see across they had a bike seat. I
would sit on that, hold my head up here and
hold him. And I slept the whole time, just sitting
on that bike seat, just I couldn't couldn't stay awake.
Then I'd go in the chair. And as they were
building the beard, you know, because the beard had to
be built because the scourging, you know, right, So they
(23:01):
had to lay that in and it was hand down.
It took an hour. I loved it because this man
was massaging my face as I was sleeping, and then
you'd have someone to hold my head. I would just
sleep in the chair.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Well, I remember at the end. I remember being with
you at a time in Rome when you would come
back after that day and you were in the full
lateex the body, all the scourging, but you couldn't if
they took it off, it would take another eight hours
to reapply. So you slept with it, and I remember
(23:36):
you in the morning it was burning you and you
could they couldn't pull it off.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yes, it was started your skin. I did take it
a two hour after every day I would go in
the shower for two hours and they turn up really hot,
and I would start drinking tons of water, just drinking
drinking drinking water, and what in the heat would start
sweat and it would start to separate. And then Christian
(24:04):
Tinsley and his assistant would get in hazmat suits in
this big you know, like a regular shower you would
see in a locker room, and they start feeling peeling
it off, and then I had to put this appointment on.
All the rubbing caused the skin to you know, get
(24:25):
infections and get you know, it's just and.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
What do you think was the purpose of all of
that was that to bring you closer to the suffering
that he actually went through.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Oh, no doubt, no doubt, I mean it, you couldn't.
It took it physically, mentally, spiritually, at all three, all
three factors. It was constant torment and just that you're
going to fail. Just the fact that how am I
going to learn this aramaic? I don't have enough time
(24:56):
in day to even learn it. And and I come
home and you know, I would go get home and
I would go to the gym and I'd start doing
because I had to make sure that I had to
keep my legs strength up to be able to hold
myself up. All my weight went into one leg. So
(25:17):
you know, years of playing basketball and staying in a
defensive stance was really actually critical for this role because
all my weight went into one leg and I'd have
to hold it there for you know, twelve minutes. Every
time they had a mag then they'd bring the post
in and I try to you know, I'd stand up
and they'd have to undo me, and then they take
(25:40):
a break. And then because you know, the makeup. If
that falls apart, we use the day you lose. So
they had to keep it, preserve it. And so you know,
if you put that heater to close, you know it
destroyed the it melted, it would melt it.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
There's a moment in the Passion where you're carrying the
cross and it's on screen. Yeah, and you you stumble
with it. And I know you were suffering awful during
that shoot, but melt left a chunk of that in.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Where you hurt yourself. Yeah, bit through my mouth. You'll
see when I go down, I come up, you'll see
a stream of blood. I bit through my tongue and
my cheek. And he's got a high speed camera on. Yeah,
so it's just like a slow motion. But really it
went like that. And then I got up. But this
(26:38):
thing really got the shoulder separator. That really screwed me
up right there. That that was like, oh, so now
you're going into the crucifixion scenes and I don't know
if I could pull us off because of this, Yeah, this, this.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
That that hurt extending your arm.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
It's just from that point on it was all I
had a problem. And you know, I'm up there and
I'm naked, so I can't put a brace on, I
can't pull it in. And what happened was they tied
me up and so when that cross is bending, it
would go snap and it would throw that shoulder out.
So you know, the the idea that you and I
were talking one time, and it forced me into the
(27:19):
arms of my God because I had nowhere else to go.
I really it took me back to the movie theater.
It took me back to the whole life, which is I,
I'd like you to be an actor and I and
you felt this was the purpose. I Oh, what was
I was connected to was the fact that the moment
(27:41):
I learned how much he loved me, I was I
wanted to do it for him because I didn't feel
I deserved it, you know, none of us really do.
But the fact that he loved me like that he
knew who I was, and that that's what that was
my That was it. That was the whole deal for me.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
There was also a lot improvised on this movie. There
were moments that were not there. Tell me about the
merry moment, which is such a sweet and beautiful moment
where Jesus and Mary are together and it's really one
of the few light moments in the Passion, but it
wasn't originally there.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
So it was the very first scene I ever done
in Aramaic. And when I came in, Maya is so beautiful.
She came over and she starts speaking to me in Aramaic.
She goes right into the scene and I looked at
her and I wasn't used to her voice or anything.
We didn't even rehearse it. She went right into it
(28:39):
and we were doing the thing with the chairs and
sitting at the table, and then working with her, we
were able to find the you know, kind of lighter
moments of it when you look out and you know, roughness, fulfillment.
