By Mallory Mattingly
Actor Jim Caviezel recalled the moment when he died after being struck by lightning while filming PASSION OF THE CHRIST during an appearance on Shawn Ryan’s podcast.
“It was bizarre,” Caviezel said of the day they were filming. “The wind was blowing hard and the clouds were…it felt like I could jump up and touch them and that was very mystical. What was happening in the ground — you could feel something in the ground.”
“There were about 350 people that were around me on a hill. And the wind was blowing, and then I couldn’t hear the wind, and I could feel the suctioning occur,” the actor added. “And then, it was probably more like three seconds — it felt like five but was probably less than that — and then boom, I shot me out of my body.”
After being struck by lightning, Caviezel went to Stanford to have his first surgery, and then in 2014, he went to the Cleveland Clinic for another one.
“And that saved me, you know, saved my life. I died on the operating table. I’ve never told that, but I died. Dr. Gillinov and Dr. Griffin were my doctors. They witnessed it. They brought me back. But I was supposed to be here. The reason why I brought that up is I felt incredible peace and love that’s waiting for us,” Caviezel said, talking about the hope that’s waiting for us after death.
Caviezel is preparing to take on the role of Jesus again in Mel Gibson’s PASSION sequel THE RESURRECTION OF THE CHRIST.
In 2022, Gibson told Raymond Arroyo, the host of THE WORLD OVER, that the film is “a huge subject, and it’s not a linear narrative. You have to juxtapose the central event that I’m trying to tell with everything else around it in the future, in the past, and in other realms, and that’s kind of getting a little sci-fi out there.”
Related: Jim Caviezel Says Mel Gibson’s Sequel to THE PASSION Will Be “The Biggest Film Ever Made”
Now that the script is finished and the cast is set, Gibson and the rest of the crew are ready to start filming this summer.
“It’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to require a lot of planning, and I’m not wholly sure I can pull it off; to tell you the truth, it’s super ambitious. But I’ll take a crack at it because that’s what you’ve got to do, right, walk up to the plate, right?” he said on an episode of the “Joe Rogan Experience.”
THE RESURRECTION OF THE CHRIST is expected to begin filming in Italy in August. Caviezel hopes that the sequel will leave just as much of an impact on viewers as THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.
Read Next: How THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST Challenged Jim Caviezel
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