Holy Men: Actors Who’ve Rocked The Cross As Jesus Christ

By Erin Free

JIM CAVIEZEL: THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004)

As the extraordinary anchor of director, Mel Gibson’s faith-driven, skin-shredding, blood-flying smash hit, The Passion Of The Christ, devout Catholic, Jim Caviezel (whose finest moment prior to Gibson’s feverish religious mini-epic was as the Christ-like Private Witt in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line), drew upon his own strict belief system to dredge up a performance of soulful brilliance. Kind, strong, and crunchingly believable in the film’s Evil Dead-level crucifixion scenes, Jim Caviezel remains the JC by which all others are now measured.

WILLEM DAFOE: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988)

“The minute that I saw Willem Dafoe, I felt very comfortable with his face,” says director, Martin Scorsese, in the book, Scorsese On Scorsese. “He becomes the Jesus that we are familiar with in the Aryan Christian tradition.” Like most big screen JCs, Willem Dafoe is racially miscast, but he makes for a wonderfully physical and relatable Christ in Scorsese’s controversial The Last Temptation Of Christ, which drew fire for visualising the earthly possibilities offered to The Son Of God by Satan as he hangs tough on the cross.

DONALD SUTHERLAND: JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN (1974)

Screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo’s sole directorial effort (an adaptation of his acclaimed novel) is a scathing, blackly satirical anti-war polemic in which a young man (Timothy Bottoms) returns from WW1 minus his arms, legs, and most of his face. Desperate to end his life, he is wholly lost, and receives little philosophical assistance from a dreamy, ineffectual, but very cool-looking vision of Jesus (a trippy Donald Sutherland), who does card tricks, constructs wooden crosses, and speaks in infuriating riddles.

PAUL HIPP: BAD LIEUTENANT (1992)

Is this the first time that Jesus has been called a “rat fuck” to his face? In Abel Ferrara’s savagely debauched masterpiece, Harvey Keitel’s horribly corrupt cop is met in church by a vision of Jesus (a minimalist but authoritative Paul Hipp), who remains silent as Keitel proceeds to give him a very hard time about his lack of help and guidance, before eventually delivering one of the most wounded confessions in cinema history, and then begging for The Big Guy’s forgiveness.

JEFFREY HUNTER: KING OF KINGS (1961)

With his dreamy blue eyes and square-jawed stoicism, Hollywood pretty boy, Jeffrey Hunter (The Searchers, TV’s Star Trek), is without doubt one of cinema’s cutest JCs, exerting a near-hypnotic power through the looong running time of King Of Kings, a wonderfully colourful and pacey treatment of the gospels from the great Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without A Cause). Fittingly, cult filmmaker, John Waters, dubbed the film, “I Was A Teenage Jesus”, and counts it as one of his Top 10 religious films.

BLAIR UNDERWOOD: THE SECOND COMING (1993)

In this little seen thirty-minute short (and major passion project), writer, producer, director, Blair Underwood (LA Law, Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD), also stars as a dark-skinned Jesus transplanted into a fractious modern day America (complete with a beard and dreads) who is discriminated against because of his race, and ends up in a mental institution when his preachings start to rock the status quo.

 

DIOGO MORGADO: SON OF GOD (2014)

Produced by small screen powerhouse, Mark Burnett (the creator of reality TV giants such as Survivor, The Apprentice, and The Voice), Son Of God is a big screen distillation of the epic, ragingly popular US TV mini-series, The Bible, and features impossibly handsome Portuguese model-turned-actor, Diogo Morgado (dubbed “sexy Jesus” by the US media), as a truly charismatic JC. Appropriately enough considering his good looks, a group of village kids react like he’s Harry Styles when he comes to preach.

TED NEELEY: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (1973)

Jesus doesn’t come any funkier than he does in this totally groovy big screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s smash hit stage musical, which comes courtesy of appropriately named director, Norman Jewison (Moonstruck, In The Heat Of The Night). The perfect embodiment of the “Jesus as ultimate hippie” trope, stage performer, Ted Neeley (who campaigned hard for the role, even dressing as JC for his impromptu audition), impressively sings, dances, and grooves like no other on-screen Jesus before or after him.