But it was brilliant that mel put those moments in
(29:01):
there to kind of lighten it up to well, brought
a humanity to it. Yes, they did. And then the
second part of that was like, okay, I forgot oh yeah,
we got to do the thing where we're walking away.
It's just so we did it for through four times
or whatever, and he goes, you know, can you just
(29:22):
do something you know kind of you know, give it
like a connection or whatever. I mean, it's just got
what come here, I'll show you you know, and I said, okay,
I just looked at it. Okay, go walk home. Down
she fan and she was like, hey, we're and I
was washed my hands and then went right to her
face immediately kissed her. And I was able to do
(29:44):
that like that because of how she wasn't when we met,
and there was something very endearing about her. And then
just and then up Mell was like you could hear this.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Meaning that good?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
That's the one that's the Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Do you are you excited.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Or worried about.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Being on set with my Morgenstern and getting back into
that particular toga again.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
You went through hell on the first movie Each Other? Yeah,
it was okay though, because it was part of the
purpose of why I was born, I take it very seriously.
A friend of mine made this for me in Magic Goya.
On one side, it's JC. On the other side it's
thirty three and I have five diamonds on it, and
(30:43):
my wife had three children. It's all of us. It's
a family, and on the top is Saint Benedict's medal.
It's a good war against Satan and the forces of evil,
and this is a this is a great weapon against evil.
(31:05):
I was I'm not a sheep. I was born to
be either a sheep dog that was a wolf, or
I'm a converted wolf. But I'm not a sheep. And
God is in my heart. And when you say evil,
I look at it because what's in me is greater
(31:26):
than that, and I know weapon against that evil. And
the films that we make are controlling the world's narrative.
And they did. The world didn't like this film, and
that's a good thing. So we did a good job.
And so now I get these bonus years. And I
(31:49):
had no idea, but the time after I was done,
it was done. But around twenty thirteen was the beginning.
On February twenty to feast of my we were at Disneyland.
It was my son's birthday. If he stayed, just sent
him for Francisco. And he came to me and he
showed me that you know, there's another one and it's coming.
(32:15):
And this was in twenty thirteen, so you think, okay,
well it's gonna be next year. Now it took me
out fifteen years. He told me to get this movie.
I came on real quick, but it was kind of
like fifty ten years, fifteen years when I started in
nineteen eighty eight to get me to two thousand and
(32:36):
two when we made it. It takes a while to
make these things, but it just takes the right time.
And only got what was the years Jim for the sequel.
So going back to years, but going back, why you know,
why was it this time? There's a reason for it
and I don't. I don't know. But am I scared? Yes?
(32:59):
But if I wasn't, I wouldn't want to work with
that actor because you're not ready.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And this is a war, a quick free flow before
we go back to Jim Cavizel in KYSH. You haven't
been paying attention. Suddenly everywhere you look there are faith
inflected films on streaming at the cineplex. Just this past weekend,
The King of Kings, an animated feature retelling the story
of Jesus, made nineteen million dollars in its opening weekend
(33:32):
and it was number two overall. The House of David
was one of Amazon's most watched series. There was a
film about the Virgin Mary on Netflix. There's another coming
to screens at the end of the year with Cavizl
as Herod. Incidentally, then there's the Chosen and of course,
the most anticipated Jesus film ever, Mel Gibson's Resurrection of
(33:52):
the Christ. What amazes me is the industry is always
aghast when these films turn up huge audiences in box office.
