00:00No one wants us, we're indesirable characters, and no one wants us.
00:16There's an amazing scene with Michael Shenmue,
00:18in which he says, we don't want you.
00:21Yes, very moving, but I thought this is Austin Butler and Jeff Nichols' life,
00:27because your career is based on rejection.
00:29No one wants us.
00:30We're indesirable characters, and no one wants us.
00:34Why do you base your life on a career that implies a lot of rejection?
00:39Oh, I see.
00:40Yeah, that's cool.
00:42I always joke, I've been just unsuccessful enough to have the career that I have,
00:47which I'm very proud of, you know?
00:50I think had I made even bigger hits,
00:54maybe I would have been scooped up into a system that I wasn't quite ready for.
00:58And so, as a benefit of that, I've been able to choose,
01:03and have time to develop a voice and a point of view, you know?
01:07Which is a really hard thing to do in this business, because movies are expensive.
01:11And so I can honestly look you in the eye and say, these movies, they're a part of me.
01:16They express something about myself.
01:19And so, you know, rejection is a positive, in my case.
01:24That's cool.
01:26I've experienced a lot of rejection in my life.
01:29You know, as an actor, most of my career, up until, I don't know, six years ago or something
01:37like that, was, you know, I've been doing it 20 years.
01:40So it's a lot of time of auditioning and hearing no many, many times.
01:47And they used to tell me in the beginning, expect to audition for 100 things before you
01:52can even think about booking one.
01:53And so it's just a numbers game in the beginning.
01:56You're hearing no constantly.
01:58And, and now I feel fortunate that, that feeling about, about, you know, I feel very fortunate
02:07to get the opportunities that I have now, so the rejection shifts.
02:12And now, now you feel that, you know, what I try to remind myself of as far as like public
02:17opinion goes is there are going to be people who say the greatest things about you and there's
02:22going to be people who say the worst things about you.
02:24And both of them, if you, if you let them in, they, they, they can, they can feel so true,
02:31but the negative often feels like it stings in a way to where it becomes a thing that you
02:37think about longer.
02:38And, and so I try to just kind of, I, I, I realize all that's just noise and it's, it's
02:45the interactions that you have that really matter.
02:47Speaking about interaction, you embody an idea because to me, your character embodies
02:53youth, adventure, endless possibilities.
02:57Yeah.
02:57So as an actor, how do you play an idea?
03:00Do you, I don't think, I don't think you can, I don't know.
03:07I don't, I don't think of it that way.
03:09I had to try to figure out, you know, we talked about the myth that is Benny, you know, and,
03:16and the fact that you don't see his face in the book or in the, in the images.
03:20And so, so he's this, this mythic figure in a way, but you, uh, for me, I, I can't think
03:29of him as this mythic figure in the same ways I couldn't think of Elvis as a mythic figure.
03:35You know, it's, he's a human being who has trauma and love and, uh, joy and heartbreak,
03:41you know, everything, you know, it's, it's, it's, he's just one of us.
03:44And so Benny is the same and he has his own things that, you know, walls up around his heart
03:50and,
03:50but he had a childhood and what was that like?
03:53And so for me, it was digging into a lot of that, that no, no one will ever know.
03:58And I, I kind of liked it.
03:59Nobody outside knows that in the same way as when I look at the images, I don't know.
04:04But for myself, I had to know on the inside what that was and who you, you know, the, the
04:11history
04:11that makes me the person that I am in the span of this film.
04:16It's like you play the man and I'll take care of the interpretation.
04:19Yeah, yeah, exactly.
04:19Like the way you shoot it makes him.
04:21Yeah.
04:21The, choosing to shoot that pool table moment in slow motion is so much more mythic.
04:27Yeah.
04:27The camera, the camera does the, the camera does it.
04:30It's you and Adam Stein, you know?
04:34I have to say that I really hoped for a kiss between Johnny and Benny.
04:39Oh yeah?
04:39Have you ever considered the idea?
04:42No.
04:43Why?
04:46No, maybe I'm limited.
04:49But I think, I think we've got to give some credit to Tom Hardy in this moment.
04:53You know, I wrote that scene as, as a man standing in front of another man,
04:56offering him something that was very important to him.
04:58And I just did press for the first time with Tom the other day.
05:01So I got to hear him talk about this scene.
05:03And he was like, he used a word that was not on my radar.
05:06He was like, it was conspiratorial.
05:08What do you mean?
05:09He's like, well, you got the other guys over there.
05:10And he, he wants to offer him this club.
05:12So I needed to get in close.
05:14I needed to get in close.
05:16Now I didn't write it that way.
05:18That word never entered my brain in that scene.
05:20But, but that's what's fascinating about writing scenes that you think are pretty good.
05:24And then these actors show up and through their interpretation of them,
05:27without changing any dialogue, they make them great.
05:30And that's where that moment came from, where you get so close.
05:34And then all of a sudden, there are these other things going on, you know,
05:38that, that I couldn't have imagined in that scene.
05:40It is sensual, seductive, uncomfortable, dangerous,
05:47maybe a bit of a turn on.
05:48I don't know.
05:51I should ask you.
05:52So next time, next time.
05:53Sorry, I'll just be quiet.
05:54Thank you so much.
05:55Thank you.
05:56Thank you.
05:56Thanks.
06:15Thank you.
Commenti