ENRIQUE IRAZOQUI: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW (1964)

That one of the best Jesus flicks was made by Pier Paolo Pasolini – an atheist, Marxist, and homosexual best known for his scandalous work, Salo – is a delicious irony. The Gospel According To St. Matthew is a gritty, down and dirty, documentary-style depiction of the life of Christ, with non-actor, Enrique Irazoqui (a Spanish economics student!), highly effective as an angry, rabble rousing Jesus, who fights tooth and nail for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised. If you like to flag Christ as the original Commie, then this is the Jesus flick for you.

LOTHAIRE BLUTEAU: JESUS OF MONTREAL (1989)

Okay, French-Canadian actor, Lothaire Bluteau (Black Robe), doesn’t actually play Jesus per se in this daring cult favourite from Denys Arcand, but Jesus Of Montreal remains one of cinema’s most interesting tellings of the Christ story, following a group of modern day actors who stage a controversial Passion Play, which brings down the wrath of the church, while the lead actor’s life starts to disturbingly mirror that of Christ himself.

KENNETH COLLEY: THE LIFE OF BRIAN (1979)

Religious groups pilloried this Monty Python Biblical epic piss-take as being blasphemous, despite the fact that its brief depiction of Jesus Christ (played by Kenneth Colley, who would double his cult cache by also playing Admiral Piett in Star Wars: Episodes V and VI) is a highly positive and non-demeaning one, even though not everyone can hear what he’s saying during The Sermon On The Mount. “I think he said, ‘Blessed are the cheese makers,’” remarks one spectator.

DAVID J. FRANCIS: DRACULA 2000 (2000)

In this loopy and not-very-good reimagining of Bram Stoker’s classic horror novel, the eponymous notorious neck-biter (played by a youthful Gerard Butler) is revealed to be, wait for it, none other than Judas Iscariot, the a-hole who sold out Jesus for a few coins. As part of this oddball mythology, Jesus (played by a very traditional and non-racially-appropriate David J. Francis) makes a very quick cameo.

CHRISTIAN BALE: MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS (1999)

Though, as the title would suggest, this telemovie focuses on Jesus’ mum (played by Swedish actress, Pernilla August, who was also mama to Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels), a late-appearing Christian Bale still steals the show as The Son Of God, bringing all of his requisite intensity and presence to the role.

MAX VON SYDOW: THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965)

Quite possibly the last actor that anyone would think of to play JC, Swedish-born Max Von Sydow nevertheless makes for a strikingly imposing Jesus, but his grass is constantly cut by the Love Boat-level parade of Hollywood names (Charlton Heston, Pat Boone, Van Heflin, Martin Landau, Roddy McDowall, Sal Mineo, Angela Lansbury, Sidney Poitier, John Wayne, Claude Rains, Telly Savalas, and many more) that director, George Stevens, roped in to make brief guest appearances in his middle-of-the-road Biblical epic.

ROBERT POWELL: JESUS OF NAZARETH (1977)

Franco Zeffirelli’s (Romeo And Juliet) epic six-hour 1977 TV mini-series is a characteristically graceful work from the master director, and his Jesus – as played by the lean, dark-haired, unblinking, hollow-eyed Robert Powell – is one of the most strangely ethereal ever committed to film.

EWAN MCGREGOR: LAST DAYS IN THE DESERT (2015)

Looking like a stray member of Pearl Jam in the mid-nineties, Ewan McGregor plays both Jesus and his arch-nemesis, Lucifer, in this arty, unusual effort from director, Rodrigo Garcia (Albert Nobbs, Mother And Child), which tells of an imagined encounter between Jesus and a troubled family during his forty-day fast and spiritual awakening in the desert.

WILL FERRELL: SUPERSTAR (1999)

“No, I’m good…I’m God!” Will Ferrell brings the laughs in his cameo as a funky, hippie-style Jesus (“You dig?”), who appears as a vision to Molly Shannon’s hopelessly repressed and just plain hopeless Catholic schoolgirl, Mary Catherine Gallagher, in the underwhelming Superstar, which proves that most good Saturday Night Live characters do not necessarily make for good movies.

RALPH FIENNES: THE MIRACLE MAKER (2000)

Stop Motion Jesus? Claymation Christ? In this inspired, beautifully animated Russian/UK co-production (which is wholly respectful to the scriptures, without going into too much laborious detail), all the hit-points in the story of Jesus are rendered poetic, charming, and family-friendly, with Ralph Fiennes gifting his mellifluous, Shakespeare-trained tones to the title character, and making Jesus something more than your typical cartoon hero.