Ye of little faith, as John Irwin, the director, told
me on a recent episode, and you should go and
catch that episode. The challenge is to have the art
match the subject matter. And let's admit it, a lot
(34:15):
of what passes for faith based films has so much
cheese in it you'd swear it were sponsored by Valveda.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
A perfect person encounters a little problem, they pray to
God that everything turns out okay, and they're more perfect
by the end of the film. It's a hack of
a lot easier to hit those magical God tropes in
the same old way than to dig deep and break
new artistic ground and layer in human meaning and doubt
and conflict and suffering. The faith audience, as I've been
(34:47):
saying for years and years, is starving and malnourished. This
audience was exposed by Gibson twenty years ago when no
one saw religious epic coming, But audiences today want something
more than sand, sandals and saccharin. They want these films
to have human relationships they can relate to, suffering an
authentic recognition of the divine that they feel all around them,
(35:11):
a supernatural sense of good and evil that only the
best artists they're capable of summoning. What I fear is
that Hollywood will start green lighting all kinds of shlock
based on the successes of just a few films. By
the way, the crop of recent films, all these faith
based films you're seeing, they're only around because of the
(35:32):
success of Cavizl's Sound of Freedom a few summers ago,
when that blockbuster crashed in, Hollywood took notice and started
trying to reach that faith audience. It's a worthy pursuit,
but unless creators have real beliefs and an understanding of
the sensibilities of that audience, they'll never be able to
attract and hold them. Any Time you touch this kind
(35:53):
of supernaturally charged material, especially a story based in the scriptures,
there is a hard, hard path, a spiritual path that
accompanies it. It's a cross for those filmmakers, anybody involved,
and a reminder of the tracks you think you're walking
in and a remembrance of what happened to the first
(36:14):
guy who got up and told his audience stories or
parables that were filled with such truth they struck a
nerve and rattled consciences. It ain't for the fate of heart,
but those are the only stories that truly change lives
and the world. As you'll hear from Jim cavesl what
in your life helped you connect to the suffering of Jesus?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
What in my life?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yeah, I mean we all look to our own lives
to connect with these. When you're an actor, you're looking
when did I go through something that was like this,
was similar to this? Was there anything like that that
you connected with?
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yes, it's my core, yes, but it's just not something
I want to talk about publicly. But I would say
that it was during that time that I reached out
to God and said, please help me, and he did,
and he came in a way which he gave me
(37:15):
my purpose and if and I always I ask people,
you know, you don't ask for money, don't ask for power,
don't ask for any of that. Just ask for a
purpose and you may get those things anyway. But when
you are a steward of God, much as given much
as expected you. That's a huge responsibility. What did you
(37:37):
learn about Jesus in playing him that you didn't know
when this started? 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. You know the gifts that you have that
(37:58):
you Many people that go through their lives they never
know that they could have done something. I was if
I had my brothers, Well, if I didn't go to
the NBA, I wasn't good enough. But I was just
saying that if I had gone into West Point, I
would have been in Iraq, I would have.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
What did you learn about him when it was done Jesus' time? Yeah,
that you didn't know before. We always learned things when
you particularly when you play a character. You know people
more intimately after you play them than you do than
even a historian does, because you put them in your
soul in some ways.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Well, he was with me when I was on the cross.
The last I heard I had this internal internal lucution,
and he said, am I too close? And that's when
the doctor is putting the stethoscope on my heart? And
I could I was struggling, breathing, and I said, you're
not close enough. I cried when I said that, this
(39:01):
is at the end, and I was blue. My body
was you watch that movie. There's nothing fakery about that.
I was freaking. I was blue, uh, and I but
I was.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
I was.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I thought, you know, first the devil comes and he
takes away your your career, your your job, your your reputations,
ruined everything. But I thought, man if I died here, yeah,
how many pastors or you say? What will you say
to God? You know, when you're a red judgment. I
(39:35):
tried to play it. Yeah, yeah, I liked it, but
it that went right up to the electrocution, and I was,
I was eerie. There was no enjoyment of that process
because boom, I was. I got shot right out of
my body. I saw my back. I was not. I mean,
(39:55):
if these are my shoulders and this is my head.
I was at this angle, not this angle, but this angle,
looking at my shoulders, and then I was scared. And
then I'm looking at Yeah. Mcaleney walks over and he
springs an umbrella, umbrella, and I'm looking at his hand
and his hand explodes, sparks fly out of his hands
because another one boom. He got struck. Both of you
(40:16):
got struck, but this one went boom, and it was
like my head imploded and then exploded. I'm at the end.
I'm there's they had a medic truck. I'm in the
back of the medic truck. This is the end of
the movie. That's it. I'm in a medic truck and
the whole thing, and they're reading my heart and everything.
And then eventually the big surgery I had was well
(40:39):
when was at the Stanford doctor patch Walla. But then
doctor gillen Off and doctor Griffin at Cleveland Clinic saved
my life and two heart surgeries, yes, and a full full,
full on open heart, and they I came out of surgery.
I had the tubes, you know, and you're like, you know,
(41:00):
it's it's rough because you're you can't you can't talk
and you got all these tubes in your throat and everything,
and and all of a sudden boom, I It's like
someone took an egg and cracked it on on the
lower right side. It just I died right there.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Now.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Ma us'n coom oh. The and everything from that was
the put the Eucharist next to the camera. So I
went during the Last Supper. If you look in my eyes,
you'll see a camera and you'll see a Catholic priest
Folco sitting exposing the host. And how are you preparing
(41:45):
now for this resurrection?
