A minor controversy occurred when some viewers believed that Satan (played by Mohamen Mehdi Ouazanni) was portrayed to look similar to President Barack Obama. Executive producer Mark Burnett explicitly denied this. Ouazanni's scenes were deleted from the condensed feature film version, Son of God (2014).
Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado who plays Jesus is a well known actor in Portugal by his characters in soap operas and he has played the role of Oliveira Salazar (a Portuguese dictator that ruled Portugal for 40 years) in a miniseries called The Private Life of Salazar (A vida privada de Salazar).