Best Known As: Star of 2004's The Passion of the Christ
After several small roles in the early 1990s, Jim Caviezel wowed audiences and critics as the contemplative (and AWOL) Private Witt in 1998's The Thin Red Line (starring Nick Nolte and Sean Penn). An earnest actor famous for his "soulful" eyes, Caviezel went on to earn leading roles in films such as Frequency (2000, co-starring Dennis Quaid), Angel Eyes (2001, with Jennifer Lopez) and The Count of Monte Cristo (2002, based on the classic by Alexandre Dumas). In 2004 he appeared as Jesus in the Mel Gibson-directed film The Passion of the Christ.
Caviezel was struck by lightning during the filming of The Passion of the Christ, but was reportedly unharmed.
Career Highlights: The Thin Red Line, Ride With the Devil, Frequency
First Major Screen Credit: The Thin Red Line (1998)
Biography
With his soulful, deep-set blue eyes and a dark, eerily beautiful countenance, Jim Caviezel has inspired more than a few comparisons to Montgomery Clift. Thus, it was somewhat fitting -- and more than a little ironic -- that Caviezel first broke through to the American public as The Thin Red Line's Private Witt, a character loosely based on Clift's Private Prewitt in From Here to Eternity.
A native of Washington state, Caviezel was born in Mount Vernon in 1968, one of five children in a devout Catholic family. A gifted athlete as a young man, he performed brilliantly on the basketball court and dreamt of joining the NBA. He attended Seattle's O'Dea High School, and later Burien Kennedy High, attending Bellevue Community College after graduation (where he continued to play ball), but a foot injury forced him to withdraw from the team and try acting instead. He debuted cinematically with a bit part as an airline clerk in Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991), Caviezel landed an equally minor role in Michael Ritchie's disappointing boxing yarn, Diggstown (1992). Accepted at Juilliard that same year, he declined the school's offer in favor of a supporting role in Lawrence Kasdan's 1994 Wyatt Earp. Unfortunately, this film (like Diggstown) flopped, and for the next several years, Caviezel bounced back-and-forth, between minor roles in big budget Hollywood films like The Rock (1996) and G.I. Jane (1997) and more substantial roles in turkeys such as Bill Couturie's Ed (1996). Fortunately, in 1998, the long-dormant Terrence Malick came calling with a role in his war opus The Thin Red Line (adapted from James Jones's Guadalcanal Diary) and Caviezel struck gold. The film received a number of Oscar nominations including Best Picture, and its stellar ensemble cast, which included Ben Chaplin, Sean Penn, George Clooney, and Nick Nolte, earned almost unanimous acclaim.
The following year, Caviezel gained further recognition with his role as one of a group of renegade Civil War soldiers in Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil and his portrayal of a football coach's embittered son in Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday. In 2000, Caviezel starred in the supernatural thriller Frequency, as a fireman who - through a supernatural occurrence -- communicates with his long-dead father (Dennis Quaid) over a ham radio. Despite an interesting premise and two winning lead performances, the picture suffers from plot holes large enough to drive a semi through; it nonetheless earned solid ratings and did decent box office.
Later that same year, Caviezel starred in Mimi Leder's shameless tearjerker Pay it Forward
as a homeless junkie befriended by a young boy (Haley Joel Osment). He then landed a role opposite Jennifer Lopez in the heady romantic drama Angel Eyes (2001); the picture died a quick death at the box office, yet Caviezel's second billing in the film dramatically increased his prominence, and critics started to take note of the actor's ability for the first time. The Chicago Sun-Times's Roger Ebert lauded, "has an elusive, dreamy quality, using passivity as a mask for sharp, deep emotions."
The following year's period adventure The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) boasted a similarly fine lead performance by Caviezel, and though the film - and the actor's work - drew favorable reviews from critics, that motion picture failed to attract audiences. Before embarking on a blood-soaked revenge spree in Highwaymen (2004), Caviezel took a turn as a mysterious former Marine in High Crimes and a lower-key role in the Paul Feig drama I Am David.
Audiences who had followed Caviezel's career thus far had no doubt taken note of the actor's vocal religious convictions. With his role as Jesus in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004) -- not to mention the actual suffering that he endured when his shoulder was separated during the crucifixion sequence -- the actor pushed to more extreme lengths than almost any performer of his generation. The story of the film is, by now, notorious; in time it became one of the highest grossers in movie history, capping $600 million worldwide, despite savaging critical assessments from many secular reviewers and scattered (though wholly unfounded) accusations of anti-Semitism. Millions of Christian and non-Christian viewers alike flocked to the motion picture and turned it into one of the seminal events of 2004. As for Caviezel's performance, Variety's Todd McCarthy wrote, "Asked to bear the brunt of ghastly torture and covered with blood, dirt and sweat for most of the running... Caviezel promisingly suggests what he could have done with a full-scale film about Jesus' life only in the brief flashbacks, in which his smile, warmth and directness of communication indicate a strong connection to Jesus' spiritual qualities."
After this, (given the film's high grosses) Caviezel scarcely needed to work at all; indeed, his activity died somewhat (he appeared in no major releases during 2005), but he continued to land parts in movies and graced the casts of one A-list feature the following year. In Tony Scott's November 2006 sci-fi actioner Deja Vu, Caviezel receives third billing after Denzel Washington and Val Kilmer; the story concerns an ATF agent propelled into the past to solve a crime.
In 2007's mystery-thriller Unknown (produced by The Weinstein Company, Caviezel joins Greg Kinnear, Barry Pepper, Joe Pantoliano and Peter Stormare; the actors play five men who suddenly turn up locked in a major warehouse, with no memory, and must figure out how to survive. At the same time, Caviezel entered into talks to star in the 2007 Weinstein Co. sci-fi release Outlander, about an alien visitation during the Viking Era.
