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Lopez, Fonda, Jennifer Garner – is it just that you are attracted to roles in movies and TV shows with women who are magnets for the media?
Absolutely au contraire. Along the lines of what I was saying earlier is that there are different things that you do in your career that you do for career reasons. There’s no way in hell at this point in my career I could ever even have dreamt of passing on something like this because a) it’s the biggest movie I’ve ever done, and b) the actors involved in it. You know you’re going to get a certain amount of exposure.
In this case the movie was actually really, really good and the script was great, so any time you can do something that hopefully will further your career a little bit but at the same time is good and you actually like, that’s a plus. Because you do have to do things as an actor sometimes that you think, “Ugh, god, I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” but you know x amount of people are going to see it. It’s good for the career or whatever it may be, so it’s nice to be a part of something that I actually liked that hopefully will help me get my next job.
In “Monster-in-Law” and in “Alias” you star opposite very strong women in the industry. What does that bring out in you?
You know, I never really think of it that way. One of the things I’ve sort of discovered along this long journey is that a lot of the actors and actresses that I’ve worked with that are that famous and powerful have turned out to be very sort of gracious and nice and down to earth people, and not at all these divas and these monsters that you hear about. You know, also I just kind of… It just kind of happened. It’s none of my doing. I don’t sort of set out to, “Okay, my next mission is to be in a movie with Jennifer Lopez. How am I going to make that happen?” You know? You just audition and for every job you get you lose 40 or 50 of them. Sometimes, like in this case, you get lucky. It’s really just been all about chance.
Fonda and Lopez attracted a lot of attention from the paparazzi during the shoot. Were you able to block that out?
Well you know, unfortunately for them, it’s geared towards them. They left me alone. They didn’t even know I was there (laughing). So I just felt bad for them having to deal with all that. Especially in the last 10 years it’s gotten so much worse. They’re crazy. They take such incredible risks with cars and motorcycles and I felt bad for them. But again, it’s part of the business and as an actor you’re fortunate to be working and if it’s something that you can’t deal with, then you should do something else. But there are ways of dealing with it. Like Jennifer and Jane, they deal with it in such a professional way because it’s become part of their life, I guess. Wherever they go, they’re going to get hounded so I guess they’ve found ways to not let it upset them and ruin their afternoon. They’re just pretty gracious about it.
Jane Fonda came out of retirement to do this role. What did you learn from working with her?
It’s not so much anything specific or tangible. It’s more just her demeanor. Her graciousness, the way she treated the crew. Her patience. Her incredible amount of commitment towards the part and the movie. And just how sweet she was. That to be part of her comeback as you said, I almost don’t want to call it a comeback because she’s been in our consciousness for so long (laughing) in so many other fields, but it was obviously a clear case of something I could not even think about passing up on to be part of. It was pretty fantastic.
I read that you don’t even like romantic comedies. Is that true?
Yeah. I can go ahead and say that I don’t like romantic comedies. They’re not my favorite kind of movie. I mean, there have been good ones. There are actually some good ones, but it’s not my favorite kind of movie because I prefer things that are darker and that are probably more challenging as an actor and as a person. I just find the darker side of people much more interesting. But also romantic comedies are great because there’s nothing wrong with going to the movies for a couple of hours and having that warm, happy feeling and forgetting about your problems and whatever. But they’re not desert island movies material.
Page 3: Michael Vartan on Darker Material, the Rumor He Won't Be Back on "Alias," and the Show's Fifth Season
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