The Passion
Ben Daniels plays Caiaphas
Ben Daniels admits he felt a heavy sense of duty playing the Jewish High Priest, Caiaphas. "The weight of responsibility was great. After all this is the man who effectively decided Jesus must die," he says, relaxing over a coffee back in London at the end of the arduous Moroccan shoot.
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"So, not being religious and not being Jewish, I felt it was important to make the choice Caiaphas makes as believable as possible which is why I did as much research as I could so that I understood him."
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Ben's first introduction to the character was in Frank Deasy's script. "It is amazing, Frank is such a great writer," says the actor who worked with Deasy on his controversial but acclaimed drama, Real Men, about paedophilia.
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"You read his script and suddenly you begin to understand the political aspect of it. It blasts open the whole story. I had never seen him opened out in that way as a character before, he was always kind of shady, the very worst kind of figure," says Ben. "But then in the very first scene of him with gorgeous pregnant wife and two daughters you suddenly see him as a human being, fully rounded."
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With that as his foundation, however, Ben dug deeper and discovered perhaps the least-well known character in the story of Jesus.
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"Caiaphas was one of the Sadducees, a member of the priestly line that stretched back to Zadok who was the High Priest under King David," he explains. "He was aristocratic. He was given the High Priest position by the Roman authorities. They did change them regularly, sometimes every year so it was unusual that he was in that position for that long.
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"The key to it for me was understanding the importance of the Temple of Jerusalem to the Jewish people. They believed it was where God resided on Earth and that the High Priest was the mediator between them, the people and God. So the sanctity of that temple was everything, it had to be kept pure so that the Jewish nation could survive. So his job was of massive importance," explains Ben.
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Since making Judaea a province of Rome some 30 years earlier, the occupying Roman army wielded an iron fist. "There was a riot which the Romans dealt with by crucifying 2,000 people," he says.
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During Caiaphas's term as High Priest, however, there was relative peace.
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"Caiaphas had the longest tenure as High Priest, he was there for something like 18 years and during that time there were no riots. So whatever it was that he did and however he handled the Roman authorities he did it well," believes Ben.
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All of this made the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem Caiaphas's biggest test.
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"The irony that Passover is a celebration of Jewish oppression while the population were oppressed by the Romans could not have been lost on people. The event itself was a tinderbox; the tiniest thing could spark it off.
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"Caiaphas and the Temple Guard were there to make sure things didn't kick off. So when someone comes in through the East Gate on a donkey's colt saying they are the Messiah then the alarm bells go off."
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