Actors who have portrayed Jesus or God in movies and TV shows

In my last post, I listed 58 actors who have played the devil in live-action movies and TV shows.
Since I covered the darkness, it is only fair to cover the light as well.
My new list includes 24 actors who have played Jesus and 102 actors who have played God.
My list excludes animated versions of God and Jesus as well as movies and TV shows that just presented the voice of God.

Actors who have played Jesus:

Christian Bale, “Mary, Mother of Jesus” (1999)
Jim Caviezel, “The Passion of the Christ” (2004)
Henry Ian Cusick, “The Gospel of John” (2003)
Willem Dafoe, “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988)
Brian Deacon, “Jesus” (1979)
Juan Pablo Di Pace, “A.D. The Bible Continues” (2015)
Will Ferrell, “Superstar” (1999)
Victor Garber, “Godspell” (1973)
Adam Greaves-Neal, “The Young Messiah” (2016)
Jeffrey Hunter, “King of Kings” (1961)
Enrique Irazoqui, “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” (1964)
Gerald “Slink” Johnson, “Black Jesus” (2014-present)
Ewan McGregor, “Last Days in the Desert” (2015)
Mike Mohrhardt, “Heaven is For Real” (2014)
Diogo Morgado, “The Bible” (2013) and “Son of God” (2014)
Ted Neeley, “Jesus Christ Superstar” (1973)
Robert Powell, “Jesus of Nazareth” (1977)
Chris Sarandon, “The Day Christ Died” (1980)
Jeremy Sisto, “Jesus” (1999)
Haaz Sleiman, “Killing Jesus” (2015)
John Kay Steel, “The Life of Jesus: The Revolutionary” (1998)
Robert Torti, “Reefer Madness” (2005)
Max von Sydow, “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (1965)
H.B. Warner, “The King of Kings” (1927)

Actors who have played God:

Scott Bairstow, “Touched by an Angel” (2003)
George Burns, “Oh, God!” (1977), “Oh, God! Book II” (1980) and “Oh, God! You Devil” (1984)
Rodney Dangerfield, “Angels with Angles” (2005)
Morgan Freeman, “Bruce Almighty” (2003) and “Evan Almighty” (2007)
Whoopi Goldberg, “A Little Bit of Heaven” (2011)
Charlton Heston, “Almost an Angel” (1990)
Rex Ingram, “The Green Pastures” (1936)
Groucho Marx, “Skidoo” (1968)
Ferdy Mayne, “Night Train to Terror” (1985)
Alanis Morissette, “Dogma” (1999)
Robert Morley, “Second Time Lucky” (1984)
George Plimpton. “Religion, Inc.” aka “A Fool and His Money” (1989)
Richard Pryor, “In God We Tru$t” (1980)
Ralph Richardson, “Time Bandits” (1981)
Maurice Roeves, “The Acid House” (1998)
Tucker Smallwood, “The Sarah Silverman Program” (2007-2010)
Paul Sorvino, “The Devil’s Carnival” (2012)

In addition to these performances, 85 actors played God in cameos on the TV series “Joan of Arcadia” (2003-2005). They included Will.i.am, Zachary Quinto, Curtis Armstrong and Sherri Shepherd. (See lists on IMDb and Wikipedia.)

Actors who have played both the devil and God or Jesus:

As a bonus, I count four actors who have portrayed both the devil and God or Jesus.

• George Burns played God in the movie “Oh God!” (1977) and its sequel “Oh, God! Book II” (1980). He played both God and the devil in the third film “Oh God! You Devil” (1984).
• Rodney Dangerfield played God in “Angels with Angles” (2005) and Lucifer in “Little Nicky” (2000)
• Willem Dafoe played Jesus in “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988) and played Satan in a 2013 Mercedes-Benz Super Bowl commercial.
• Diogo Morgado played “The Man,” the devil incarnate on the TV series “The Messengers” (2015). He previously played Jesus in the TV mini-series “The Bible” (2013) and its movie adaptation “Son of God” (2014).

Photo: Morgan Freeman as God in “Bruce Almighty.”