If growing up, your family was even remotely religious, chances are you’ve seen Mel Gibson’s 2004 movie “The Passion of the Christ” starring Jim Caviezel. So, in honor of the Easter season, I compiled a list of 10 trivia facts you might not have known about the movie.
1. In their June 2006 issue, “Entertainment Weekly” named the “The Passion of the Christ” the most controversial film of all time.
2. Though Jesus is considered an important prophet, Muslims do not believe he was crucified.
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Because of this, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain all banned the film; yet, the movie broke box-office records in countries like Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria. And in Israel, though they never officially banned the movie, no distribution company would touch it due to national sentiment that the movie was anti-semitic.
3. The film is the highest grossing R-rated film in the U.S with $370,782,930.
Though “Deadpool” might have something to say about that in the next month.
4. Mel Gibson basically paid for the entire film himself—$30 million—because no production company wanted to touch the project.
5. Gibson wanted the film to feel as authentic as possible.
Originally, there were to be no subtitles and no soundtrack so the audience’s attention would be focused entirely on the actors. He was later convinced otherwise; subtitles were added and John Debney was hired to compose the score, which was eventually nominated for an Academy Award.
6. The actors had to learn the phonetics of Aramaic, Latin, and a few short lines of Hebrew.
The language that would have actually been used in the region would have been Koine Greek, but there wasn’t enough source material to attempt shooting the entire film in that language. Also, some of the crude jokes or curses the Roman soldiers said were not translated in the English subtitles.
7. Jim Caviezel, who actually is Roman Catholic, shares the same initials as Jesus Christ.
He was also 33 when he did the role—the same age that it is commonly believed Jesus was when he was crucified.
8. Speaking of Jim Caveziel, he endured a period of horrible luck while making of the film. Coincidence?
During the making of “The Passion of the Christ,” Caveziel was struck by lightning and accidentally scourged twice (one incident left a 14-inch scar on his back). He dislocated his shoulder after the 150-pound cross landed on him; suffered pneumonia and hypothermia after hanging half-naked for most of the day shooting the crucifixion scenes; would regularly wake up at 2 am to apply makeup for eight to ten hours; and, to top it all off, he had to have heart surgery after production ended due to extreme stress.
9. There are also some interesting tidbits about the other actors.
During the production, Luca Lionello (Judas Iscariot) converted from atheism to Catholicism. Maia Morgenstern (Mary, the mother of Jesus) is a Jewish actress whose parents both survived the Holocaust. Rosalinda Celentano (Satan) ate only beans and rice until after the completion of production so she would look malnourished.
10. Mel Gibson pulled a Peter Jackson, making a cameo in his own film.
His hands are the ones seen nailing Jesus to the cross and tying Judas’ noose.
