Paul Giamatti plays a bad guy after a baby – yes, a newborn baby – in the high-powered action movie Shoot ‘Em Up written and directed by Michael Davis and co-starring Clive Owen and Monica Bellucci. Giamatti does a great job of playing the villain in the film and claims he had a fun time shooting guns and doing stunts. “I’ve worked on other much action movies where I didn’t have as much to do and it was really boring and hard and a nightmare, but this one moved so fast,” said Giamatti.
The Appeal of Shoot ‘Em Up: “I just thought the script was not boring when I read it. Even action movies are kind of boring when you read them, and I just don’t know what the hell is going on in those things. Then I met the director and he just seemed like he was going to make it make sense. I don’t know. It just seemed like it would be fun. You know, good bad guy. These guys are great. I thought it would be a good time.”
Analyzing His Choice of Characters: Giamatti’s definitely the bad guy in Shoot ‘Em Up but he has an interesting take on his previous roles. “I don’t think like I’ve ever actually played a really good guy. So, it’s like I guess I like playing more screwed up people or bad guys, probably more than good guys. I don’t think I could play a good guy like that. I couldn’t do that.”
Working with Writer/Director Michael Davis: Giamatti labels the experience as great. “When I met him, he was what really sold me on the thing,” explained Giamatti. “He had all this stuff animated out and he was an animator, so he had animated all the action sequences which was really cool and gave you an enormous amount of confidence that the guy knew exactly what he was going to be doing. He was hyper-prepared and really unbelievably great on the set, and improvising stuff when he couldn’t get everything he wanted necessarily.
They did an unbelievable amount of stuff everyday so he was just incredibly prepared. But he was really excited and I think because he was so excited, I have never worked with somebody who was more decent to everybody on the set because I think he was just really happy to be there. He would go around every night to each department and thank everybody, which I had never seen a director do. An incredibly decent guy.
He’s a weird guy. He’s got a weird sense of humor and weird jokes he was always telling us. He kept it really fun. He was great. I hope I get to work with him again and he keeps doing what he’s doing because he’s really great.”
Training for Shoot ‘Em Up: The actors spent a little time at the firing range getting ready to take on the action-heavy film. “Mostly just shooting blanks and stuff like that,” said Giamatti. “They wouldn’t let me shoot any live ammunition. I really wanted to shoot live ammo out of that thing. I wanted to hear that thing go. I wanted to fire that sniper rifle, but they wouldn’t let me fire anything for real.”
Giamatti continued, “I loved the sniper rifle! I could not get enough of that thing. (Laughing) Smooth action on that thing. That thing was amazing. I loved that. And I got to pick which one I wanted to use, so I picked the all black one because I thought that cooler. But, I loved that thing, it was amazing. That gun is just amazing.”
Paul Giamatti Doesn’t Play Favorites: At least he didn’t when it came to picking his favorite action scene in the movie. “I don’t know, I kind of enjoyed all of it. There is a crazy thing where I try to kill him with a piece of a mirror running down a hall screaming – that was fun. (Laughing) I liked getting shot. I got shot a bunch of times which was great. I don’t know. I liked getting hit, punched and knocked over. I mean the stunting kind of stuff was fun. I didn’t have that much of it to do, but I really liked sort of getting hit in the head and stuff like that. It was great. I loved it.”
Maybe he liked the stunt work so much because he escaped unscathed, as did co-star Clive Owen. “I’m amazed he didn’t get hurt,” said Giamatti. “He didn’t get hurt at all. But, I’m more amazing – I mean, I’m not in any kind of good shape, so I’m amazed I didn’t get hurt. But he had all that kind of stuff.”
Giamatti explained how carefully the stunts were prepared in Shoot ‘Em Up. “It was all so tightly controlled you knew exactly what you were going to do, which is nice in a way. You just have to follow the map through once it’s drawn out, so it never felt difficult particularly. Everything was fun and I was getting to do a lot of stuff I never got to do before. Break his fingers and stuff, it was great. Yeah, I loved doing all that stuff. No, it never felt difficult. He really had a lot more of the difficult stuff. Those stunts have been a nightmare in a lot of ways.”
Taking It to the Extreme: Giamatti’s character spends the entire film trying to kill a baby and the actor thought – because the film is done very tongue in cheek – it was a great premise. “Good times,” said Giamatti, laughing. “It was great. My favorite thing was running over the baby with a car. For some reason they though that was the most f**ked up thing. They were like, ‘This is going to be the most f**ked up thing. People are going to hate this.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s great. Why not?’ Running over the baby… I never really saw the babies at all. I was never around them. They kept them away from me. No, it was great. I loved the whole idea of trying to kill a baby. It was fantastic.”
Sending Up Sideways: The actor had no clue writer/director Michael Davis was feeding him a line the audience would read as a send up of Sideways. “I didn’t even know I was! You mean the line I said about…? Everybody has been asking me that. At the time he just asked me to say it and I said it. Then a week later I was like, ‘Oh, I get it. Oh, that’s funny.’ (Laughing) I didn’t even get it, but, whatever, I didn’t care.”
I’ll leave the line itself out so that it won’t ruin the surprise when you check out Shoot ‘Em Up, but it wasn’t in the script and Giamatti had no idea it was coming. “He must have fed it to me because I never would have come up with it. He fed it to me at the time and I didn’t even get it. I really didn’t get it until later. ‘That’s funny. That’s good.’”
