With the blessed box office of Passion of the Christ and, peripherally, Narnia, everyone (besides most of our government and about 70% of the country) wants to be in the Jesus business.

That now also includes New Line and endlessly adorable young Whale Rider star Keisha Castle-Hughes, who’ll portray the Virgin Mary in that studio’s Nativity. The movie, which focuses on Mary’s life for the two years before her birth of biblical proportions, is being directed by Catherine Hardwicke, perhaps some sort of bizarre penance for the adolescent iniquity she depicted in Thirteen (five Our Fathers and a movie about the Immaculate Conception).

Justifiable jailbait Castle-Hughes was nominated for an Oscar for her incredible Whale Rider performance, which displayed more true and affecting acting than Julia Roberts has done in her whole career. Plus she made me cry. Speaking of weeping, she was apparently also in Revenge of the Sith, but I’ve conveniently forgotten most of that movie and everyone associated with it.