Speaker 1 (41:50):
I mean, I'll return twenty years later to this world.
That really branded and marked your career.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
So I'm fifty seven, fifty six, I don't know, sixty five,
seventy four or not. But what's crazy about it is
just be the best you can at the age you're
at now. But it hurts a lot more. It's physically
a lot harder. You know, the joints that all the years.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
The good news is you don't have the beating, discouraging,
the cross. You don't have all of that in this movie.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
But there's a lot of wisdom left there and it's
where he needed me to be. Or he would have
done it earlier. He'd have done it right after the passion.
He would have said, let's do it. But they were
probably you know, I'm also when you're thirty three years old,
have you think you're going to be thirty three forever?
(42:42):
You always be this way or always be I don't
know why, But 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.
I was just reading see Us Lewis today the screwtape
(43:04):
Big Demons talking to Wormwood, and he says, those humans
they think they have control of twenty four hours a day.
What a bunch of idiots until the end and it's over,
and that's where they go, No, no, no, he's mine is.
I don't want it to get to that. I just
so maybe that's what Jesus taught you. You're not in command,
(43:24):
and the enormity of the physical suff I shouldn't be where.
They tasted a bit of it well, of course, but
it was enough to kill me. It was enough to
kill me. I mean, my heart shut off. The doctors
ran into the room and I watched them.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
I was.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Out of body experience. I watched the whole thing. I
told them that I watched all of you when you
were in the room when I was dead. And they,
you know, not all of them believe the way we believe.
But they were like they I could tell them everybody.
I told them what they were doing in the room.
I watched it and I felt the most peace, and
(44:03):
I felt the most love. And then they brought me
back and then I felt the most pain.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, then you got the most pain again. Then you're
back full circle.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Moment.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Look, this is we're coming up on Holy Week. This
is Holy Week when everybody spends a moment. Christians spend
time meditating on the sufferings of Jesus, the passion.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
When you look up at a crucifix in a church,
what goes through your mind? What do you see? I
remember how I used to look up. Now when I
look up, I go into him and I look out
all the time. What does it mean? Because it takes
(44:47):
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 look out, and I see I
feel what he feels, which is what people that don't
(45:09):
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
(45:32):
vision of Jesus. It was silhouetted it, but I can
see him and he was sitting in an Indian style
and he was very sad, and I said, what's wrong.
He said, he's 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.
(45:54):
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 said 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
(46:18):
turned to Marry and I said, alui me old mother, Dad,
completely different scene all the other takes, and that was
bit through my tongue, and I just said, this was
a fight from the get go, from thehold mother, I
make old things behold, I make all things new, and
(46:39):
that take my shoulders out. And I was like everything
I had, But I didn't make that face. I just
went into this, Oh my god, this hurts me and
it it. My arm went over and Mills said it
was like a precious child. I was in cruciating pain
to put my arm over. It was trying to find
(47:00):
a better position. And none of the other texts were
like that. Wow. So I said, okay, whatever it takes,
if it comes through that, the greatest things in life
come through these horrible pains that you have, and if
you just hang in there and you're ready to go
back down that path again. It I don't see it
(47:22):
the same way. It's a purpose. It's a the book,
the purpose driven life. That's what all those that's really
that somebody's of that book is the Saints. The lives
are the Saints. Isn't that the treasure?
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Though? That that That's what I could have asked them
for anything, but I wanted a purpose. What's different this
time for you? In your mind? I mean, obviously you're
not the suffering Jesus this time out.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
This is the resurrected Jesus, how do you approach that.
I read about it today in the screw tape letters
doing this recording. Don't worry about the future. The past
is dead, it's locked. The light coming through, the divine
light coming through in the present moment. Now we know
(48:11):
of eternity that's coming someday, but it's it's staying in this,
in this moment. It's hard to do. When you do that.
You know that one's coming, and I know the day
of Reckoning is coming. To do that film, but I'm not.
He's already putting the the devil is already doing and
what he has to do to me right now. Now
there's this protection there, but there's enough to where my coach,
(48:35):
god Father's son, Holy Spirit and all the heaven is
already guiding this right now. And so you're not worried,
of course I am. Yeah, that will never but I
was worried on the least one. Yeah, did I fail?
