KIRSTEN DUNST: Yeah, on the first, in the beginning we did. Yes.
Is anyone re-negotiating?
KIRSTEN DUNST: (Laughs) For more money?
MARK RUFFALO: You better get all you can…
KIRSTEN DUNST: I know, I’d better, but they won’t do anything. No, that hasn’t even started yet though. We have to go through the publicity for the second one first.
What can you tell us about the “Spider-Man 2” trailer?
KIRSTEN DUNST: Well, it comes at a very like intense
moment between Peter and I, where it’s like all about
star-crossed lovers and match-making, and the car...
Was there a real car?
KIRSTEN DUNST: No, it was all CGI. I’m sure they did something
with real cars somewhere in there.
After “Spider-Man”, the effects in “Eternal Sunshine” must have seemed old-fashioned.
KIRSTEN DUNST: We didn’t have them in our scenes so much, but
[Michel Gondry's] pretty genius with some of the things that [he came] up with.
MARK RUFFALO: Yeah, it’s really his forte. I don’t know if you know, [but] the really fun one that we got to do was the long take where [Jim Carrey] brings Kate [Winslet] into Mierzwiak’s office in his memory, and he’s running around and the camera is circling the room. He had three quick changes, quick changes behind the camera, and then [he was] sitting down and doing the scene. It was all one take. The whole sequence is one take, and we rehearsed it like a play. Basically it was just a one-act play. It was like live television. It was really exciting and fun. I don’t know how audiences react, I don’t know if they think, “Oh, they must have cut away here, or they must have...” It was so much fun to do and so exciting because we got to watch it afterwards. So we rehearsed it like half the day, and then shot it six times, and that was the end of our day.
Kirsten, your character had more to do in earlier
versions of the script. When did you join the project?
KIRSTEN DUNST: Yeah, they had [extra] stuff in it still and then I
think they maybe thought it was too much with the
other story, too. They wanted to just feel
sympathetic for the main characters and not so much
the other[s] I guess. My character was kind of too
much, so they cut it down a lot.
MARK RUFFALO: They were going to cut our final scene.
KIRSTEN DUNST: They were, huh?
MARK RUFFALO: They tried cutting that at one point.
How did you develop your character, Mark?
MARK RUFFALO: I don’t know. I was reading it and kind of
daydreaming about him, and I just had this image of
this faux-hawk pompadour. That was the beginning
of it and then, like, combat boots. It’s
a throwback to the eighties music scene, although he’s
like a technogeek. He listened to the Clash; he sits at home and plays his electric bass and
plays the Clash, the “Rock the Casbah” bass line by himself. He’s just a geek.
I told Michel that [the character had a] pompadour. I was like, “I mean, we don’t have to go with the pompadour.” He was like, “Pompadour!” And he was like, “Eh, what else?” I said, “I think he’s into the Clash, you know, like Joe Strummer. He’s a big Joe Strummer fan. [Gondry said], “Ah, cool - eh,” and a couple days later he was like “Eh, it’s up to Charlie, tell him.” A [few] days later he called and said we want you to be in the movie. Charlie took some of that stuff and wrote dialogue around it. He’s a funny character.
What’s your role in ”Collateral”?
MARK RUFFALO: Undercover narcotics detective who’s hot on
the trail of Tom Cruise, who’s a hit man. And my
character’s really kind of a blue-collar street cop,
and no one else seems to believe that Tom’s doing the
killings. I kind of go out on my own after him, and
I’m the good guy. Tom’s the bad guy.
Is it a big role?
MARK RUFFALO: I worked for about a month. It’s a nice, sizeable
part. The entire hope of the audience is pinned on my character,
and I’m in there until the very last part of the
movie, figuring it out.
So it’s a big action movie?
MARK RUFFALO: Yeah, oh yeah. I mean, there’s crazy car chases,
and car wrecks, and guns. It’s just Michael
Mann in that genre, just doing what he does.
Can you compare it to John Woo or “The Last Castle?”
MARK RUFFALO: I don’t think I do as much as I did in “The Last
Castle.” I never get to shoot my gun,
which is kind of cool to be in a Michael Mann movie
and never shoot.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
"Eternal Sunshine" Cast Interviews: Jim Carrey / Elijah Wood / Kate Winslet
"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" Photo Gallery
Kirsten Dunst Interviews and Photo Galleries
Mark Ruffalo Interview and Movie News
"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" Credits, Trailer and News
