10 Times Movie Directors Went Too Far To Get A Scene

As a piece of cinema, Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ (2004) is incredibly impactful and utterly shocking.

His overly preachy and disturbingly visceral portrayal of Christ's final hours, is a bloodbath of unapologetically gratuitous violence and Christian dogma. He hammered home the Catholic notion of original sin with all the subtlety of a nail being driven into Christ's hands. Watching this moving is an ordeal.

But it's nothing compared to the real-life torment lead actor Jim Caviezel went through when portraying the Son of God. From dislocating his shoulder to being struck by lighting, Caviezel experienced all manor of biblical misfortune. He even developed pneumonia after he was left exposed to the elements in nothing but a loincloth, during the crucifixion scene.

Gibson's religious fever to get the scenes right resulted in a huge number of difficulties for his leading man. Caviezel described how one of Gibson's directions resulted in the actor being whipped for real, knocking him to the ground and leaving a fourteen inch gash in his back.

Gibson might have gone too far with this one, but Caviezel's take on the whole ordeal is as equally bizarre. He even stated he was willing to die while filming because he believed in the project so strongly.