Jim Caviezel and Tim Ballard join me to talk about their new film, The Passion of the Christ, and how they came together to make it. We also talk about how they got into acting and why they wanted to make a film based on the true story of a U.S. Homeland Security agent tasked with rescuing children from human traffickers in South America. We talk about the challenges they faced in making the film and how their faith was a driving force behind their decision to do so. And we talk about what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century, and why it s important to have a faith that is grounded in God's Word. This episode is brought to you by Youaving Wonders, the Awakening Wonders podcast, produced by BBC Radio 4 and BBC Worldwide. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/sponsorships/awakeningwonderings and use the promo code AWAKeningWonders at checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase of a copy of the new book, "Awakening Wonders: The Story of Christ" available in Kindle, iBook, Paperback, Hardcover or Hardcover, and on Audible. You can also get 20% off the entire course, including Audible, Audible and Audible courses, at $99.99. Subscribe to Awakenings Wonders. and leave us a rating and review on your favourite podcast platform. If you like the show, please consider pledging a five-star review and review in iTunes! Subscribe and review! and we'll be giving you 5 stars! Thank you! You'll get 5 stars and 5 VIP memberships, 5-star reviews, and 7-reviewers get 10-review free of the book "Awakening Wonders - The Passion Of The Christ and Sound of Freedom - $50 off the film "The Passion of The Christ" and The Sound Of Freedom, $99 gets you an ad-free version of the novel "The Gospel According To Me, The Gospel According to Me? and a discount of $150,000 gets you 5-day VIP access to the movie "Auctioned in-between 4 stars and $50, VIP access gets you get 5-of-a-only 3 VIP discount, and $25,000 off the movie gets you a VIP discount only gets you 4-of a VIP 4-place promo code
00:00:48.000All just to name a few of the trials of our Lord.
00:00:51.000Something went wrong in the cinema and I had to turn the light on and I remember being most proud when I said let there be light before I turned the light on.
00:00:59.000You feel a little bit like in that moment you slightly became Jesus?
00:01:04.000I was trying to imply that to the cinema goers of Camden, Camden North London of course, but they didn't come with me on that journey at all.
00:01:13.000They were much more Jesus is the embodiment of the unknowable and nuministic entity that we call God.
00:01:20.000He is the potential for all of us to transform and become loving and awakened souls.
00:01:24.000And if you want someone who's not Jesus to be Jesus, Get Jim Caviezel.
00:01:29.000Jim's starring in Sound of Freedom, a new film based on the true story of a U.S.
00:01:32.000homeland security agent rescuing children from human traffickers in South America.
00:01:39.000Primarily I'm interested, of course the subject matter is fascinating, but it's a film that's been made in a different way.
00:01:44.000It's been funded in a new way, it's been promoted in a new way, and it's had extraordinary mainstream media pushback and some extraordinary Accusations about the motivations of the film and the audience of the film have been made.
00:01:56.000So all of this is stuff that I'm excited to cover with both Jim Caviezel and Tim Ballard, who Jim plays in the movie, who'll be joining us a little later.
00:03:10.000And that was the difference maker in that film.
00:03:14.000In the same way in Sound of Freedom, when I met Tim, And what he had been through he has it's that's also a biblical story where you would sell everything you have for that one pearl that Jesus speaks about.
00:03:31.000And I've you know had the none of the things that can fill you in your heart in this world they it's it's not I felt like This was my service as an actor to help people out and bring them to God.
00:03:56.000My involvement in this film, I have three children, all adopted.
00:04:01.000I became very well aware of nefarious activities even in the orphanages and things around the world and the dangers that children undergo.
00:04:15.000And so I feel like I would, in a heartbeat, give my life for my family or my children and felt that the dangers that they're going to undergo now, and especially within the media that is not giving the truth of what's happening or ignoring it, that I felt that this might be able to do something.
00:04:46.000And Tim, who's an incredibly special human being, sought me out for this because he saw The Passion, and he saw The Count of Monte Cristo, and those were two films he liked.
00:04:58.000And I didn't think, you know, being an actor when I was younger, that this is where I was going to end up.
00:05:05.000But there was something there that was Um, you know, doing The Passion was like climbing Mount Everest on the hardest side of the mountain.
00:05:14.000And, uh, you know, um, I used to do comedies, Russell.
00:07:55.000Can you tell me a little bit about the process of getting this film made?
00:08:01.000Tim, tell us how you've come to be in this position and as well touch on stuff and why you believe it's so important that people see Sound of Freedom.
00:08:10.000So I spent 12 years as a special agent, undercover operator, and I would get deeper and deeper as the years went on, trying to find the root of the problem.
00:08:19.000Eventually started getting overseas and started doing overseas operations.
