“Remember the thoughtful soldier in THE THIN RED LINE? The time-machine-cop in FREQUENCY? The inspirational bum in PAY IT FORWARD? “That’s all Jim. “‘I would want my son to grow up to be a man like Jim Caviezel’, his FREQUENCY co-star Andre Braugher told Entertainment Weekly. “After speaking with Jim, shortly before the release of FREQUENCY, the source of Braugher’s admiration became clear to me. Jim Caviezel is a genuine light shining brightly in the midst of an entertainment industry. He’s the real thing in a business all about fabricated images and scripted lines. “CE   What challenges do you face in the midst of Hollywood? “JC   Well, I don’t know how long it will last. But if I live according to how God wants me to live, everything is written down the way it’s supposed to and I will receive what I’m supposed to, not one more part, (not) one less. “Our passion is to get to heaven. I deal with everything, from my own faults and addictions of my own flesh, of wanting to succeed and be successful and there are many temptations of wealth and of flesh and of power. Those are always there. And there’s nothing I can do about that. When God is living in me, every day, when I’m on my knees and say “ya know, okay, I’ve got this role,”…none of this matters if I lose my soul. ... “The joy of God is in obedience. ...We have to pay our consequences, they’re there, but the joy [is there], because we know we will see God, and we know He loves us, beyond anything, and God loves us all. ... “That right there is the greatest thing—that even when you fall, it’s about getting up again. We’re sinners, but you’ve got to get up. God knows what you’ve been through; He’s been through it. But you’ve just got to get up again. When the devil says, “Hey, see I got you, you’re worthless.” You're not. You’ve got to get up again and that’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to keep trying. And eventually we’ll be there in heaven. “CE   Have you always been strong in your faith? “JC   When I look back on it, I always felt a gentle hand on my back. Like the hand of God behind me. At times, I’d push it away and say, ‘I want to be cool, and this isn’t cool.’ I’d kind of go my own direction, and then I’d kinda feel this gentle hand pull me in the right direction again. “CE   What are some of the struggles adolescence brings? “JC   I think the biggest thing that kids are dealing with right now is sexuality. Obviously, their hormones are going crazy. And [it is] the biggest message in Hollywood, which is a big lie. A movie will be painted in this way: they’ll show you romance, they’ll seduce you, and you feel the love, but it’s momentary; short-lived; [there are] consequences that (they) don’t deal with. They don’t talk about all the venereal diseases; they don’t talk about what a broken heart is like. “CE   How do you go about choosing roles that are consistent with your convictions? “JC   It is a struggle all the time. There are times when I’ll do a role where the character may not be redeeming as such, but he helps redeem the whole story. “Would I play Christ in a movie? Of course. Would I play satan? Absolutely. I would show you how evil he is. You wouldn’t want to be a part of what he has to offer you. I go through script after script after script. Ninety-nine percent of them are things that I wouldn’t want to be a part of. “You can also find scripts that are not well written. It’s tough when you find the ones that are well written that are extremely tempting to do, because when lucifer puts his art out there he’s not going to make it stupid. He’s going to make it very clever and make it in a way where you’re like, ‘That’s brilliant.’ “Evil has it’s own art. You have to be weary of that, and I try to be. ...I would tell every 18-year-old right now, their goal should be to become a saint. If your goal is that, you’ll be what God wants you to be, whether you’re a doctor, lawyer, whatever. “Don’t waste your time thinking about what you want, just pray. If you pray, God will tell you. It's very simple. If you start praying, your life will become very simple, and you will have great joy; even in misery, you will have great joy. “Don’t waste your time thinking about what you want, just pray. “If you pray, God will tell you. “It’s very simple. “CE   What is your greatest joy in life right now? JC   My greatest joy right now is that I know I met somebody, whom I’m married to now, who loves me more than anything, but loves God more. “There are so many. My greatest joy is that I know I will see God, and I know she will, too. And she can feel fulfilled because she knows that I will too. “My dad used to say this to me all the time when I was a kid, ‘Everyday, in every way, through the grace of God, I’m getting better and better.’ “If you just begin your day on your knees, end your day on your knees—that’s a lot right there. As you’re coming into the light, you thank God, you get right, you say, ‘God, forgive me of my sins,’ Say the “Our Father.” Say the “Hail Mary” and pray for the day—‘God, shine through my actions,’ and the light comes in. As the evening ends and the darkness comes, before you go to bed at night, you pray ‘God, please be with me, God be with me, Holy Spirit fill me, Jesus love me.’ “And you pray again because you are going into the darkness. And that He will be with you in your dreams. Let God pierce that darkness, pierce the devil. He is with you all the time, every day. “In your meals, you say thank you. You make the sign of the cross. If you stand before God in front of other people, non-believers, Jesus will stand before you in heaven, if you have that strength. “If you want to be happy, if you choose that, then you will pray, because He will be with you, and the fruits will come from you. Be a saint. Be a saint. That’s the most positive affirmation I could ever say to anyone. On Prayer “JC   I think it is important every day to spend at least 15 minutes with God. When is the time to do it? I always like to work out in the morning because then I get it done. If I work out in the evening, usually I’m too tired. The best time to work out and to pray is in the morning. He’s going to fill you throughout your day. “If not then, then before you study. Fifteen minutes, every day. If you cannot do that, then you do obsess about other things; you’ve made your choice. That’s it, plain and simple. I’m not here to color it any other way. I don’t color it for myself. I know where I fall short. “If I choose not to give my day to God, you don’t know if you're going to be taken that day. I’ve had plenty of friends who didn’t know they were going to die the day they died. A good, good friend of mine died when he’d just turned 18. He had a whole life ahead of him. You don’t know when, the time nor the hour. It’s important. “If you want to be happy, if you choose that, then you will pray, because He will be with you, and the fruits will come from you. Be a saint. Be a saint. That’s the most positive affirmation I could ever say to anyone. On Mary “[CE  ] One of the first things this rising Catholic star and former YOU!/Veritas reader told me about was a conversation he had with a friend regarding the ‘Hail Mary.’ “His friend was uncomfortable with the prayer and Catholicism’s strong admiration for Mary. So, Jim took him through the prayer, line by line. They were cruising along with the prayer until Jim recited the line, ‘Holy Mary, mother of God.’ “‘Right there, I don’t agree with that,’ his friend said. A few days later, still discontented with his friend’s comment, Jim was driving down the road and found himself questioned as well. ‘It was like Jesus saying to me, “Do you believe I am God? Do you believe in the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Well, am I not God? Is she not my mother?” “And I was like, “Of course.” And then I said, “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.” Why can’t I go to someone else to pray for me? Who better than His mother, who suffered, who was right there. [Nearly] all the apostles, they left; John and His mother were right there. She was devoted to Him, even if it cost her her own life. ... “People will say, “Jesus won't fail you.” I say, “Of course. I pray with Him all the time.” But what greater thing than to have her go to her son with these requests. She is important. Especially right now in this country. Much of our population knows only one parent. We need our father. We need Jesus and we need Mary. “Mary is a great symbol for all of our wives, our daughters, our women. A great symbol of what it really means to be a woman. And God, our Father, God who became flesh, is a great symbol for our men. And what a woman is for a man, how I treat my wife, I get that from Mary, my mother. I get both sides and I get it from all of the male and female saints. On FREQUENCY “JC   I chose to do that film right after I’d done THE THIN RED LINE. Maybe ten months prior to reading the script, my dad had open-heart surgery. I was so scared. I love him so much. The void inside my soul was tremendous, ‘What if my dad dies?’ “I remember saying to him before he went in, ‘I'm scared.’ He said (THE THIN RED LINE hadn’t come out yet), ‘Well, just know that I want to see that movie. And if my soul gets taken I’ll make sure and ask the Lord if I can stay just a while longer so I can see it. But if I can’t, then you know where I’m at, because if you don’t, then everything I’ve taught you doesn’t mean a thing.’ “That was my connection, which was my hook in [FREQUENCY]. That’s what I tied it to. It’s all about ‘what if?’ What if you could change the past? What would you do? So many times we are ashamed of things that we have done, and we’re sorry for them, but more times than others, we are even more sorry for the things we didn’t do…things you regret that you now have a chance to change. “That’s what this is all about-the yearning to have that, to bring that person back. I used that image of my father in the movie, and my belief in Christ and knowing that if he was taken from me that I know he’s with God. That’s what it all comes down to…when you die, you will see God and you see Jesus Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father. That is your passion, that is your goal, because that is the inevitable, that is what awaits you. That is your connection. “Satan would say to you, your goal right now is to be the best basketball player, or actor, whatever, you obsess on that. You should obsess on God. He is our obsession. [Be] so obsessed that it lives in you and comes out of you; that the fruits of the Spirit will just come flying out and you really will have happiness.”