PAUL GIAMATTI: A MAN OF THE PEOPLE

Among the ranks of Hollywood’s leading men, Paul Giamatti stands alone. Unassuming at first glance, he infuses his characters with an unguarded intensity and strangely comforting charisma that bring out the beauty in discontent and the extraordinary in the everyday. His uncommonly sincere performances leave you sympathizing with antagonists, forgiving offensive behavior, and feeling warm and fuzzy for bitter, disheveled curmudgeons. Giamatti is a star for the rest of us, a dose of gritty and often hilarious reality, whom audiences identify with for his ability to illuminate, with a devilish smirk, the predicaments and possibilities of the common man.

His latest project is the upcoming Barney’s Version, based on Mordecai Richler’s 1997 novel, about a self-destructive hopeless romantic who plows through everything in his path to find love and has little idea what to do when he gets it. The dream project of producer Robert Lantos and directed by Richard J. Lewis, the raw and intriguingly moving film follows Barney Panofsky, a successful TV producer, through four decades, three marriages, and the mysterious death of his friend. His first wife (Rachelle Lafevre) is terminally unfaithful and crazier than he is, his second (Minnie Driver) is the kind of girl he feels he’s supposed to marry, and his third — Miriam (Rosamund Pike), the love of his life — he meets at his own wedding reception. Barney’s long-distance wooing of Miriam through the course of his second marriage typifies the best and worst of his nature, and the difficult thing for those around him is that there’s very little in between. Throughout the trials and angst of his own making, his one true source of solace and counsel is his dad, a skirt-chasing retired cop, played to perfection by Dustin Hoffman. The relationship between these two socially malformed manchildren is the only arena in which either of them can express affection without hostility. In all other areas, Barney is an eternal source of conflict. He’s a crass, foul-mouthed, drunken misanthrope and only Paul Giamatti could make this guy lovable.

Giamatti’s first major film role was an explosive piece of high comedy in the Howard Stern biopic, Private Parts (1997), in which he played Kenny Rushton, Stern’s smarmy, controlling program director. Tasked with embodying an adversary worthy of the moniker, “Pig Vomit,” Giamatti succeeded with an unbridled, gut-busting performance. It was a surprisingly long time before he won another role as meaty as his Private Parts gig, as it was two years later that he triumphed as Bob Zmuda, Andy Kaufman’s mischievous partner-in-crime in the Jim Carrey-starring, Milos Forman-helmed Man on the Moon (1997). Sharing with Carrey the role of deranged and talentless nightclub singer, Tony Clifton — Kaufman’s alter-ego and media saboteur — Giamatti once again hit it out of the park. He played a very different kind of singer in the Bruce Paltrow-directed Duets (2000), a little-known comedy gem that featured Giamatti as a jaded traveling salesman who discovers karaoke and takes off on a manic road trip. The ensemble piece that co-starred Paltrow’s daughter, Gwyneth — as well as Huey Lewis, Scott Speedman, Maria Bello, and Andre Braugher — was met with a daunting critical reception, yet offered a taste of Giamatti’s signature ability to leap from self pitying introspection to furiously eloquent diatribe. And his singing isn’t half bad. (A search on YouTube for Giamatti’s “Try a Little Tenderness” is recommended.) Shortly after, he offered a study in loneliness and emotional hunger in Todd Solondz’s unsettling Storytelling (2001), co-starring John Goodman.

After years of supporting work, the wellregarded character actor was handed his first leading role as cartoonist Harvey Pekar (who passed away last July) in American Splendor (2003). The powerfully touching and innovative biographical film, directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, was overlooked at the box office but critical acclaim was nearly unanimous. As a grumpy, downtrodden file clerk who decides to channel his fantastically cynical perspective into an underground comic book, Giamatti — alongside co-star Hope Davis and a host of idiosyncratic oddballs — explored the disheartened underbelly of society in this sad, sardonic, side-splitting vision of American life. He then turned in a tour de force in the poignant, kooky, heartbreaking, wine-country buddy picture, Sideways (2004), and those who had been keeping an eye on Giamatti’s under-the-radar progress were thrilled when Alexander Payne’s little indie movie went supernova. Featuring Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, and Sandra Oh, the film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, with a win for Best Adapted Screenplay. With the flat-out excellence of Giamatti’s performance universally agreed upon, there was a bit of a ruckus when he wasn’t nominated.

