Movies
Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ' had some serious injuries, including when Jim Caviezel was accidentally whipped on the set.
Published on February 25, 2023
2 min readActor Jim Caviezel made a big impression with his leading performance in The Passion of the Christ. He put his blood, sweat, and tears into the making of this film – literally. Some serious accidents occurred on the set that left him injured several times, which tested his resolve. Another actor from The Passion of the Christ accidentally whipped Caviezel for real, which began to make him feel “like Satan.”
‘The Passion of the Christ’ hit theaters in 2004
The Passion of the Christ is a retelling of Christ’s crucifixtion, who is played by Caviezel. Based on the New Testament, Judas (Luca Lionello) directly causes the downfall of Jesus when he betrays him in favor of the Roman Empire. He’s condemned to death, but he’s first forced to endure horrible torture via dragging a crucifix to Calvary, where he’s nailed to the cross to die.
Actor Mel Gibson made his third step behind the camera as a director for The Passion of the Christ after 1993’s The Man Without a Face and 1995’s Braveheart. The religious film hit theaters on Feb. 25, 2004, when it scored a big box office sum at over $612 million worldwide based on a reported $30 million budget.
Jim Caviezel was accidentally whipped in ‘The Passion of the Christ’
According to Today, Caviezel spent eight hours in the makeup chair to prepare for The Passion of the Christ to simulate the wounds from head to toe. In a particularly disturbing sequence, Jesus is whipped after his hands and feet are nailed to the cross in the violent Crucifixion scene.
Gibson told the Roman soldier actors to inflict their lashes overhand to hit a whipping post set up behind Caviezel to ensure that the camera wouldn’t catch that it wasn’t connecting. However, one of these actors accidentally missed and struck the actor instead.
Caviezel reflected that the lashing hurt so badly that it completely knocked the wind out of him. Additionally, it brought out another side of the actor that he never knew was possible.
“I may be playing Jesus, but I felt like Satan at that moment,” the actor said. He screamed out in agony, shouting obsenities. However, the accidental lashing didn’t stop there.
The second whipping made him quickly yank his hand away from the shackles, causing him to tear flesh from his wrist. As a result, the remainder of the lashings were accomplished with visual effects. Additionally, the Roman soldier actors used sticks without the leather tails, simply using whipping-like motions and Caviezel pretended to get hit.
The ends of the whips were later added with special effects and make up wounds were digitally covered until the blows were inflicted to give the illusion that they appeared after he was hit.
Jim Caviezel incurred several other serious injuries on ‘The Passion of the Christ’
Unfortunately, the pain that Caviezel endured while filming The Passion of the Christ didn’t end there. He had to dangle nearly naked from a cross in freezing temperatures for weeks over the course of filming. Caviezel was even struck by lightning during the sermon on the Mount sequence.
He even dislocated his shoulder carrying the cross, caught pneumonia, a lung infection, and had several other injuries. Nevertheless, Caviezel considers himself to be a Roman Catholic and “would not have had it any other way,” according to Today.
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