Willem Dafoe Was 'Shocked' by Backlash to His Jesus Role in "The Last Temptation of Christ": 'Became an Antisemitic Thing' Jen JuneauAugust 22, 2025 at 12:26 AM Stefano Mazzola/Getty; Everett Willem Dafoe in Venice, Italy, on March 27, 2025 (L) and as Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) Wi...
- - Willem Dafoe Was 'Shocked' by Backlash to His Jesus Role in "The Last Temptation of Christ": 'Became an Antisemitic Thing'
Jen JuneauAugust 22, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Stefano Mazzola/Getty; Everett
Willem Dafoe in Venice, Italy, on March 27, 2025 (L) and as Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) -
Willem Dafoe reflected on his controversial portrayal of Jesus in 1988's The Last Temptation of Christ during the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival
"Even without seeing the movie, there were huge protests against it," he recalled
Added Dafoe, "And then it morphed into a very strange thing about Jews in Hollywood. It became an antisemitic thing, and it snowballed"
Willem Dafoe is reflecting on his controversial performance as Jesus in 1988's The Last Temptation of Christ.
The 70-year-old actor recalled starring in the Martin Scorsese epic during a master class at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival on Thursday, Aug. 21, admitting he was "shocked" about the backlash the movie received, per The Hollywood Reporter.
"Jesus rejects his job and lives as a normal man. He has children, he has sex. That was too scandalous for people, so even without seeing the movie, there were huge protests against it," Dafoe said, according the outlet.
As the actor remembered, "And then it morphed into a very strange thing about Jews in Hollywood. It became an antisemitic thing, and it snowballed."
"And the perception is that it was the Catholic Church. It really wasn't the Catholic Church. It was the fundamental right in America that started this, and then it spread to various places," he added.
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Willem Dafoe (center) as Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
According to Dafoe, he "was shocked, because in an age of super-violent movies and porn and all kinds of movies, this is a movie that was trying to address itself to the nature of faith."
"It was a drag, because it was a movie that I was very invested in, in my mind. So it really did keep it from being widely distributed," he explained, per THR.
PEOPLE is out to Universal Pictures for comment.
The Last Temptation of Christ — which costarred Harvey Keitel as Judas, Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene and David Bowie as Pontius Pilate, among others — gave Dafoe the opportunity to step into "a beautiful role, because [it's about] the human part of Jesus."
"It's a guy that kind of rejects this responsibility given to him, and that was an interesting place to be, and it's one of my favorite roles," he continued, per THR. "I guess because it was so demanding, because I was almost in every shot, believe it or not, it was a very low-budget movie."
His goal, Dafoe said, was "to free myself of any images and expectation" of the famous religious figure, explaining, "You are not THE Jesus Christ. You are one Jesus Christ."
Everett
Willem Dafoe as Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Dafoe reflected on the film as it turned 30 back in 2018 in an interview for Entertainment Weekly, saying of Scorsese, 82, "It was clear that he wanted to tell the story from the human side of Jesus' he didn't want it all jazzed up."
"He wanted to bring it back into the body of a man and I felt like I was ready to do that," Dafoe added.
He also said The Last Temptation of Christ had "the strongest reaction to any film that I've been in, that I can think of," considering its controversial themes.
"The one thing I do remember is a lot of the opposition to the film [came from people who] hadn't even seen the film, so they basically didn't like the idea of it. But I think that was a time also that the religious right — not necessarily the Catholic Church, but the political right — really saw this as a moment to attack Hollywood," Dafoe told EW. "It was a moment that they exploited to make a political move. I thought it was disappointing because it's a beautiful movie."
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