Jim Caviezel

Born: 26 September 1968
With his soulful blue eyes and a dark, almost eerie kind of beauty, James Caviezel has inspired more than a few comparisons to Montgomery Clift. A native of Washington state, Caviezel was born in Mount Vernon in 1968, one of five children in a devoutly Catholic family.

A tall, good-looking rising star with piercing blue eyes, Jim Caviezel spent his formative years in the Pacific Northwest. Although he planned to play basketball at the University of Washington, he was sidelined with and injury and "discovered" the acting program.

It could be said that Caviezel’s role in “The Passion of The Christ” is the ultimate in terms of making simultaneous physical and emotional demands upon a performer. The actor was chosen for the role because he was willing to commit to this unique project whole-heartedly. Prior to shooting, Caviezel spent several months preparing himself physically, spiritually and emotionally for the most demanding role of his career. It was a daily struggle learning Aramaic, the language actually spoken by Jesus, and during production he endured full-body makeup sessions that sometimes dragged on for ten hours. He spent entire shooting days exposed on the cross in freezing temperatures, and during the grueling scourging sequence at Cinecitta, one of his shoulders was dislocated. But Caviezel came away from the experience convinced that Someone had been watching over him, a sense that was borne out when the actor was struck by lightning while working on Golgotha – and simply got up and walked away.