World Over - 2018-03-22 - Jim Caviezel, 'Paul, Apostle of Christ', EXCLUSIVE with Raymond Arroyo

[Music] first last week we brought you a special world over preview I moderated of the new film Paul apostle of Christ well this week I go on an exclusive one-on-one interview with one of its stars Jim Caviezel returns to a biblical epic his first since Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ he's not in the lead but he plays the pivotal supporting role of Saint Luke the Evangelist we talked about how it felt to be back in this career-defining genre how he prepared for the role physically and spiritually and about those rumors of a sequel to The Passion here's our exclusive interview with Jim Caviezel Jim I want to start with this first of all going back into this biblical era for you yeah was there any hesitation I mean after the passion this is really the first biblical epic you've done since the passion well David's Ilan who did game stands talk with me this was his project and initially when it came to me I hadn't read the script but he talked to me about it and my lawyer 21 years and one of my dear friends was a dying of cancer and he came back with me to Poland I did a project back there and and we went to Auschwitz and you could feel the haunted Souls go right through you I went to the very place where Maximilian Kolbe was martyred we come home I say goodbye to Frank he goes straight to the hospital and he'd died two weeks later and so I didn't really have the appetite at the at the time and two of my friends that worked for me committed suicide and somewhere in there in the mourning period I get a phone call from Zeile on again and says hey would you just take a look at the script I read it and instantly yes it was I'll I'll do this I saw the relationship between Paul and Lucas a mentor in the same way that Frank and it was a mentor to me there's a point when you someone that close to you I mean we'd go in the morning we we go down to the ocean and you know things weren't going right in the business and the law often times they're not but the I would complain you know after shortly after the passion and couldn't get a job you know and and you can fall into this place of victim you know that isn't fair and you know Frank didn't operate from that point of view he could always steer me in the right direction if you keep going down this point of anger eventually it becomes resentment and you start wearing it and I was and he could always redirect I mean but it was because of our faith and forgiveness was a big big part of this story as it was between Frank and I and how he saw the world being a Christian is not easy in fact it's a hard path to follow but he certainly showed me that it's not weakness it's not passivity it's being able to look evil straight in the face with love mm-hmm and you read that when you read the script do you saw and felt that was the direction to what was going on that was the sharing life yes well now learn about that relationship between Paul and Luke because let's face it we know a lot about Paul we don't know a whole lot about Luke other than he wrote the gospel and there's the second Timothy mentioned where you know Paul says I'm here alone with Luke but that's really it we know he was a doctor there's only a few details we have how did you build the character well I drew Hyatt removed a you know very good solid script and and at that point can you take it to the next level and when he brought James Faulkner in we met and just had this velvety voice like a white napkin calls and I knew we had something special in that in the chemistry there and then you could start but you didn't have many days with him before you started shooting he landed like what two days three days before the shoot yeah well we but we still we had a few days of talking about and talking about the story and and and when went through it most of my stuff comes from personal experience and I just happened to have it was trying to take something that was very sad and lonely and and use it for something good I figured maybe Luke had something like that he mentions Mary quite a bit you know in his gospel in fact more than any of the other writers and then there was a hook and when he says to Paul when I had never seen Christ in person but the moment I heard you preach I saw Christ in you and that was something and when I think of personally my own industry and how emptying it emptied it it is you you feel the lack you feel the pain you see it in others and maybe you can give a good medicine and scripturally it was there the performances in there are very strong but we're just still stronger what role did prayer in your personal faith have in helping you shape this role only the second biblical rule you've ever done and what's there any hesitation given how much of your career has been overshadowed by the passion yeah and you're playing of Jesus I'll tell you something interesting I Dennis Quaid when we did frequency together he just says okay kid come here he's really funny he said I'm gonna give you my I know you didn't ask for it but I'm gonna give you some advice for as an actor they never played Superman I never played Jesus no forget it well you violated one of the two maybe Superman's in there I did but I ran into him again at the confirm festival when the passion came out and he says he saw it and he just said listen that was extraordinary and you know you you will always be able to say you did something in this in this business you'll always be able to hang your hat on that and he said he was proud and so you have to pick the right one you know it just opens up and I don't know how you turn to help Mel Gibson I mean the movie he did prior to that was the was Braveheart and that wasn't too bad of a film yeah I don't know you know so I would work with that guy any day extraordinary the greatest there was no hesitation than going back to this biblical to this one to this one and the comparisons people might make the suitors but that performance yeah I well okay so someone said that recently they said well I saw Jesus in you I said thank you I said aren't we isn't that what it's supposed to be that I saw Christ in you and and that's what he saw when he saw Paul and that was my prayer for I don't know James's you asked me about James Faulkner earlier yeah but as far but as far as faith wise I prayed all the time for him I prayed for our crew because the Holy Spirit can work the way it's going to work but I don't want to block that I want to block it myself but I also pray for the others that allow that to come come through him and I and I remember someone said that Faulkner said that that