He received a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination the following year for Ron Howard’s Depression-era boxing picture, Cinderella Man (2005), starring Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger. Giamatti went on to portray a conflicted foil to Edward Norton’s mysterious magician in The Illusionist (2006), an apartment building manager with a tragic past who’s swept into a supernatural narrative in M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water (2006), and Vladimir Chertkov, Leo Tolstoy’s friend and collaborator, in The Last Station (2009) with Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer. He prevailed as the title character in the seven-part HBO miniseries, “John Adams,” which spanned 50 years in the life of the second President of the United States and earned Giamatti a Best Actor Emmy Award. He also appeared in Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Donnie Brasco (1997), Deconstructing Harry (1997), The Negotiator (1998), Planet of the Apes (2001), Big Fat Liar (2002), The Hawk is Dying (2006), Fred Claus (2007), Cold Souls (2009), and Duplicity (2009), among others. An accomplished stage actor, he’s appeared on Broadway in Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia” (1995), David Hare’s “Racing Demon” (1995), Chekhov’s “The Three Sisters” (1997), and Eugene O'Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” (1999). More recently he appeared off- Broadway in Bertolt Brecht’s “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui” (2002) with Al Pacino, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, and Billy Crudup. Continuing his exploration of historical leaders, Giamatti will play the tyrannical King John in Ironclad, scheduled for release in 2011. Also slated for next year, he’ll portray a wrestling coach in Win Win and appear alongside George Clooney in the political drama, The Ides of March. He is also set to play economist and current Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, in the HBO movie, “Too Big to Fail,” with William Hurt and Tony Shalhoub. As we approach press time, it’s been announced that Giamatti is heading to Thailand for an appearance in The Hangover 2, joining a roster of cameos including Liam Neeson and President Bill Clinton. The Connecticut-born performer lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Elizabeth, and their son, Samuel.

A Hollywood anomaly, Giamatti has broken the rules of stardom and risen to prominence as the quintessential regular guy. Venice meets up with the amiable everyman at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Venice: Barney Panofsky is being described as “Falstaffian.”

Paul Giamatti: That’s interesting. Yes, he is, kind of. He’s got a big romantic nature and a huge romantic soul, Falstaff, buried under all that gross flesh and the booze and everything. He’s got a somewhat dark view of humanity.

Barney does these bad things but he’s honest about himself and his intentions.

Yes, for the most part I think he is. He’s blunt, and I suppose that’s admirable in a way. It makes him hard to be around, but definitely. 

His romanticism and devotion is sparked by meeting the love of his life at his own wedding.

He’s got impulse control issues. It’s interesting because he’s sort of bursting at the seams a lot of the time and ready to take off, especially when he’s younger. Then when he finally meets her, he’s able to be more grounded in his craziness because she can tolerate it, and she actually likes it. He can release himself a bit more.

What do you think it is that endears him to her? And what a strange courtship, if you can call it that.

I know, it’s odd. [laughs] He’s drunk the first two times she ever sees him face-to-face. I  don’t know what it says about her that she’s okay with a guy who’s so obviously got a drinking problem. I think she sees these things that we’re talking about. I think she appreciates the straightforwardness and sees the decency and the goodness and the romance. I think that she sees and feels all of these things. She must, otherwise I don’t know why the hell she’d be interested in the guy. He’s a good man underneath it all but he’s self destructive. He’s kind of a pain in the ass. [laughs] A bitter child. Clearly there’s some maternal instinct to look after him.

What touched me the most about the movie was Barney’s relationship with his dad. I can’t think of another film that portrays a father and son with such a roughand- tumble yet tender affection for each other.

It’s true. One of my favorite scenes when I first read the script was the one at the wedding when he gives me the gun and I take him away from the table and I just think he’s so hilarious and wonderful. I thought that that’s something very important about my character and his, and there’s something very wonderful about seeing that kind of relationship between two guys. And it’s funny because they’re almost like peers rather than father and son in a lot of ways. They’re like buddies and they’re like naughty little boys together, too. It’s a great relationship. You’re right, I can’t think of any other [films] that are quite like that. Usually it’s much more contentious if you see a father-son [relationship]. You’ve got two really strong personalities that could really knock heads, but no, not at all. There’s a deep complicity between them.