James Caviezel married Kerri Browitt in 1997, whom he met on a blind date several years prior. Shortly afterward, they adopted a three-year-old Chinese daughter, Bo. The Caviezel family lives in California's Conejo Valley. ~ Rebecca Flint, All Movie Guide
Caviezel was born in Mount Vernon, Washington, the son of Ellen, a housewife
and a stage actress, and James Patrick Caviezel, Sr., a chiropractor.[1] He has a younger brother, Timothy, and sisters Anne, Amy, and Erin, and was
raised in a tight-knit Roman Catholic family in Conway (Skagit County),
Washington. Caviezel's surname is of Romansh origin; his father is of Slovak (maternal) and Swiss (paternal) descent, while his mother's ancestry
is Irish. Jim attended Mount Vernon High School for two years and then moved to Seattle and lived with family friends in order to
play basketball at the Catholic O'Dea High School. The following spring, he
transferred from O'Dea to another Catholic school, Burien's John F. Kennedy Memorial High. There he starred on the
basketball team and graduated in 1987. Following high school, Jim enrolled at Bellevue Community College where the 6 ft
2 in athlete also played basketball. A foot injury in his second year, however, put an end to Jim's hopes of a basketball
career in the NBA. He later transferred to the University of Washington where
he turned his focus to acting and became a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity.
Caviezel starred in such mainstream Hollywood films as Angel Eyes,
Pay It Forward and The
Count of Monte Cristo (2002). In 2001, he played the lead in Madison, a
film that tells the story of the hydro races in Madison, Indiana. Caviezel's character
pilots Miss Madison to victory, recounting the 1971 event. The film did not appear in theatres until 2005. In addition, his work
in High Crimes (2002) was highly praised by critics.
In 2002, he played a pivotal role in the film I Am David from the Danish
novel known by both David and North to Freedom, written by Ann Holm.
In 2004, Caviezel portrayed Jesus Christ in the Mel Gibson
film The Passion of the Christ. During the filming of this film, he was
struck by lightning, accidentally whipped, dislocated his shoulder and bruised his eye. After its release, Caviezel was offered
the role of spokesman for a fashion line called "Heavenly," which he refused, citing that it would be an insult to people who
felt the film had something meaningful to offer.
Also in 2004, he expressed interest in playing the role of Superman/Clark Kent for the 2006 Superman Returns film, even
mentioning that he would dedicate his performance to Christopher Reeve. Ultimately, he
was passed over by director Bryan Singer, who felt that Caviezel was too well known after
starring in The Passion of the Christ. The part went to newcomer Brandon Routh
instead.
Caviezel plays a lead role in Unknown, an IFC project distributed by the Weinstein Company. Caviezel also has a role in
Tony Scott's 2006 action film, Déjà Vu
opposite Denzel Washington and Val Kilmer. He
plays the lead role, Kainin, in the film, Outlander, which began principal
photography in October 2006 in eastern Canada.
Caviezel is providing the voice of Jesus on the Thomas Nelson Inc.-produced
New Testament audio dramatization "The Word of Promise,[2]," set to release in the fall of 2007.[3]
Personal life
Caviezel is a devout Roman Catholic and has been a featured public speaker at
religious venues since the release of The Passion. On March 19, 2005 he was the main speaker at the first Catholic Men's Conference in Boston. Caviezel stated that he chose to
speak at the conference only because he liked Boston Archbishop, Sean Cardinal
O'Malley. His wife Kerri, also a devout Roman Catholic, is a
teacher and an accomplished flautist. The two are active in their Conejo Valley, California parish. Kerri supports a
charity for single mothers and also volunteers with their church's Detention Ministry at a camp
for incarcerated youth in Malibu, California. Jim is friends classes at the
University of Notre Dame. Officially, he was a non-degree student, though
Associate Dean Ava Preacher was quoted by the University's newspaper as saying that Caviezel was "working on 'how to proceed'" as
a student at Notre Dame. [4]
Caviezel remains a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, which he joined while a student at
the University of Washington and is a Minnesota Vikings fan. His 14-year relationship with his schoolteacher wife works, he says, because of
his frequent use of the phrases "I am wrong" and "I am sorry."[citation needed] Last year they adopted a baby Chinese boy with a brain tumour; the
Caviezels have also adopted a second child, a young girl, from the Guangzhou region of China.
On October 24, 2006, Caviezel was featured (along with Patricia Heaton,
Kurt Warner, and Mike Sweeney) in an advertisement
opposing Missouri Amendment 2 (to provide state funds for somatic cell nuclear
transfer, a form of embryonic stem cell research). While non-partisan, the advertisement was widely seen as supporting the
Republican Party position on the issue. Caviezel began the
advertisement by saying "Le-bar nash be-neshak", Aramaic for "You betray the Son of Man with a kiss," a reference to
Judas' betraying Christ and a phrase used in the Greek of Luke's Gospel.[5] The line however, did not include a translation into English. Caviezel closed the commercial with the
line, "You know now. Don't do it," referring to the voting in favor of the amendment.
The advertisement appeared to be a response to a pro-Amendment 2 advertisement featuring the actor, Michael J. Fox who has Parkinson's Disease and is a vocal
proponent of stem-cell therapies. This was reported to be entirely coincidental, however, said to have been conceived and filmed
previously.
Caviezel also donated in 2006 to the unsuccessful campaign to re-elect US Senator Rick
Santorum.[6]
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