Hero of the Week: July 10, 2023: Jim Caviezel

“We have to give up our names, our reputations, our lives to speak the truth.” ~ James Caviezel

Jim Caviezel was a devout Christian long before the 2004 filming of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, in which he played the role of Jesus. But some of the things that happened on the set during the filming were so unusual—and the intensity of the role was so profound—that he emerged a different man.

Three times during the filming of The Passion of the Christ, a person on the set was struck by lightning, an event that only happens to about 240,000 people a year. One of them was Jim Caviezel while filming the scene of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. What are the odds?

The actor, who was 33 years old at the time, says that after the lightning strike, fire came from his head and his body was illuminated. Five minutes later, a second person near him was hit. During filming, Mr. Caviezel’s shoulder dislocated as he carried the huge wooden crucifix weighing 150 pounds; while he hung on the cross, wind conditions were so heavy that he developed a lung infection. In addition, the actor had to work with an eye swollen shut for several days, which severely impacted his vision and produced serious migraines.

Before taking on the role of Jesus of Nazareth, Caviezel was a rising star in Hollywood. Afterwards, nobody wanted to offer him any significant roles, and, in his own words, the industry began to “shun” him. Mel Gibson, apparently, predicted this would happen and asked the actor if he understood that he “might never work again.” Jim’s reply, as narrated in an interview, was that “we all have a cross to carry.”

As Mel Gibson predicted, Caviezel had to leave Hollywood and instead began a career in television, most successfully in the show Person of Interest, which ran for six years as an entertaining and yet educational sci-fi series about the dangers of government overreach in surveilling its own citizenry.

Currently, Caviezel can be seen in the lead role in the movie Sound of Freedom, in which he plays Tim Ballard, a former Homeland Security agent who works worldwide to rescue children from sex trafficking and abuse. The film was completed five years ago, but no platform (Netflix, Amazon, etc.) wanted to take it on.

Now, however, “God’s children are no longer for sale.”

Jim Caviezel is more than a strong actor, and there is no question that he is not working for his own career and his own fame. He has become a force of good to thousands of souls in this world.

We have chosen him as Hero of the Week.

Jim Caviezel on Wikipedia

Bizarre Things That Happened On The Set Of The Passion Of The Christ

Jim Caviezel Exposes The Horrors of a $150 Billion Trafficking Network That Claims 6 Million Lives

Interview with Jim Caviezel and director Alejandro Monteverde

Interview with Jim Caviezel and Tim Ballard

“Operation Underground Railroad”: 6,000 Trafficking Victims Rescued, True Story Hits Big Screen