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How long did this character stay with you?
“The intensity as well as the speed of filmmaking meant that he was pretty much there the whole time. I remember Dave getting very freaked out. We were up in the desert on my last day of filming. We went right through the night. We finished at about eight o’clock in the morning. We decided to break open a bottle of tequila and just kind of celebrate. I was suddenly being me again and he was sitting there and he looked at me and he was going, ‘Who the f**k are you? Who is this?’ I could see there was a certain amount of, ‘Well, we’ve all been played here,’ because we’d become fast friends and that was all completely sincere - but it was all done as Jim. I still am, I do still consider myself to be a great friend with Dave but the fact is, he was freaked out at that point because with that speed of filmmaking, you kind of can’t let go of it. But then afterwards actually he was gone pretty quick. I had other things going on in my life which demanded my attention very quickly, which I wanted and needed to give my attention to, and so Jim was gone pretty fast.”
This has been a very good year for you. Is it hard to find these interesting characters?
“Listen, it can be but I’ve definitely had periods of absolutely nothing going on. I have made bad choices as well. I’ve done things which I’m glad I did because I wanted to experiment with certain styles of filmmaking and just see how I worked out. Usually those ones ended up with just one attempt. It tended to be like, ‘Okay, I’ve tried it now. I wanted to try it. I’m done with that.’ Other than that, I just stick with what gets its hooks into me, what do I keep thinking about. I just like to figure that as long as you keep that mentality, don’t try to be my own kind of marketing man whatsoever, then… Well, personally, any writer, any musician, whatever, I want to see that they’re doing it for themselves and, hey, hopefully other people are going to get it as well. So man, it’s so nice when people do get it.
I’m so happy that The Prestige has done so well. So far I’m so pleased with the way that people seem to be getting Harsh Times because in no way was this ever a thing where we wanted to bang people over the head with the layers that there are actually within this movie. There was always the concern that you could potentially get people just thinking it was some kind of love of violence. A bunch of kind of teenagers making a movie about some cool guys just causing havoc and getting into a whole lot of trouble and causing mayhem in LA. And it ain’t that. It ain’t that by a long shot. It’s very nice to at least be hearing from the people who have seen it that they seem to be seeing much more into it, which is the reason that I did it.”
How was working on Harsh Times coming off of filming Batman Begins?
“Perfect, because seven months shooting straight on Batman, the movie obviously was very much helped by the fact that I had gotten that role in between first meeting Dave and then actually making it. I called Dave whilst I was shooting Batman and said, ‘What’s going on about Harsh Times? Let’s get this thing done. I’m still thinking about it.’ He said, ‘Oh, I thought you would have forgotten about me a long time back.’ I said, ‘No, I want to be doing this one. Is it still studio?’ No, he said, ‘I’m going to finance it totally myself.’ I said, ‘Great, you’re crazy for doing that but it makes me want to believe in it even more.’ And within six months we had it up and running and going. We shot it in 24 days and it was perfect to go from one style of filmmaking to the total opposite. It’s as independent as you can get. You can’t get more independent than somebody taking the money out of their own back pocket, re-mortgaging their house.”
Did you get in trouble from your handlers?
“Not at all, not at all. I’d kept on saying to them about Harsh Times. ‘Keep your ear to the ground. I don’t want to lose track of that one.’ They also knew that I like Batman immensely. That was one I’d been chasing in and of itself, but that I had always maintained, ‘I’m doing this.’ In no way does this mean I’m going to keep on doing big budget movies. Big budget has nothing to do with whether it’s a good movie or not. Everybody knows that. And necessity is the mother of invention in many cases as well. Not having a huge budget for this movie meant that we got true believers working on this movie, and you can see that.”
Since you’ve had these opportunities, are you looking forward to returning to Batman?
“I’m looking forward now. I’m getting kind of trickled down information from Chris [Nolan]. I’ve been seeing bits and pieces of it. I’m aware of the whole basic outline now. I am working on something else currently though. I’m back working tomorrow morning in New Mexico on something, so I’m kind of just focused on that completely now. But Chris will be contacting me when he knows it’s the right time and when he wants a bit of input.”
Is that 3:10 to Yuma? How’s that going?
“That’s going great. I’m just three days in right now, but it’s going really well. That’s a Western. It’s directed by James Mangold and it’s with Russell Crowe. It’s based on an Elmore Leonard short story. It was also a movie made, I believe, in the ‘50s with Glen Ford and Van Heflin.”
Michael Caine said he wanted to dress up as the decoy Batman in the next movie.
“You think that’s actually going to end up in the movie?”
No, but are you able to give input?
“Absolutely. Listen, Chris is totally open to ideas - no matter how insane. But open to ideas is a different thing from putting them in the movie.”
