Why would playing the role of Jesus Christ damage the actor's career? [closed]

Gibson didn't give a reason so we can only speculate.

The Passion of the Christ was a controversial movie. Over and above its religious themes, it contained extreme scenes of violence and torture, and no English dialog. (Gibson originally intended to release it without subtitles, but that decision was changed). It also attracted controversy for its portrayal of Jewish leaders, particularly laying the blame for Jesus death on them. Starring in a movie that attracts negative attention can certainly damage an actor's career.

Gibson was clearly committed to the project regardless of the effects the controversy would have on his career, and may have wanted an actor who would also not back away from the project because of controversy.

Has he been blackballed?

a quick look at his IMDB history shows that before Passion of the Christ he had 23 acting credits over 13 years. After he has 19 in 17 years , although this included a regular TV role on Person of interest

His lead role in a major film didn't translate into becoming an A-lister, but that could be said about many people.

There is a perception (I won't go into whether or not that perception is accurate) among conservatives that "Hollywood" hates Christians and conservatives/Republicans. Therefore, portraying Jesus in a Christian movie being directed by a conservative Christian would, according to the aforementioned perception, cause Hollywood to hate you too.

There is a phenomenon where an actor becomes inextricably linked to a particular role, to the point where they have difficulty getting new roles. (See I Am Not Spock on TV Tropes¹). Mel Gibson may have been thinking of this when warning Jim Caviezel.

Although based on recent Qomments, he may soon have even more trouble finding good roles.

¹ Obligatory TV tropes warning

It's the people, not the role.

• Jim Caviezel only plays one type of guy: dour, serious. Look at his performances in Count of Monte Cristo or Person of Interest. In those works, as well as in The Passion of the Christ, he plays the roles as a very fatalistic, driven, and detached person. Even on talk shows he is the same kind of person.

  He's also extremely open and passionate about his personal religious beliefs (as a devout Christian), which would probably make him uncomfortable to have around in a lot of Hollywood scenes... "oh here comes Jim, he's going to preach to us. He doesn't drink. He's a goody two shoes", etc... That, and Jesus movies aren't particularly good sellers in America. They tend to make people feel bad about their own shortcomings, and reminds them of the 1 to 2 hour religious sessions many of them already experience every single week at church. That's the worry that Gibson was getting at, I think.

• Take Jeffrey Hunter in King of Kings for another example, for some reason he declined the role of Captain Kirk on Star Trek, despite acting as Kirk in the pilot. We may have never known William Shatner as anything other than a bit part actor if Jeffrey Hunter had stayed on as Captain Kirk. After that Hunter kind of faded away.

Others, however, who portrayed Jesus went on to have great careers... people like Max von Sydow or Christian Bale have quite the range and huge amounts of charisma. I mean, Christian Bale is both Jesus Christ and Batman.

It's also not unique to Jesus flicks. As others have already indicated, folks like Leonard Nimoy as Spock or Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker were instantly and forever typecast/shoehorned into that role... they're so unique and memorable that real people literally can't imagine such actors as their real selves, only as the characters they portrayed.

Many heavily typecast actors don't appear to be suffering from the same fate, because they were lucky to be typecast as "action" actors... think Liam Neeson, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, etc. and to a lesser extent people like Dwayne Johnson. You just can't picture them in a role where they aren't an action hero (even Qui-Gon or Action movies are very enjoyable experiences to repeat for audiences, because the contents of the film are novel and outlandish... so they make big bucks. Likewise, these typecast actors never seem to be out of a role.