What was it like being Dustin Hoffman’s boychik?

It was great, man! He’s really hilarious. He’s a very, very funny guy. And from getting to know him on this, he’s sort of similar to that character — but I don’t know whether that was something he was doing or whether he really is like that. I think he is, actually. He’s kind of Falstaffian in some ways. He’s got a really dirty sense of humor and a real appreciation for all those gritty, human details of life. He was great and he’s a very paternal guy. He’s got a bunch of kids that he loves a lot; his kid [Jake Hoffman] was in this. It was easy doing stuff with him. He could be nutty to work with, in a wonderful way. If he’s really trying to figure out how to do a scene, he just kind of rips it apart and tosses it all over the room and then eventually you reassemble it. It was really fun to do with him.

Do you have any funny memories of working together?

It was always humorous and he’s always cracking jokes. The weirdest thing that happened [was during] a scene where we’re in a graveyard and we’re looking at his wife’s, my mother’s, tomb. The producer [Robert Lantos] got very concerned because neither of us had kippas [Jewish ceremonial head coverings] on. He said, “You have to wear them.” I was like, “This guy’s not going to bother to put one of those on.” And Dustin [agreed]. It devolved into a huge theological argument, which I could not participate in, not being Jewish. It really got complicated and there was a lot of splitting hairs between the director and the producer and Dustin, and — sort of — me. Mordecai Richler’s son was there and he got pulled into it, reluctantly. Eventually, three or four rabbis were called. There were rabbis of all different stripes. It was just crazy and it went on for like an hour, at least. It stopped everything dead. I don’t know how eventually it was resolved, but I think one of the rabbis gave a really Talmudic answer. He was like, “Well, it could be this or it could be that.” [laughs] It was fantastic. I think Robert gave up after a while. He was like, “Well, fine. I can always CGI them in afterwards if I feel like it.” He didn’t do it. That was the weirdest thing that happened. I’ve never done that on any other movie, had a theological throw-down like that.

This movie has a Jewish soul; Leonard Cohen is an important part of the soundtrack.

It’s really rooted in that Montreal Jewish world, which Leonard is part of, and Robert Lantos is part of, and Mordecai, and the screenwriter, Michael Konyves. It had a lot of that going on. 

I was really emotionally taken by the ending of this film.

I think it surprises a lot of people, where it goes.

How did you go about taking this curmudgeonly guy who does these questionable things and making him lovable?

I don’t know if it was anything I did, particularly. The character was made, inevitably, a little bit more lovable just transferring it from the book to the script. The book is very different, mostly because it’s all internal. It’s a completely first-person narrative so you’re trapped by this relentlessly intense voice, so inevitably if you take it out of that, it’s going to be a little bit easier to take the guy. I have no problem doing these horrible things. [laughs] I think maybe starting from the point that I don’t judge them particularly harshly maybe helps me in some way. Maybe it allows me to be forgiving of the guy and somehow that helps the viewer forgive the guy. I don’t know. Most of it, really, is in the script. It’s built in there.

From a broader perspective, you’ve taken on a lot of roles that you can really sink your teeth into. I think one of your great abilities is bringing out the lovableness in disagreeable people.

Whether it’s my great ability or not, I don’t know. It’s definitely what interests me. You get a character like this and absolutely you can sink your teeth into it. That’s the task and that’s the pleasure of doing it. It’s saying, “How am I going to let this guy be an okay guy?” I think as an actor, if I were to play a good-hearted guy, I’d have a tendency to want to put some unpleasant things in there, or I’d want to find something that wasn’t just goodhearted about him. And vice versa, but I’ve done the vice versa thing more than I’ve done the good-hearted guy. I think it’s just my natural tendency to want to play the opposite thing as much as I can. I don’t see anybody as anything but a bundle of contradictions. I guess it’s just the way I come at something. It is a pleasure to do something like this.  

You mentioned that you don’t judge the actions of these characters. Do you adopt their morality when playing them and see what they’re doing as the appropriate thing from their perspective?

