Peter Sarsgaard on the appeal of playing a Southern lawyer in “The Skeleton Key:” “I really wanted to do the movie because the character I’m playing is sort of an interesting reverse-double somersault with a half-twist pike. I was interested to see how I would do it. I didn’t know how I would do it, so I was just sort of like, ‘Oh, this will be interesting.’”
On preparing for the role: “With this role, I started to think about who this guy’s heroes might be, or who the heroes would be that I could get away with having. And I started thinking about Sun Studios, like Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley and stuff like that. People who sort of took Blues music and made it popular.
I’ve got a little Carl Perkins hairdo in the movie and I’ve got a drum kit in my apartment. I started thinking, ‘This guy’s like a bassist,’ keeping the band tight and together and not taking any credit, but he knows he’s the true rock star in the band. I thought of him being like a session player from there or something like that. But obviously he’s an estate lawyer in New Orleans and all that stuff. I think he thinks of himself as a rock star.”
Peter Sarsgaard on working with Kate Hudson and Gena Rowlands in “The Skeleton Key:” “Kate – I’ve known her for a long time and worked with her on a movie a long time ago called ‘Desert Blue.’ I knew that I liked her and was psyched to act with her. I knew that we would have a certain amount of chemistry and just thought it would be great.
Gena I’ve admired since I started acting and I just wanted to be in the shadow of her somewhere onscreen. I’m just psyched that there’s like one shot in the movie where both of us are in it. And John Hurt I’ve always [admired]. I remember seeing ‘1984’ when I was a kid, with him and Richard Burton, and seeing him on the table where he’s being tortured. He’s unbelievable. So I’ve always thought he’s fantastic and I hope to be in London this fall and see him in this play he’s going to do.”
Peter Sarsgaard on believing versus being a non-believer: “I believe that if you believe, it’s real. I believe that if you think it does something, then it does something. If you think you’re having a heart attack and you obsess about it, you might have a heart attack. Someone hands you this nut and says you’re going to drop dead in two weeks, if you believe in it enough you might drop dead in two weeks. I feel immune from it because I don’t believe in it.”
Peter Sarsgaard shares his beliefs: Sarsgaard says he’s not a cynic, he’s a Catholic. He also says the fact the cameras stopped working while they were filming “The Skeleton Key” didn’t strike him as anything other than a mechanical failure. But bring up Satan and Sarsgaard admits he doesn’t necessarily believe in the devil, but he has some issues.
“…I can’t shake it because I went to an all-boys Jesuit high school. I was an altar boy. I’m screwed, man. Seriously. It’s like some things you can’t… Like if I’d grown up with Voodoo, I’m sure even if I moved to New York and started being all Bohemian and stuff and somebody handed me the buckeye, I’d probably be like, ‘Aaaaahhh.’ [It would be] enough to make me wash my hands in the salt water.
A friend of mine here believes in that stuff – my friend Mary. I hung out with her while we were filming and we were walking down the street, and there are these people on the streets that will sometimes do Voodoo stuff like that, for the tourists. And this woman gave us some nut or something and said, ‘Now you guys have eternal love and you’ll have great sex,’ and that kind of stuff. Well, she’s like my friend. She’s not my lover. She never has been. And so she was trying to say she thought we were a couple walking down the street. So my friend took me back to her house and had me wash my hands in salt water. We did the stuff, and I was just like, ‘Mary, I’m fine.’ She’s like, ‘Just do it for me.’ And we didn’t end up having sex…”
PAGE 2: Peter Sarsgaard on Choosing Roles and "Flightplan"