I will fail if it get if I get too
(48:58):
far out of all my skis. I have to really, really,
really stay in this moment.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
As we anticipate the resurrection. I was surprised.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
I want to enjoy this one more than I did
the other one, I got too far over my skis.
On the other one, I was concerned that it was
not an aramaic you know, I said, we're not doing this. Well,
that was a different world. But trust, I really do
trust what mel ads. Just because I don't do it
(49:32):
in or make doesn't mean Jesus goes away through the
sacraments is I won't do it without the sacraments. And
that's that's everything. Every day it's the Sacraments. But I
love that.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
I've never heard you say that before. I'm looking I hope,
I'm looking forward to enjoying this one more.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yes, yeah, so really experiencing the resurrection because you know
you're not going to get this many shots. You know,
I'm never going to get another shot at this again.
And I remember somebody telling me you should take a journal.
I said, my journal is right here. I remember at all,
but I wish I had, you know, documented some of
(50:13):
the stuff that I went through that you know, well,
now you get another chance.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Yeah, tell me about zero A D. You're playing King HEROD. Yeah,
you're in prosthetics for this role.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah. It was four or five hours every day and
that was the key to it. Oh yeah, you saw
yourself and that was it. Yeah, it was I knew
he was aramic and they were like, well, he's kind
of I said, no, this is how he's because they
were doing that freaking accent today I don't know. And
I was like, look, nobody here can do aramic like
(50:47):
I could do well, but I know how to do it.
And I said, this is an aramaic to him. Okay.
He said, well he's got this that. I said, yeah,
because he had. He would be meeting with this king
over here from Egypt, from right all these other air is,
so he wouldn't have he wouldn't sound like any of
these guys from a local town. He would be a king.
And when I first started, I was, you know, Richard
(51:11):
Harris was a great athlete, okay, and Brando was a
great you know, very athletic. Russell Crowe, very athletic. And
I said I think that you know, this guy was
a great herod was a great athlete. And then what
sin does to you, It just starts you, It destroys you.
And and I love history. I love the stories of
(51:35):
you know what, what what made those people change? And
what the devil had planned? This guy was going to
stop it at all costs. Nobody's going to get through
this guy. And what they did on Bethlehem was nothing
short of pure genocide like the Nazis. It was well orchestrated,
(51:58):
well done, and he saw to it to make sure
it was done. And where he was I think he
was like the head guy in Galilee. He'd done such
a great job with the shipping and the money. He said,
is family. Yes, it was like you're moving. He was
on a fast track. Now. His father was murdered and
(52:20):
taken out by a group of faction, and he moved fast.
And he's removed all of these and he ended.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
And he was a great builder. They didn't call him
heard the grade for nothing.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
That's right. He returned it was putting it back to
its old glory. So he understood the people and what
would keep him in power and also the factions of individuals.
That why those other kingdoms and areas Masada had to
be built for him to protect him, to protect what
were they?
Speaker 1 (52:47):
They were fortresses that he could run to.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
He needed to este based out. Amazing.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
Okay, I got to ask you my royal grande questions
that I ask everybody.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
You're ready, He's a rapid fire. I'm not good at that.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Will be who's the person you most admire?
Speaker 2 (53:03):
My wife? Why this is my life pillar? As though
it's not even have to think about that? See that
was a bad question.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Well I'm starting easy.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
I'm not good at the who's the person you most despise?
I've forgiven them another good answer?
Speaker 1 (53:23):
What is your best feature?
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Feature? Yeah? Passion, passion? Passion? Yeah, I thought feature, not
feature film.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
What's your best feature as a person, as a as
an actor?
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Isn't that a feature? It can be anything.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
It could be a quality, it could be a physical trait.
What's your best feature?
Speaker 2 (53:48):
I don't know. I haven't thought about it.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
You know what people would say, your eyes they're older,
but that's probably what they would say, is your best feature?
Speaker 2 (53:59):
But they're smiling.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
What depends on if you're the guy you just forgave
or not?
Speaker 2 (54:03):
I guess I rish eyes or smile? You know it
goes well, they must be up to something exactly exactly. Okay,
Well what do you fear? Well? The first thing is
is is resurrection the film the greatest fear? Really? Oh yeah,
(54:28):
anything can go on that. But you got to remember,
though it's I was born to do so. But greatest
fear I worry my children, my my family. You know
I'm not the I'm a good husband, good father, I'm
not the best father I want to be. I'm one
(54:48):
of the best husband I want to be. You know
those are those are other things, but I do love
them deeply. What is the thing you know that no
one else knows? I've heard other actors say it before.