I obviously have judgment about it; I just don’t condemn anybody for it. With this character, what was really nice was to feel this kind of energy and vitality that this guy has. That was really fun to actually take on. But that energy and vitality has a lot to do with him being nasty and being crazy, I suppose, but I wasn’t taking that part of it home. But that energy and vitality was really meaty. He smells bad, that guy. He’s sweaty and he smells and there are leather chairs and stinky cigars and he eats spicy food. He’s that kind of guy; there’s something really juicy about that.

And you got to play him at different ages.

Sure, old and stinky and bald. It was totally cool; it’s an amazing thing to be able to do.  

Were you a drama major at Yale?

I went to undergraduate and I ended up being an English Lit major. When I graduated I went away for a while, and I ended up going back to the graduate school for drama.  

At what point did you decide that acting was something you wanted to do?

I’d always liked doing it. I don’t think I’d thought of it as something I could actually do, or that serious human beings would actually do with themselves. [laughs] So I’ve clearly proven myself not a serious human being. I did a lot of it extracurricularly in undergraduate and I loved it and really had a great time doing it. I moved out to Seattle after I got out of college, intending to do I don’t really know what. I had a lot of things that never panned out. But I knew some people who were acting out there so I started doing these little fringe theaters, of which there were millions in Seattle in the late ’80s — and accidentally ended up getting an agent. I was working odd jobs and trying to do other things and I started actually making a living as an actor, which you could do out there. So I think that was where I said, “Wow, I could actually make a living at this.” So I thought, “I’m gonna keep doing it.” It was a unique place and time. I don’t know what it’s like there now, but you could do it out there. They were making movies and TV shows. I did a lot of industrial films for Boeing [laughs], which was creepy, very creepy. But that was a big source of income for actors there. The cost of living wasn’t so crazy yet and you could make a modest living and survive fine. It’s kind of amazing. So I was fooled into thinking it was going to be an easy way to make a living, but I’m glad I was.

Wikipedia is unclear about this; were you a member of Skull and Bones at Yale?

[laughs] That’s a tricky thing. I don’t want to answer one way or the other because I think it’s so funny that people are asking me about it and I don’t want to kill the mystery of it. The only thing that gives me any kind of mystique is, was I in this sinister organization? So I’m not going to say one way or the other, which most people would say is affirmation of it, but I won’t say that it necessarily is. So, on the Wikipedia page it doesn’t say one way or the other?

It says “needs citation.”

“Needs citation.” Fascinating, fascinating.

What was your first film role?

My first film role, I think, was in Seattle and it was a movie called Past Midnight that I’ve never seen and I don’t know whatever happened to it. It was Rutger Hauer. It was kind of a slasher movie. I played a retarded guy in it. I actually had a scene with Natasha Richardson. I think that was the first movie role I had. It was either that or the movie Singles, that Cameron Crowe movie, and I had one word that I say in it. Campbell Scott and Kyra Sedgwick are in a bar and I’m making out with a woman. They get distracted and start staring at me and I stop making out with the woman and I just say, “What?” That’s it. [laughs] I can’t remember which film came first. Either one of those two stellar moments.

Singles was all about Seattle. Were you living there at the time?

I was living there. I lived out there for about three or four years and everybody that I knew who was in theater out there is in that movie. He cast all these local actors in little parts. It was really great.

Did you do off-Broadway productions when you got out to New York?

Yes. I did regional theater, San Diego and different places. I did some off-Broadway and then I actually got some Broadway gigs. I did three or four plays on Broadway.

How did your Broadway work lead into film?

While I was doing theater I would get a day on “NYPD Blue” and I would do that. Then I would get a day on some little indie movie playing a desk clerk in a crappy hotel or something. So that’s how I was able to keep doing theater, from the money I would make doing that. Then it eventually became more films than plays and just kind of switched. I didn’t see myself doing movies; I imagined I would just do theater. 

Private Parts offered you an explosive character to play.

