3. Jim Caviezel Actually Gets Whipped in Passion of the Christ
For some people, Mel Gibson's
Passion of the Christ is a deeply spiritual movie that reminds them about the ultimate sacrifice of their messiah. For others, it's a lengthy torture fest not unlike the
Saw franchise. No matter which camp you fall into, you can't deny that actually flogging your cast members is probably taking things to the extreme. Unless, of course, you're Jim Caviezel and you're desperate to get your performance just right. The actor playing Jesus Christ in the film went through literal torture to play the part: he suffered from hypothermia, he caught pneumonia, he dislocated his shoulder while carrying the cross, and he was even struck by lightning during filming. While all of these accidents were intense and maybe more than a little ironic they were out of the hands of the crew. Actually tying him to a post and whipping him, however, was a conscious decision. Well, the original idea was only to mime out the whipping, not actually hit him, but when a Roman soldier's hand slipped, it left a deep gash in Caviezel's back. He took one more serious blow before they all finally decided to finish the whipping sequence in CGI instead, raising the question of why they didn't just do that in the first place.