00:08:24.000And in 2012, 2013, I was working a case in Colombia, got further than I was supposed to get, and they said, come home.
00:09:20.000Everyone was like, yay, we're helping kids.
00:09:23.000And one of the producers, Eduardo Verastegui, Alejandro Monteverde, saw that clip of the mainstream media, and that's how they found me, ironically, through the mainstream media, and said, let's make a movie out of this.
00:09:34.000Nine years later, The same mainstream media is acting like, well, I don't think it really happened.
00:09:40.000It's the most bizarre twist of events.
00:09:53.000And at first, they said they love Jim as an actor, but they wanted someone that looks a little bit like me because they had written into the script kind of this transitional thing at the end where they show real footage.
00:10:34.000When he flashes that smile, you're in all sorts of trouble.
00:10:37.000I'm trying to think of what other casting direction you could have gone in there to tell you the truth, Tim.
00:10:43.000Now, like, of course, yeah, I'm old enough to remember when child sex trafficking was universally condemned.
00:10:50.000I'm also old enough to remember that when people used to speak about networks of child sex stuff, that it was sort of regarded as a conspiracy theory, then
00:11:01.000there were some high-profile stories in our country that suggested that there was more truth to
00:11:05.000it than people had dared to imagine, because it's such a horrific thing for most of us even to
00:11:10.000contemplate that. Then of course in recent years we've had the Epstein story, which makes it
00:11:15.000yet more palpable that there appears to be a connection between these most nefarious and, let's
00:11:20.000say, sort of ghouling and ghoulish activities and the activities of powerful people. And now
00:11:25.000having spoken to both of you for a few minutes it becomes pretty plain why certain aspects of the
00:11:33.000media are not willing to promote this film.
00:11:36.000One I think is because it's an economic model that's outside of their control.
00:11:41.000It's a promo model that's outside of their control.
00:11:44.000And it's plain that from just from your most recent answer, Tim, that you believe there's a connection between this type of activity and powerful institutions, shall we say.
00:11:58.000So evidently there is, you know, now it makes more sense.
00:12:01.000But what I'd read up to now is that they were saying it's connected to Groups like QAnon and conspiracy theories, but one of the things I've learned over the last few years And I'm certainly not saying I believe I don't believe in anything until this proof I just can't be bothered with the arguments But certainly the last few years have shown me that things that start off as conspiracy theories end up being verified And I pray to God that this is not something that require that gets further verification Tim I want to say mate that obviously you've gone into areas that most people aren't willing to
00:12:34.000Most everybody of course is opposed to exploitation and violence or right-minded sane and awakened people of course, but most of us haven't experienced the jagged end of this type of cruelty.
00:12:47.000It seems that Jim has, it's been difficult for Jim just sort of playing you and going through the process of promoting this film What kind of burden and scars are you carrying?
00:13:00.000Or do you feel enriched and empowered by the success of the work more than you feel traumatized by the dark side of it?
00:13:34.000He ad-libbed my favorite line into the movie.
00:13:37.000He didn't know that was my line for life, my line for my operations.
00:13:40.000When I'm going into dark places, such that you see depicted in the film, there's a line from the scripture I read to myself over and over again.
00:13:48.000It's where Jesus stands on little children.
00:13:51.000It's the only time perhaps in the Bible where he truly gets violent, even mafioso violent, in his language because he says, I think we kind of pass by this too quickly sometimes when we read the Bible, he says that it's better that a millstone be hung about your neck and you tossed to the bottom of the sea than that you should hurt one of these little children.
00:14:11.000I mean, that is, it's Jesus, so it's righteous, but it's also mafioso.
00:14:56.000And Jim leans over and ad-libs a line that's not in the script.
00:15:01.000And he didn't know this was my go-to line.
00:15:04.000He looks at the pedophile moments before he's about to be arrested, and he says to him, Better than a millstone be hung about your neck and you tossed to the bottom of the sea, than you should hurt one of these little ones.
00:15:14.000And the actor, who did a phenomenal job, he didn't know what to do because, I mean, Jim's ad-libbing this line, and it seems out of context for a millisecond, and then two seconds later you realize what Jim's doing.
00:15:26.000You realize what the actor, Jim, is doing, trying to depict me sending a message to this sick, sick person before he goes down.
00:15:33.000And That is why Jim Caviezel had to play me.
00:15:38.000Because that's, to answer your question, that's how I heal.
00:15:44.000During the dark moments, I've already begun my process of healing because I bring Jesus and all that Jesus brings and redemptive power from the get-go.
00:15:56.000So both of you are able to endure these experiences and render them through your connection to a gangster Christ.
00:16:05.000Christ that's willing to take it to the dark places.
00:16:09.000This is not the Jesus peacefully with the lamb This is the Jesus with the moneylenders.