It’s a great part. I still think it’s one of the best parts I’ve had in a movie and it was incredibly well written. People have asked me if we improvised all that stuff; we didn’t improvise a word of it. It was all written down. I loved playing that character. I had so much fun doing that movie; the director, Betty Thomas, was amazing. Kind of spoiled me for stuff after that. Nothing was ever quite that much fun again. Things have been more so recently, but for a long time I thought, “Wow, that was so much fun. Why isn’t this fun again like that was?” Because she was just wonderful [and] Howard was amazing. The whole point of that was to just go as nuts as possible in every way. [My character] has a Southern accent in it, and I remember I auditioned for the part a couple of times and I just made this stupid fried-chicken accent. Then I got the part and I thought, “I’ll be a conscientious actor and I’ll actually work on an accent.” She was like, “Don’t work on the accent! That ridiculous accent you were doing is one of the reasons you got the part. Just do that stupid Foghorn Leghorn thing you were doing. Just make it as dumb sounding as possible.” There was no cap on anything in that movie. Everybody was just fucking around. It was really, really fun.  

I think what made My Best Friend’s Wedding such a good movie was that Julia Roberts’ character doesn’t get the guy and admits her own failings. Your scene was pivotal in getting that across. You have this heart-to-heart with her in the hotel hallway and she tells you...

...“I’m a horrible person.”

And you tell her, “This too shall pass.”

Right, “My grandmother used to always say...” That was funny, man, because that was all I’d read of that script. [laughs] I got that scene probably three days before I was supposed to shoot that thing. They flew me out to Chicago and we shot it in the Drake Hotel; it’s a beautiful old hotel and I had no idea what this movie was about or anything. It was like, “Okay, what am I doing? I’m with Julia Roberts and we’re having a cigarette?” It was a big deal because of the cigarette in that movie! Everybody had a cow about that in the papers. “How can they be smoking in a movie?” It was wonderful and [Julia] was great. It was a lovely little scene. It’s that kind of nice little touch that they don’t do very much in movies in the right way anymore.

You had a role in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan.

There’s another movie where I hadn’t really read the script. It’s funny, for that role I don’t think I auditioned for it. I don’t know how I got that part. There wasn’t even much of a part. I went to England and I was so psyched because I was like, ‘War movie! I get to run around with a helmet and a gun.’ A lot of it was made up on the fly. [Spielberg] would just tell me what to say. He would come over and say, “You have a rock in your shoe, so start thinking of that now because later you’re going to have to fall through a wall because of that.” So it was all sort of made up as it was going along.

Working with Spielberg must have been exciting.

Yeah, it was amazing! It was very cool because they had two entire demolished French towns built, so you could wander around in these things. They had three Steadi-cams going at once; I’ve never experienced that again. They didn’t really block stuff. These guys just ran around. It was the first time they used all that weird shutter speed and that bleached-out look. This was when they started doing all of that. It was really technically cool, and Spielberg was very cool. He was great.

I loved Duets. People are surprised to hear that there’s a movie where Paul Giamatti sings karaoke and Huey Lewis plays Gwyneth Paltrow’s karaoke-hustler dad.

That script was so much darker and fucked up than the movie ended up being. Huey Lewis sleeps with his daughter and Andre Braugher’s character kills me before he gets killed. He shoots me in the hotel room. I liked that movie, too. It is what it is. We were just having a good time; I loved singing.

What was it like sinking into Harvey Pekar in American Splendor?

Totally great. That was the first time I played a lead role in a movie and as far as I was concerned I wasn’t going to get it, and if I did get it, it would be the only time I’d get to do something like that. I remember that that script was so great and my agents were just like, “We don’t get it. What is this?” I was like, “Let’s try it. I really want to try to get it!” I don’t get like that about a lot of things. They were like, “Okay, if you really want to go in on it.” I knew who [Pekar] was; I’d remembered him from Letterman so I thought, “Oh my God, this will be so much fun to play this guy.” The whole idea of having to sort of imitate him. He’s such a bizarre character. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve done. Hope Davis and all the other people in it were just great. We were sort of under the radar, that thing. They sent us out to Cleveland; it was 18 days or something. It was brutal. They bought this crappy wig and glasses [for Hope Davis] and we all picked up these shitty clothes. Really fun, though! He was pissed off all the time, that guy. His constant irritation with people was really fun. He wasn’t really like that so much; it’s more the way he portrayed himself, just grousing all the time.

It seems like American Splendor led into Sideways.

Alexander [Payne] claims he never saw American Splendor. He said to me that the only reason he auditioned me for Sideways was because a woman I had gone to drama school with was working in the producer’s office, and she said to him, “Have you seen this guy?” So I guess, yes, it was because of American Splendor, but as far as he was concerned I was some schmuck that he’d never seen before.

