Between takes, actor Jon Voight walked the movie set with a string of rosary beads laced between his fingers, occasionally raising his hand to make the Catholic sign of the cross at a captivated extra or an onlooking nun.

Voight, a Catholic, isn't the first actor who tried to step into the shoes of Pope John Paul II, himself an actor who transformed the papacy into one of history's most telegenic roles. But Voight might be the first to take an almost devotional approach to the part.

He has perused John Paul's encyclicals, read his poetry and committed documentary footage to memory in an effort to gain command of his body language.

"I feel a little bit like I'm a protector," he said, expressing concern that John Paul could be "misinterpreted" in the hands of someone of lesser talent, not to mention faith.

As Voight stepped into the rain on a dreary afternoon, an aide appeared at his side carrying a large black umbrella to shield his papal vestments from the storm.

Long gone are the days of Midnight Cowboy, the 1969 film that features Voight as a male prostitute fresh off the farm. Voight now finds himself moving in quite different circles as the star of a two-part CBS miniseries, Pope John Paul II.

On Nov. 17, he and other cast members will attend a screening of the film with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. Anyone not part of the papal entourage must wait until Dec. 4 and 7, when the miniseries will be shown.

By then, nine months will have passed since the death of John Paul. But the rush to interpret, or misinterpret, the late pontiff's legacy already will be in full swing.

CBS's most direct competition will come in the form of Have No Fear: The Life of John Paul II, a two-hour ABC production also expected to air this television season.

Both films come on the heels of Karol: A Man Who Became Pope, the Hallmark Channel production that portrayed John Paul coming of age under Nazi and Soviet oppression while flirting intermittently with death and the opposite sex.

According to Luca Bernabei, whose Lux Vide coproduced the series, Stanislaw Dziwisz, a former papal secretary and the current Archbishop of Krakow, was involved in the script's development, as was papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. Navarro-Valls and Bernabei are both members of the conservative Opus Dei organization, which John Paul designated as his personal prelature.

Flexing its high-level contacts, Lux Vide arranged to have exclusive footage of the Sistine Chapel shot for scenes depicting the 1978 conclave that elected Cardinal Karol Wojtyla as pope.

While quick to cite the production's insider credentials, the makers of John Paul II are reticent to discuss what kind of insight the series has to offer beyond the visual splendor of Vatican interior decoration.

Bernabei said that the series will not delve into the more controversial aspects of the papacy, such as John Paul's clash with liberation theology in Latin America and his response to the sex-abuse scandal in North America.

It will instead portray John Paul as a hero of the 20th century, flashing backward and forward from the 1981 assassination attempt in St. Peter's Square to scenes of young Karol Wojtyla, played by Cary Elwes, canoeing in the Polish countryside, and of Voight taking calls from world leaders as the new pope.

For Voight, the key demographic is right here in Rome. Recalling a push he made to play John Paul in the 1980s, Voight hinted that the late pope might have been a fan.

"They passed my name in front of John Paul and he said, 'Yes, Jon Voight would be good for it,'" Voight said, adding: "He understood me a little bit."

As John Paul, Voight went face-to-face with Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca in a scene that re-enacted John Paul's 1983 visit to the prison cell of his would-be assassin.

Hours later, he found himself 22 years older, hunched over a wooden crucifix in a mock version of the papal chapel. Layers of makeup caked his face, which was twisted into a Parkinson's-like rictus.

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