Jim Caviezel comes alive, though, when talking about his wife, Kerri, a 31-year-old former English teacher whom he met on a blind date after one of his three sisters telephoned him in Los Angeles and predicted: “Jim — I’ve just met your future wife.”
He says, approvingly: “Kerri is very reserved. Her father’s side of the family is Croatian, and her mother’s side is English. My way — the American way — is to be very welcome and open, until anyone shows us differently. The English way is to learn things first and then, maybe, they open up. So this was Kerri’s way. She was thinking: ‘I don’t know whether I can trust this guy.’”
But she trusted him enough a few months later, by accepting a marriage proposal that could have come from a film script. Caviezel had lined up an exclusive restaurant in California, which neither had been in before. “A friend of mine is a magician, and he taught me how to misdirect Kerri, to make her think that it was her idea to go there,” he recalls. “This is possible to do, believe me, but I can’t divulge how, because such tricks are supposed to remain a secret within the magic circle.
“ She picked the restaurant, as I had planned. We walk in and I’ve already booked the perfect table. She says: ‘How great, this is the only one that is free.’ I then slip the waiter the engagement ring. When he brought the desserts, they had silver dishes on top. She lifted hers — and there was the ring in the middle of the plate. I asked: ‘Will you marry me?’ She burst into tears and said: ‘Yes.’ My only regret is that I didn’t get down on one knee.” But there can be little argument that he’s worshipped at her feet ever since.
He says, approvingly: “Kerri is very reserved. Her father’s side of the family is Croatian, and her mother’s side is English. My way — the American way — is to be very welcome and open, until anyone shows us differently. The English way is to learn things first and then, maybe, they open up. So this was Kerri’s way. She was thinking: ‘I don’t know whether I can trust this guy.’”
But she trusted him enough a few months later, by accepting a marriage proposal that could have come from a film script. Caviezel had lined up an exclusive restaurant in California, which neither had been in before. “A friend of mine is a magician, and he taught me how to misdirect Kerri, to make her think that it was her idea to go there,” he recalls. “This is possible to do, believe me, but I can’t divulge how, because such tricks are supposed to remain a secret within the magic circle.
“ She picked the restaurant, as I had planned. We walk in and I’ve already booked the perfect table. She says: ‘How great, this is the only one that is free.’ I then slip the waiter the engagement ring. When he brought the desserts, they had silver dishes on top. She lifted hers — and there was the ring in the middle of the plate. I asked: ‘Will you marry me?’ She burst into tears and said: ‘Yes.’ My only regret is that I didn’t get down on one knee.” But there can be little argument that he’s worshipped at her feet ever since.