Did you get excited about the role when you read the script?

I didn’t read the script. I did American Splendor and then I didn’t really work much for two years. I had a hard time after I made that movie. Sideways came along and I was told that [Payne] wanted to see me to audition for it. They just sent me one scene; that’s all they gave me. So I had no idea what the part was, what the movie was, or anything. As far as I knew this was the only scene this character had in the movie. I went and read it, and he was very nice and I left and completely forgot about it. A month later they were like, “He was really into you and he wants you to play this part, and it’s one of two leads in the movie.” I was just like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I thought he was really out of his mind to cast the two of us. So did Tom [Haden Church]. We were just, “Why the fuck are you going to do this to your movie and cast us?” [laughs] It was really amazing that he did that.

The script is fantastic.

[Payne and screenwriter Jim Taylor] are unbelievable. The script was incredibly precise, and again you just had to follow the script and not get in its way. It was totally, totally great. [We were] really just kind of hanging out. It felt very under-the-radar, like, “Nobody cares about this wine movie with these four schmucky people.”

What was it like when it hit big?

It was very surprising. It was lovely! It was wonderful. It was a big bonus. I never expected any sort of attention for that movie at all, so it was great.

Did your life change after that?

Well, yes. I got more interesting movies coming in, more interesting parts. I suddenly didn’t have to audition for things all the time. I got more money and things like that. More people recognized me in the street.

Was it a good feeling to have that kind of recognition?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Particularly because it was so unsought and it was so surprising. [laughs] That was what was nice. It was not [a situation] where everybody was sitting around going, “We’re gonna really hit pay-dirt with this thing.” Tom and I did it and went home and forgot about it, kind of. So it was this wonderful surprise.

Was “John Adams” something you really wanted to do?

It was an amazing thing to come along. It was daunting for a number of reasons. I thought, “This will not be easy.” [Adams] is a very unpleasant character and for nine hours he’s unpleasant, and he’s old and unpleasant for a lot of it. I also thought this was going to take a lot of stamina that I don’t know if I’m going to have. It was six or seven months and I think I had two days off the whole time. It was daunting but I did look upon it as something that I — that none of us — are ever going to get the opportunity to do again. I was just like, “I gotta do it.” It’s really reductive, but I think you would probably now characterize [Adams] as being manic-depressive or something. He clearly had something going on like that. He would have nervous collapses and he would take to his bed for two weeks, and he would have these freak-outs. He had horrible migraines. All of those guys. [Thomas] Jefferson was some kind of obsessive-compulsive. They were all OCD and Asberger-y. They’re all on the spectrum. [laughs] They were very, very peculiar guys. One of the things they wanted to do with that show was not show them as the guys on the coins, but these eccentric people.

There is this perception that you might be similar to some of the characters you’ve played.

It absolutely is true that people associate you with certain things. I mean, the number of people who think that I know all about wine. I was astounded with Cold Souls [2009, in which Giamatti plays himself] to have colleagues actually ask me if I was married to Emily Watson. I was astounded that they would ask me that, and that they wouldn’t realize that of course I’m not married to Emily Watson. It’s amazing the power it has over people. [laughs]

In contrast to many of your characters, you seem like a positive guy.

I don’t at all consider myself to be like these guys. I don’t think I’d be sitting here talking to you if I were. I think I would have train-wrecked a long time ago. [laughs]

You’ve brought out the beauty in some curmudgeonly people.

I think that it’s important to see not necessarily beautiful, likable people, you know? Because the world is full of funny-looking, not necessarily pleasant people and they deserve to be heard, too. [laughs]

That’s what American Splendor was all about.

There’s a vitality in that, actually, that’s different. I almost feel like there’s more in that inner conflict that generates something vital. It’s not for everybody, obviously. It’s an acquired taste to want to watch that kind of thing, but there’s something more vital about it to me. If everybody’s just beautiful and fine all the time, who cares? [laughs] That’s not interesting!

You’ve got John Dies at the End coming up.

