Telly Savalas shaved his head bald for his role as Pontius Pilate; he kept it shaved for the rest of his life.
George Stevens was under pressure to hurry the John the Baptist sequence, which was shot at the Glen Canyon area. It was scheduled to become Lake Powell with the completion of the Glen Canyon Dam, and the production held up the project.
The American movie debut of Max von Sydow. Prior to this movie, von Sydow was highly popular Swedish actor who appeared in Ingmar Bergman films such as The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), The Virgin Spring (1960), and Through a Glass Darkly (1961). Producer and director George Stevens wanted an unknown actor free of secular and unseemly associations in the mind of the public.
Max von Sydow said that the hardest part about playing Christ was the expectations people had of him to remain in character at all times. He could not smoke between takes, have a drink after work, or be affectionate with his wife on the set.
During an interview on The Mike Douglas Show (1961), Jamie Farr related the story of how he was so desperate for work when he auditioned for the picture that he prayed to St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes, that he would get the job. He was ironically cast as the apostle Thaddeus, an alternate name for St. Jude (possibly used to avoid confusion with Judas Iscariot).