MAIA MORGENSTERN, a Romanian Jewish actress, plays the Virgin Mary in Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ (the article is from New California Media). Here are excerpts (but it's worth reading in full):

Critics have denounced the hyper-realistic drama as a modern version of the medieval passion play, blaming Jews for the death of Jesus. But Morgenstern, 41, doesn�t view the film as anti-Semitic.

Yes, the villain is the Jewish high priest, Caiaphas, she said from her Bucharest home. But he clearly represents the regime, not the Jewish people. "Authorities throughout history have persecuted individuals with revolutionary ideas," she said.

Morgenstern feels "The Passion" opposes such oppression. "It is about letting people speak openly about what they think and believe," she said. "It denounces the madness of violence and cruelty, which if unchecked can spread like a disease."

Morgenstern�s family experienced such violence during World War II. Her grandfather disappeared after being arrested in his native Transnistria, a conflicted region near the Ukraine; her father survived Nazi and Stalinist labor camps.

[...]

Morgenstern eventually became a star of Bucharest�s National Theatre and more than 30 Eastern European films. In Maria Meszaros� "The Seventh Room," she played Edith Stein, the Jew who died as a nun in Auschwitz and was canonized in 1998. Between scenes shot just outside the camp gates, Morgenstern � who shaved her head for the role � perused Nazi records and discovered her grandfather had died in the camp.

[...]

Over the course of the production, Morgenstern emphasized, not a single scene struck her as anti-Semitic. Characters such as Mary and John are sympathetic Jews, and Gibson "allowed me to make suggestions based on my Jewish culture," she said. In the scene in which Mary learns Jesus has been arrested, it was Morgenstern�s idea to whisper the Passover question, "Why is this night different from all other nights?"

When visiting reporters asked why a Jewish actress was portraying Jesus� mother, she replied, "I played Clytemnestra in �Oresteia,� and it didn�t mean I killed my husband. And as far as I know, Mary was a Jewish lady, so I think it is very normal."

Incidentally, I know women married very young in antiquity, but is it realistic to have a 41-year-old woman play the mother of a man in his thirties? Or is this just because everyone in a Hollywood movie has to look young and beautiful?