Was it fun being on location with your wife [writer/director Rebecca Miller]?
It was, yeah. It really was. It was as good as it can be. It was a very small
group of people who, as far as I could tell, without exception were all
like-minded and in pursuit of the same thing. There's nowhere to hide on a small set like that. There's no room to lay about. So all of us had to be doing
something all of the time. It was hugely physical. The fact that Rebecca, we talked about it a lot, but talking about it is a different thing from doing it. She made it possible for us to shoot in sequence, which is like such a rare thing to be able to do. I think that certainly helped me beyond the description.
But it also, I think, because this group of people were so engaged in what
we're doing, I think that it helped that the story was being revealed to everyone as we told it.
When was the last time you were on a small set?
The last time I was on a small set would've been, well I suppose really
small, probably “My Left Foot.” That was the last really small set.
How long does it take you to get accents down?
I can’t really put a time on it because, again, it’s one of those things,
like all the aspects that we talked about earlier…these things are things that you see what needs to be done and you set about doing it. But as far as possible, you try and do it in such a way that you’re not really - you have to kid yourself all the time. It’s really just a game, the whole thing, and the game is to kid yourself into believing something that therefore you hope other people will be able to believe, and that the voice is such an internal thing.
I suppose one reason why I love to work on that is because it is that mechanism, that organ is something that belongs inside of us, therefore it reflects something that potentially says something profound about who we are. So that feels like it’s work that belongs with all that kind of discovery of the interior life of a character. And you try and kid yourself. You try and let it happen in such a way that you don’t really know that it’s happening. It’s hard to describe. Because if you set about it like it’s a task, you kind of separate it off. It’s on a list of things that you need to do. You separate it off and go, “So much time is given over to that on such and such a day.” It then kind of exists outside of you. It’s as if you’re constantly pushing that thing back outside of yourself that ought to be developing somehow elsewhere.
Who inspired you to reach for the stars as a child?
I was a savage for so many years of my life. There was some seed of
determination in me that I was not conscious of. I was mostly consciously getting into trouble and drunk. And I saw the efforts that others had to make to get me out of it.
I suppose that at a certain age it just became apparent to me that this was probably the work that I would have to do. It was just like that. But it was not an abstract ambition to make a mark, I don't think, doing this work. Though, of course, at a certain age, when you're a teenager or certainly when I was younger, I had a less discriminating ambition I suppose. There must've been some part of me that wanted to make my mark, I guess. But there was never a defining moment.
What do you mean ‘you were a savage?’
Well, I was unruly. I was unruly. If I'd had to become a paid up member of
any party at that time, it would've been the anarchists probably. Luckily, I was
surrounded by very understanding people at a liberal arts school where I spent
the last few years of high school. So they kind of helped me to see things a
little differently.
Are you looking at any future projects?
I am looking at something right now and it's not by any means definitely
going to happen. But if it does, I'll probably go back to work sometime within
this year.
Can you foresee going back to theater?
Yeah, I could. It’s hard to in an abstract way. I don’t really think about
this work in an abstract way. I tend to respond to that bizarre compulsion, but
it could easily lead me there as opposed to back onto a movie set.
