(LifeSiteNews) — Actor Jim Caviezel had an “out of body experience” during a heart surgery while filming “The Passion of the Christ.” He played Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson’s 2004 movie.
The “physical suffering” Caviezel endured during filming the 2004 movie “was enough to kill me,” the actor told EWTN host Raymond Arroyo. Caviezel required two heart surgeries during filming the movie, including one open-heart surgery.
“My heart shut off, the doctors ran into the room, and I watched them, [it] was [an] out of body experience. I watched the whole thing,” Caviezel said.
“I told them, ‘I watched all of you when you were in the room when I was dead.’ And not all of them believe the way we believe,” he said.
“But I could tell them everybody, I told them what they were doing in the room, I watched it, and I felt the most peace and I felt the most love. And then they brought me back and then I felt the most pain,” he said.
Caviezel will return to his role in the sequel, “Resurrection of the Christ,” as recently reported by LifeSiteNews.
Caviezel has previously discussed the suffering he faced while filming the movie.
As LifeSiteNews previously reported:
Caviezel has publicly discussed many times how his role involved much suffering, acknowledging that this suffering helped him to grow, and even that it “made” his performance. This suffering included being accidentally scourged twice, open-heart surgery after five-plus months of hypothermia, and being struck by lightning.
“I was lit up like a Christmas tree,” he told the Washington Examiner of being struck by lightning while enacting the Sermon on the Mount.
Caviezel’s shoulder was also dislocated while carrying the cross during filming, which he continued to withstand to finish the film.
He also suffered spiritual pain during the filming.
“The greatest pain I felt on that film, even more than the hypothermia, was this: I was in a dream and I felt God’s love so powerful, but I knew He wasn’t close enough. I said, ‘You’re not close enough to me and my concern is, the world won’t see Jesus.’ When we were on the cross together, He was completely playing the scene, and that was my prayer. But the pain I felt was all those people in the world that do not love Him,” Caviezel said during an interview with TBN.