00:16:15.000This is the Jesus with the millstones.
00:16:18.000So, like, that's pretty serendipitous and synchronous, Jim, that you were able to come up with that line.
00:16:25.000It's pretty plain that your Christianity directs you as an actor and as a man.
00:16:30.000How did you bring that to bear on this part, and in particular in that scene?
00:16:37.000Well, if you go back to the Passion of the Christ, Our makeup artists, Christian Tinsley and Keith Vanderlyn, they were showing, Mel Gibson was showing the Shroud of Turin and it had, when they showed it and put it up on a kind of light that could come through it, you could see all of the track lines in it.
00:17:06.000The Cat O' Nine Tails, the whips they used on him, and immediately both of them believed that this was real.
00:17:17.000And then I said, why are you making such a big deal of it?
00:17:20.000And they said, well, look at his face.
00:17:24.000And then they pulled, I said, I don't understand.
00:17:28.000And they pulled this out and you see this picture, this That this is how all of the bodies they use from people that have been decapitated murdered or anything and the way that they when a person dies the face is frozen in that horrible look and you see the face of Jesus on that you see Does this look like a criminal now?
00:17:53.000when I was doing the so I I the I The work that I was going to do on this, I had to go to those depths because when people watch it in the theater, they're having a personal experience with something internal inside of them.
00:18:12.000And there was no different than when I was with Tim and I had to go to the places.
00:18:17.000So I met with Tim originally and then he was busy.
00:18:22.000I went over to Utah and got to see his whole place where he works and his men and everything.
00:18:34.000And then I went to other agents that I've known for many years that I went through and started researching all of this stuff.
00:18:42.000And you couldn't look at this stuff without having some protection in your soul.
00:18:50.000But what drove me more than anything was my own children and possibly losing them.
00:19:07.000And so I was, you know, it's, I, even thinking about it right now, it just, I think the children
00:19:24.000and seeing that it's different than an adult watching something that's older, but it relates
00:19:35.000to Jesus because he was the most innocent there ever was.
00:19:39.000And the children are the closest to that.
00:19:41.000Yes, I've heard it argued that what we're saying about the radiance that comes through the innocent is because they're not fully materialized, fully alloyed to the material world, you can experience God consciousness more through the young, through youth, even with cute young animals.
00:19:57.000There is a sense that the pure original condition can be experienced more before we Go through the various trials and conditioning that takes place that delivers us into adulthood and often the state of dull conformity that that renders.
00:20:14.000True Nature's Child says, Jesus the big G. Ian Driamo says, Jim is actually looking a lot more like Tim in this interview than I've ever seen him before too.
00:20:22.000Didn't recognize him in first, so doing a good job On that front too.
00:20:26.000Carolyn Joy says, do they think enough is being done by governments and law enforcement to track down the perpetrators of crimes of this nature and prevent future crimes from happening?
00:20:57.000An awareness, by the way, in a republic, theoretically, when the people get loud, we'll see those numbers shift.
00:21:04.000Tim, Jim, I really appreciate both of you for this devout and serious undertaking.
00:21:11.000I can see that it's put both of you under incredible strain and I'm really very grateful to you for the work you're doing and that you are obviously continuing to do and for your level of commitment.
00:21:25.000Thanks for getting up early and joining us.
00:21:33.000On the show tomorrow, I'm going to be joined by The Critical Drinker, a very popular and successful YouTuber who shares honest and hilarious critiques of movies.
00:22:05.000A man who has analyzed and critiqued contemporary cinema with a perspective that you're unlikely to see in the mainstream.
00:22:12.000I think we are definitely stuck in a rut as a culture when it comes to just relying on the past.
00:22:20.000As you say, the motivation behind these IPs and these franchise movies is no one's willing to take a risk.
00:22:28.000What they lack with these modern characters that they try to do is that they're not willing to take that step of have them fail and be vulnerable and have flaws and weaknesses.
00:22:36.000We're going to talk about Sound of Freedom.
00:22:39.000Why is this movie causing so much controversy?
00:22:42.000I'm also going to start referring to the Critical Drinker by his actual human name, and I'm going to ask you to remove them aviators.
00:22:55.000So there you go, that's our show tomorrow.
00:22:57.000To join our locals community, just press the red button at the bottom of your screen now.
00:23:01.000You also get first access to interviews like Oliver Stone and Rhonda Santis next week.
00:23:06.000We do meditations the whole time, loads of stuff about events.
00:23:08.000We've got a fantastic week for you next week.
00:23:11.000Join us tomorrow for The Critical Drinker, not for more of the same, oh no, we wouldn't insult you with that, but for more of the different.
00:23:16.000Until then, please, if you can, stay free.