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He already had been struck by lightning while filming the Sermon on the Mount scene. He separated his shoulder when he fell carrying the cross through the streets of Jerusalem.

The harsh Italian weather and long, grueling hours on the set, including eight hours in the makeup chair each day, contributed to a lung infection, pneumonia and a bout of hypothermia. Further, during the brutal whipping scene, the actors playing Roman guards accidentally missed the metal plate on his back — twice — causing pain so severe that he felt his breath leave his body.

So it is understandable that at one point — near the end of five weeks of filming on the cross as stiff, steady winds made it sway three feet in either direction, causing severe pain in his separated shoulder — actor Jim Caviezel wondered if he had made a mistake in accepting director Mel Gibson's offer to play Jesus Christ in "The Passion of the Christ."

Sitting at a breakfast table in the comfort of the wind-free Four Seasons hotel in Los Angeles, the soft-spoken, devout Roman Catholic actor admits that he had a moment of questioning his faith.

"I literally looked up from swaying back and forth on that cross, my shoulder in pain and constantly worried that a gust of wind might blow me off a cliff, and said to God: 'You obviously don't give a damn.'

"For the first time, I started questioning whether I had done the right thing. More important, I wondered whether it would be possible to finish this film."

The $25 million movie, financed by Gibson, depicts the last 12 hours in Christ's life, although it includes flashback scenes. It will open Wednesday in about 2,800 theaters amid a swirling controversy over whether it will incite feelings of anti-Semitism. Gibson and Caviezel insist that it does not blame Jews for the death of Christ.

"Mel said from the very beginning that he expected it to be controversial based on the way he was going to make the film," the 35-year-old actor says.

"I think the film has been misunderstood," he adds. "It does not condemn an entire race. There are good people and bad people in any group, and this movie does not blame all Jewish people, just as all Italian people should not be blamed for the acts of Mussolini, or all Russian people should not be blamed for the acts of Stalin.

"This is a movie about love, forgiveness, sacrifice and hope. I want all people to see this film, and I wouldn't have done it if I thought that it would hurt Jewish-Catholic relations."

However, that wasn't what he was thinking that day on the cross, wondering if he was going to live through what he now playfully terms Mel Hell.

"I actually had the thought that this cross was killing me," the actor says, suddenly struck by the humor of that statement. "But it wasn't funny at the time. I was in pain and I was freezing.

"Then something happened. It's hard to explain, except to say that it might be what an athlete goes through when he seems to be thoroughly beaten and defeated and then he finds the strength within him to overcome everything and win."

THE FIRE WITHIN

Caviezel, who lives in a rural area north of Los Angeles with his schoolteacher wife, is a Washington state native who harbored dreams of being a professional basketball player.

In fact, he played point guard on a junior college team before a leg injury sidelined his career. But he already showed signs of being a brilliant mimic — doing a dead-on impression of his coach during halftime — and it was that very coach who suggested that he give acting a try.

After a few theater productions, he moved to L.A. to pursue a movie career, and he was cast in a small role as an airline clerk in "My Own Private Idaho." He completed another small role in "Diggstown" and was accepted into the Juilliard School for the Performing Arts in New York.

While Caviezel was considering the move East, Kevin Costner offered him a role in his 1994 Western "Wyatt Earp," and Caviezel felt that role would jump-start his career more than acting school. He was wrong.

It only led to more small roles — "The Rock," "G.I. Jane" and the dreadful monkey movie "Ed" — until director Terrence Malick plucked him from obscurity and cast him in a key role in the war film "The Thin Red Line."

His dark, moody character led only to other dark, moody characters in "Frequency," "Pay It Forward" and "Angel Eyes," opposite Jennifer Lopez.

In "The Count of Monte Cristo," however, he finally had a meaty leading role to dig into, and director Kevin Reynolds compared him to the legendary Montgomery Clift.

Gibson saw some of the same qualities when he decided to cast Caviezel in "The Passion of the Christ."

"Jim has a wonderful, childlike innocence that I thought was the perfect quality to play the lamb of God," Gibson says. "There has to be a sense of uncomplicated purity about the role.

"At the same time, he has other qualities of masculinity that complete the characterization. Listen, it wasn't an easy role to play. He needed that strength because we put him through hell."

Gibson adds with a laugh: "But at least I didn't pay him anything."

Even with the harsh working conditions and low pay, Caviezel took the job. And then there was the Jesus curse.

Caviezel says he was aware of the so-called Hollywood curse of playing Christ in a movie (if you don't believe in the curse, just ask Ted Neeley about his career after "Jesus Christ Superstar"). But he was undaunted.

"I'm the type of person who accepts a curse like that as a challenge," the actor says. "I believe I will overcome the curse."

Of course, he wasn't talking so tough when his head burst into flames.

"We were on this mountaintop outside of Rome, filming the Sermon on the Mount scene, and the weather was getting worse by the minute. About three seconds before it happened, this invisible barrier seemed to go up around me. Everything got silent and I remember saying, 'Oh my God, I'm going to get hit by lightning.'

"There were 200 extras standing there, and no one saw an actual lightning bolt hit me, but they did see fire coming out of my head. To me, it felt like hard slaps on either side of my head. But I could hear Mel, who was down the mountain a bit, yelling into the microphone, 'What the hell happened to his freakin' head?'"

Jesus curse, indeed.