the st. Paul played him he didn't play st. Paul which sounded an awful lot like something you told me back oh and years ago passion but I'm glad that happened I don't care who someone said one time so much would get done and no one cared who got the credit yeah I'm glad that that he said that and you can see that in in the the movie I mean you know you go through this business and you ask any actor that had that one role that you had that everybody remembers you buy so much of the time most actors never get that opportunity I was very very blessed I didn't know that all the extracurricular activity was going to go on prior during and after but that route again comes back to Frank Stewart and says what are you gonna do about it are you gonna be a victim mm-hmm no the one moments here that I saw a lot of not only your connection to Frank but you know I thought of that idea of writing it down when when Paul tells Luke write this down yeah take this down and we added that in there really yes that was it that was a improv write it down yes really write it down oh yeah because that really is what it's about yeah you have to you have to take that example of that other party and move with them take their spirit and move forward particularly if you're leading a community or a business or whatever but there is that that notion that people want to know what that person said yeah and I know that his mother Angelica's biographer I kept thinking when I heard that moment because many times I would go visit her and she would tell me full story full story full story even when she couldn't speak anymore she wanted that full story captured the thing that struck me was the relationship between Luke and Paul but that message of mentorship what it means to be a mentor and then the responsibility of the one that follows taking not only the example but making sure you capture the words of that individual any lesson there for you and if you're not talking about this before when Mother Angelica died when Pope John Paul died Billy Graham just died right and you there do the guard is changing now and now it's you know young man you have to step up you're the guy now hard you know great sadness but we have to believe that that the that if we do believe in salvation there in heaven and they're not gone they're actually greater now than ever before they we carry him with them in our heart and so as Paul says in the film and a good book you know to live as Christ a dice game and so you know come hell or high water I'm gonna hold on to that I talked a lot to him while I was filming you know I talked a lot to my wife lost her brother this year as well and her father it's just been a one after the other but there's a family that is in heaven but I dare say that they're not with us I feel them and and I pray that God uses them and that they're praying for our work down here and I certainly felt felt that haunting feeling at times that I felt when I was at Auschwitz with Maximilian Kolbe that you know people often are afraid to die but we're all going to die at some point the movie does does capture the terror of this community and the high cost of believing what they believe yeah because they're not only they're not just giving lip service to it they have to live their living in fear and hiding out sending children out into the town to pass messages or to or to receive things this goes on today in places like China in parts of the Middle East and it's dedicated to those people I think though what what I thought and all of that is you know our Lord doesn't spare his closest friends from undergoing suffering but what I can tell you from the passion when I was up there on that cross and I was freezing and I had a shoulder separation and I had hypothermia and lung infection pneumonia and I was on all kinds of medications I felt something so powerful my heart was burning and I miss it I felt heaven in my heart even as bad as in a situation as that was look after the movie was over I had to have open-heart surgery and being struck by lightning well it was you know but I I never felt abandoned I felt like he was there with me and I want people to know that even in this suffering that our Lord isn't gonna been in him he's very very real but we need that though in order to be authentic and then to take the word of this film it's yes talk for a moment I mean you just went through all the things that happened to you on the set of the passion I was there for some of that why given all of that would you willfully embrace going back to play that role again I know you've talked about doing the resurrected you talking about I said I see you talking about doing the sequel with Mel again there's been a lot of reportage about it any hesitation no not at all it's what I was born to do hmm I I felt at five years ago this I have no control over this industry or whoever wants to go you know I I have I know Jesus is a good guy and he's a god and I love him I love his mother his father I love that whole heaven you know and I want to do everything I can to bring his many souls to heaven I want them to be home and that's who he hits to me mm-hmm he's home and when I was doing the passion I was alone but it was nothing like what he feels on a day-to-day basis I felt God's love for us but when I said I don't want you to come closer so that the world will see you and not me and he sissified and this is in my dreams now if I do you might not like what you get I said if it's not authentically you then the world you know will see me in the film mm-hmm I want them to see you when he came close to me I could feel his broken Ness a broken hearted world and Billy Graham would say God loves you but I want if I had a message to give I would say we need to love God we need to every day say I love you Lord he needs to hear it from us in the morning in the afternoon in the evening because so many of his children do not love him I have forgotten him and that's not good enough and if when if and you asked me would you do this yes absolutely I do the resurrection again just for that purpose so the world will know who he is I we have will have served my purpose it doesn't matter if it cost me my life I'm okay with that I freely give it as long as I coz in the next moment and I'm in heaven we talked about that in the film it'll hurt for a bit it's gone you're in heaven the film goes into that and then they start that our Father our Father and and you know with those in prison you prayed with all of them in prisons they're gonna be sent off to the into the circus into the lines now and I someone said to me a long time ago Jim you know I I said you know I'm the wrong guy for the