It’s [based on a book] and Don Coscarelli directed it. It’s a crazy script. It’s amazing what he’s pulling off with no money at all. He does things his own way and he’s doing this one in a similar way. It was really fun. It’s about these two knuckle-headed kids who accidentally take this drug that completely blows reality apart for them. They become these weird crusaders against evil as it leaks into the world because they’ve opened this door to another dimension. It’s really nuts. It’s very funny, too.

What’s going on with Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires?

That’s Don’s. I tried to get that made for three years and we couldn’t do it. But I love Bubba Ho-tep [2002]. I really, genuinely think that’s a wonderful movie. It’s a great movie about getting old. [Bruce Campbell] is hilarious and he’s strange and totally believable and moving. It’s one of my favorite performances. And Bubba Nosferatu is a great script, and hopefully someday we’ll get to do it. I’m trying, believe me. I’ve given up for now, but I’m going to try again. I just love it. He makes great movies, Don. Very much their own thing.

Is Ron Perlman on board?

He’s on board if it happens, sure.

Shoot ‘Em Up was a lot of fun. You didn’t have to worry about making that guy likable.

I’ve gotten a lot of villain parts and I turn them down all the time because they’re not that great. [But] this guy, he molests a dead body in the back of a car. They cut that scene way down, which bummed me out. I was like, “Damn!” I thought, “This guy actually does really nasty things.” That’s why he was fun.

Lady in the Water was an interesting one.

That was a trip. It’s an interesting movie. Does it work? I don’t know. [laughs] You tell

me. But [M. Night Shyamalan] certainly reached for something. More so than I think people realize. That movie is a pretty out there idea, to have the plot of the movie literally being told between characters. It [took] a lot of balls to try to pull this off. I had a friend who came and saw the premiere, this supersmart, very cynical guy and I expected him to just rip into this thing afterwards, and I wanted to hear what he had to say. He said, “That’s a pretty interesting movie.” I said, “Really, you think so? I thought you would hate this thing.” He said, “That’s the kind of movie that I can imagine you’re going to have French film theorists writing papers on someday,” which is true. I could totally imagine somebody sitting back and going, “Wait a minute. This is the great movie where they blow narrative apart.” Somebody will write a dissertation about that movie someday. It’s out-there, the way he tells the story. It’s really weird. You gotta respect that.

I saw Pretty Bird [2008, co-produced by Giamatti and his wife, Elizabeth].

You saw Pretty Bird? Wow. That movie had a very funny sort of life. That’s one of two performances of my life that I actually like. I like myself in that movie and I like myself in The

Illusionist. But [Pretty Bird] is one of the only times [where I thought], “That’s what I meant

to do. That’s exactly what I wanted it to be like.” Because a lot of times you’ll look at it and go, “How did I get it wrong? How did it not come out like what I thought it was?” But that I watch and go, “That’s exactly what I wanted that guy to seem like.” [laughs] So I actually really like it — narcissistically. I also like the movie, too. It got butchered to try to get a distributor, which was too bad.

You tend to be dissatisfied with your performances?

I’m pretty critical about most of what I do, but I hope I’m usefully critical to myself. I’m not brutal on myself. I’m fine with most of the stuff I do. There are things I like about them and things I don’t, but with that and [The Illusionist], those are the two that I feel like, “I didn’t nail it but that was very close to what I had in my head.” The movie that I was seeing in my head, I’m seeing it up there, and that was more satisfying than usual.

What do you love about what you do?

I don’t know, man. Clearly I enjoy not being myself, and that’s a wonderful thing. [laughs] One of the reasons I started acting was it’s a wonderful way to connect, not only with the audience but with other people. It’s still something where you can feel, in a way, no deeper connection than with somebody you’re acting with. It can be very strange, but it can be a really intense, visceral connection with somebody that’s pretty unique. And I like the fact that it’s all fake. I like the fact that it’s not real and you’re trying to answer questions about what’s real. In this unreal place, you’re actually sitting there going, ”What’s real about what we’re talking about right now?” It’s crazy.

Do you find yourself getting caught up in the emotions of your characters?

Oh, sure. Film is different from stage. On stage I feel like you can actually experience something kind of mystical. I don’t mean to get squishy about it, but you can. I don’t know that it happens so much on film the way it would on stage, but still you get absolutely caught up. And you get deeply, deeply, strangely bonded to these people. It’s an incredibly intimate thing. It’s wonderful. 􀀀