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It seemed like there wasn’t anyone around while you were shooting there.
“No, there wasn’t. It’s just like a [public lake] and we got to film there. I just want to say this, that Harsh Times was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life. I was still doing Six Feet Under at the same time. What I mean when I say I was doing Six Feet Under at the same time, I literally mean still doing it at the same time. I was doing Six Feet Under on Thursdays and Fridays and I was doing Harsh Times on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and just kind of repeated that cycle until the duration of the film.”
Did they have to move shooting around?
“They did - both productions. HBO and David’s company had to work together at making the schedules work. It was the fifth season so I had already put in five years into the show. I felt like I deserved it at that point and they were willing to go to those lengths for me. But I just want to say that it’s a true testament to David’s loyalty because I don't know if you know the story. He put his own house up for hock just to get the money for the film. Then on top of dealing with all those difficulties, he had to deal with my scheduling problem. Any monkey wrench that would have been thrown into my scheduling of Six Feet Under could have proved disastrous to the film, could have shut production down, could have caused many, many problems. But David completely took a chance on me and was willing to go through that trouble and risk, his own house, his own money, for me. So I’m forever in debt to him.”
How do you decompress?
“That’s a good question. I don't know how I did it. I was running on fumes, you know. I was 29 at the time and I just said, ‘You know, if I’m going to do this, I’ll do it now.’ You just go for it. I was just running on adrenaline. I thank God that I was doing Six Feet for so long that I knew the character inside out. It was easy for me to switch to that character if need be. It was the Harsh Times character that was a little harder to come back and switch it, because he was so loose and such a loser, such a street guy. It was the polar opposite of what Federico was.”
