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You try to get the feel of any role, but it's much more difficult in the case of Christ because everyone has their own personal image of Him. It's a role you take on, knowing that no matter how you play it, you are going to disappoint many.

There just aren't that many Jesus roles around.

It's important for us to certainly cast some Christian actors who can speak to our audience when we market the films, but obviously we don't discriminate. So our crew and our cast, the beliefs don't really matter.

A lot of people, especially Christians, want to put you in this box of being a Christian actor, and I don't believe in it. You do yourself and everyone else a big disservice when you start thinking about it as 'Christian art.' That's why most Christian art is bad. They don't put a premium on the 'art.'

A large part of acting is just pretending. You get to work with these other great make-believers, all making believe as hard as they can.

I think it's vital to have something outside your acting to keep you rooted in the real world, and help you fill the vacuum. If you have nothing else, it can be unhealthy. For me being a Christian has been invaluable: it simply means acting isn't the centre of my life.

My capacity as a monk was to passionately believe utter nonsense, and when you're an actor you have to do the same thing. Also, Christianity used to have a lot to do with self-loathing and an acceptance of criticism and things like that which is terribly important for actors.

I was the only Christian on the cast, but that was cool because we all respected each others talent and mostly they respected me a lot even though I was the only Christian.