role of Jesus and he goes you know Jim his name is Yvonne he said God doesn't always choose the best but he chose you what are you gonna do so he he there's a purpose for all of us tell me what you learned from playing Luke that you didn't expect he's very different from you I mean I know you did the surgeries on the weekend to learn how to water for this you didn't have to walk on water but just a few brain surgeries it was good of you to try that now he's a pagan you know he probably had it made in the shade didn't probably have a lot of money I had a means he you know he was important probably like the women and you could be with whatever he wants there's no judgment on it and and you're gonna leave all of that and go to a life of persecution living in the shadows yeah you see it in my industry go to parties you see people that just are empty mm-hmm it's not appealing to me and some people arm would would rather go after the things and then get nothing here this is having meaning in your life is everything so being able to have Jesus come through me you know in the resurrection or the passion or whatever the apostle of Christ that that heaven can use me and to bring people back it's what more could you you asked for what do you want people to come away with after seeing this picture it is a very intimate movie yeah it's really about the relationship between these two men in the belly of this persecution and the words ideas and story of one of them about to disappear from the face of the earth and the other guy struggling to preserve it and embody it I talked about earlier forgiveness mm-hmm courage the courage is ardent love love creates change by igniting a passion in each one of us one person at a time Paul is the spark that ignites that revolution and what do people need to take away from that today why now and why did you have to be a part of it well I played as Jesus was the son of man son of God but here's a man who was a like the head of Isis a beast and he has a massive conversion it can happen to anybody they're open to grace we've got a lot of people living in the world right now and there's not a lot of time that we're gonna be honest earth if you lis think about it conversion takes a while wasn't overnight that Paul was converted but I believe he probably saw the face of Stephen who looked up to Jesus and says I see the Son of man sitting at the right hand that the father coming in the clouds of heaven repeating when our Lord's had said and look in his eyes probably haunted saw mm-hmm by just one little change of a letter from Saul to Paul Saul means great one Paul means little one in order for us to be great in the eyes of God we have to be become very small if we wish to be great there's a piece in that in the film where it's like you're you're out on a boat and now Paul is talking to Olivia Olivia Martinez the place of Roman soldier and that that's my favorite scene in the film because it's it's like both of them are speaking from a personal experience and not know acting is going on here so Paul says he reaches out into the to the water and he pulls up he tries to pull the water up and it just seeps through his hands and that's kind of like us wanting that the world and and all the things that that promises but there's such a short time when you're giving all of that up you're giving that when you look out and see the sea and then beyond what you can see God's offering this to you that's what he at least has used me to help bring to others and I hope in some way I could answer your question but I think that was the one reason that kept me in the game to want to do these films but the the film still have to be great right as so much of the time that I see these faith-based films that they're so full of saccharine I mean they're I can't handle that much sugar in my coffee and there's no bitterness mmm-hmm you know everybody flips out if some guy uses a swear word or you know what do you want me to do on you know Private Ryan you know guys getting blown up and whatnot you know you want me to say get your rootin tootin butts up here or something given your understanding of where we are in the world today yeah how important this message is to be conveyed now why wouldn't you play Paul why Luke Luke's a supporting character here I'm just helping being an executive producer and getting it made so people can see it I'm the I'm just the mouthpiece for Paul I guess in fact it's kind of like but no note no temptations on your part to play Paul no not in this one no no I just why not because I knew I was going to be doing the resurrection and the possibility of that happening at the time that was I knew that was in the works and I wanted to I love this story I thought that the message there there are only so many scripts that are really good okay whether it be an action film comedy and I've my comment denied denominator has always been redemption of some sort that we can be redeemed it doesn't mean that I'm gonna play the good guy in the movie but I knew it would help and get it made but I don't I got that I played Jesus and I thought that maybe that this guy Faulkner was he was just born to do it and I thought that I don't I don't think I could have done it as well as what he did so I would rather step back and you know I guess play Aaron instead of Moses you know yeah any any supernatural happenings around the edges as you saw in the passion lives changed in the cast and crew or did you see anything I'm sure I'll remember more later I think to me is that the most these movies are really hard to do and you pray that they're really good and this one's really good and the miracle really is what's going to come when people see it and convert I'll give you one I was with a friend of mine who sat down and watched the movie and and it doesn't have any belief and God didn't come from any of that and he watched the movie and he they turned to me after it was over and he said Wow the writer what's his name Andrew I he goes oh wow he's brilliant philosopher I said why why do you say that and he started quoting Paul and I said yeah that's in the Bible and so a couple days later he called me out and said yeah I might want to see that Passion of Christ I said I'll go get you Kai he says I said I might want to see the past yeah so there's a work in progress but a seed was planted mm-hmm you know that's the power with these things can do you Paul apostle of Christ is in theaters everywhere [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 379,258

Rating: 4.9176931 out of 5

Keywords: wot_spot

Id: LUzE3iBEYm4

Length: 26min 58sec (1618 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 23 2018