You know you're going to fail. You know that it
(55:10):
might be the great a gift that you have, but
you're always concerned about that. I just outwork everybody. I
think that's a big thing, is that I have to
out work on it and then the gift takes over
from there.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
What's your favorite book.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
The one I'm doing right now is Screwtape Letters. It's
what I'm into.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
It's a lot of fun, it's book and it's very wise.
Speaker 2 (55:37):
Well it's very wise, but it's getting me ready for
the Resurrection. Oh. I'm really studying it. So I'm breaking
it apart and going through it and getting into the
thoughts of evil, you know, the antithesis of what I'm
going to be playing. And there's something how Jesus works
(56:00):
is so simple there's a reason why I'm doing it,
and it's during Lent. I'm fasting. Even though you and
I are going to go to a nice restaurant after this,
I'm not going to have any wine.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Oh okay, well maybe we won't be going to dinner.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
What is your biggest regret. I don't really have any.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
You don't have a professional regret. No, a role you
should have taken.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
No, because there were reasons for it at the time.
They've worked out, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
For me, you know, no regrets.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
I would have had a major regret if I had
not married my wife. That would have been and that
almost happened. You know, I threw it away, and.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
But I.
Speaker 2 (56:44):
My soul was enough pointed in the right direction where
something from above said, you know, gave me a bit
of a broken heart and said she was in the
plan for you. Get back there, dummy, And I did.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
What's the best piece of it vice you ever got?
Speaker 2 (57:02):
I was talking to this this old priest and he says, Jim,
don't start any new addictions, and so I never did. Well,
that's a good.
Speaker 1 (57:13):
Piece of advice. What about the old addictions? They're there,
but don't add on to him, don't add on to it.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
Well, because you know, you think about it, like some
people get into drugs and they go just one time.
But if I think you measure that, you go, what
if I become so addicted to it, how's that going
to change my life? Well, just look at the people
that they couldn't get rid of it. I was working
on a movie called Pay It Forward, and I went
(57:45):
down to First Avenue and I was with the people
that were heroin addictions and they're all going to die.
And the man that was working with me was he
looked like he was in a concentration camp. He was
just getting bone, and he was teaching me how to
put the out looks. And I watched all of them.
(58:11):
But I hear people talking about all the time when
they say this is a pay it forward program or
we're going to pay it forward, and what. Yeah, I
was in that movie. I played a heroin addict and
I think of that guy, and so I always pray
for him when this is over. What happens again? Now
(58:32):
I'm thinking way too far out. I want to enjoy
the process. I'm so happy that my children get to see,
you know, their father at work. And but it's the
continual thing. I'm not going to buy Jesus. I need
him to play me. It's the only white way that
(58:53):
this thing is going to work.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
But what happens when this is over.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
When this is over, who knows if I'm still an actor,
you know, if I can't get a job, just be
a dad and be a husband, Maybe play a little golf.
Speaker 1 (59:13):
We're going to go out to dinner. That's what happens
when this is over.
Speaker 2 (59:17):
Thank you, Jim.
Speaker 1 (59:20):
Here's the hole what you and I can take from
Jim Cavizl's path. Two things jumped out of me. The
physical discipline he imposes on himself and the spiritual discipline,
which he credits for his greatest performances. No matter what
you're doing, The discipline of pushing yourself, maintaining these bodies
the only instruments we really have, and then spending time
(59:42):
with God to figure out what he's calling you to
and how you get there. Those elements are critical.
Speaker 2 (59:50):
It's not just for.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
Actors playing Jesus. God can play you too. The hardest part,
I guess is the mystery of suffering that Jim has
certainly tasted. We all experience when striving to do great things.
The hardship at times redirects and deepens our work.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
I think for the better.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
It certainly purifies your intentions and maybe that's why it's
there in the first place. I also like that he
didn't pray for things, but for purpose. That is fantastic advice.
Thank you for spending time with us. I hope you'll
come back to Royo Grande soon. Why live a dry,
constricted trickle of a life when if you fill it
(01:00:29):
with good things, it can flow into a broad, driving
Arroyo Grande. Thanks for being with us. I'm Raymond Arroyo.
Happy Easter and make sure to subscribe and like this episode.
Thanks for diving in. We'll see you next time. Arroyo
Grande is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is
available on YouTube, the iHeartRadio, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Raymond Arroyo
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