Diogo Morgado, the guy who played Jesus of Nazareth in Son of God (as well as in the History Channel mini-series The Bible), is from Portgual, but he basically looks American….like a nice big friendly professional football player or a juice-slurping, doobie-toking hippie farmer from Oregon or Washington. This is how conservative Christians, the audience for Son of God, like to think of their savior — as an ESPN anchor with a beard and cloak. The same syndrome prevailed in Nicholas Ray‘s King of Kings, of course, in which Jesus was played by the all-American, honey-haired, square-jawed Jeffrey Hunter with the freakish ice-blue eyes. That was in 1961, of course, when average Americans were even more caught up in self-reflecting mythology than today’s Christians. For what it’s worth I always presumed Hunter was chosen because of his peepers, which were meant to be perceived as a metaphor for inner divinity. My favorite Jesus is still The Last Temptation of Christ‘s Willem Dafoe, closely followed by The Gospel According to St. Matthew‘s Enrique Irazoqui.
![](/images/column/aprile/songod227.jpg.jpg)
![](/images/column/aprile/jeff460.jpg.jpg)
(l.) Son of God star Diogo Morgado as Jesus of Nazareth; (r.) King of Kings star Jeffrey Hunter.
![](https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/wp-content/themes/amory/patreon-banner.jpg)