Gracious even while being asked the same basic questions he's now heard dozens of times, Tom Jane was a compelling interview subject as he's a real straight talker who doesn't mince words.
INTERVIEW WITH TOM JANE ('Frank Castle'):
Reading "The Punisher" fansite message boards, it's pretty clear your fans can't get over how accessible you are. Is that something you consciously think about – putting yourself out there and the reception of fans?
I don’t consciously think about it. I just have a respect for my audience. That seems to be pretty logical. We do these things - make these movies and tell these stories – we tell them to people. So it would make sense that to connect on some level with your audience would only help me to grow and tell these stories to my audience. It just seems like a natural extension of what I do. I want to make a connection – that’s the whole point. You tell stories to make a connection.
Isn’t it getting tough to keep things fresh? You’ve been traveling around all over the place promoting “The Punisher.”
It can be, yeah. You have waves and go in and out. But if you stay alert then you can challenge yourself. If I stay alert, then I can challenge myself and by challenging myself that helps me to stay alive and to hopefully take something away from the experience. What could easily be a by rote, kind of an automatonic experience, you can turn it into an actual visceral experience where I can take something away from it, too. I can learn something and I can grow.
I’m interested in the impact my movies have on people and how it affects them, and what they like and what they don’t like – and what they take away from it. What leaves an impression, you know? That’s usually what you find. You talk to people and they tell you what their impression is. Their impression is usually what they’ve been left with, the experience of watching that film. That’s important. You want to see what impressed them, in a good or a bad way is not important, it’s what impressed them. It’s always interesting.
Do you find some people really get fervent about their opinion of you in a particular film? Do you try to take that and turn it, if the opinion was negative?
I don’t try and talk them through it, either way. I’m just interested in what their impression was. I don’t believe in meddling. It’s true. I try not to tell people how they should view my movies. And I try not to change their mind when they don’t like them – and certainly not when they do (smiling).
When you got the script to "The Punisher," did the idea of playing a comic book-inspired character ever make you think twice about saying yes to the project?
I try not to look at things in a way of ‘this is a comic book film’ or ‘this is a this film’ or ‘this is a that film.’ I try to look at things and ask if this is an entertaining movie and would this make a good movie? What do we have, what are the perimeters that define this kind of film? What kind of genre is it? What are the borders that we’re operating within and how do we best play with those borders?
PAGE 2: Tom Jane on How "The Punisher" Subverts the Revenge Movie Genre
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