Passion of the Christ: Mel Gibson epic's ‘sense of authenticity’ PRAISED by Kurt Russell
The Passion of the Christ follows the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, from his prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane to his death by crucifixion. The Biblical epic is one of the highest-grossing R-rated (15 in the UK) movies of all time with a global box office taking of $612 million. Notably, the Christian blockbuster’s dialogue is entirely in Hebrew, Latin and reconstructed Aramaic, while originally Mel Gibson wanted to release the film without subtitles.
Now Kurt Russell has praised The Passion of the Christ for being shot in the original Ancient languages.
The 69-year-old has reprised his Santa Claus for Netflix’s The Christmas Chronicles 2, in which his Kris Kringle speaks to his elves in a specially created language called Yulish.
Asked in a new interview if it was a challenge, Russell said: “There’s a guy who writes it out phonetically and then you read it. We have no idea what we’re saying!”
While his partner and Mrs Claus co-star Goldie Hawn added: “He says it’s a language, but in my mind, it’s just sounds.”
