- 4 hours ago
Vincent D’Onofrio joins GQ as he revisits some of the most iconic characters from his career so far: from his role as Kingpin in Daredevil and the Marvel cinematic universe to his breakout role in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.Credits:Director: Jeremy Clowney Director of Photography: Eric BrouseEditor: Louville MooreTalent: Vincent D'onofrio Senior Producer: Michael BeckertLine Producer: Jen SantosProduction Manager: Evie RoopTalent Booker: Jenna CaldwellCamera Operator: Miguel ZamoraGaffer: David DjacoSound Mixer: Tyson DaiProduction Assistant: Quincy PrimusPost Production Supervisor: Jess DunnPost Production Coordinator: Stella ShortinoSupervising Editor: Rob LombardiAdditional Editor: Grant SponableAssistant Editor: Billy Ward
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Barry kind of talks like this, and he goes,
00:03are you going to do that the whole time?
00:06That's what he said.
00:08And I said to him, yeah, it's pretty much my plan.
00:11Like, I don't have another...
00:14I said, I don't have a plan B.
00:16Like, this really is it.
00:17And like, meanwhile, all the blood is rushing out of my head.
00:20Like, I think I'm done.
00:21Hey, I'm Vincent D'Onofrio, and these are my iconic characters.
00:32He's a very manipulative person, Wilson Fiske.
00:37He's sort of a genius at manipulating,
00:39and he's an incredible, you might say, chess player when it comes to life.
00:47And he's also a monster, and he's also a big baby.
00:52I'm simply proposing an arrangement.
00:54I don't do arrangements.
00:56You should rethink that.
00:59Considering the amount of enemies you have in here.
01:02I'm not going to be your goddamn trigger, man.
01:03I'm not doing it.
01:04I'm offering you the opportunity to confront the man implicated in the deaths of your family.
01:11Yes, I benefit from your actions.
01:14He's an interesting character to play.
01:17That's why it's still fun to play him.
01:21You put a character like that in a domestic situation, like falling in love, getting married, having a relationship.
01:31He's just not normal, and he's not like you or me.
01:37To put that kind of person in a domestic situation is really a lot of fun as an actor, but
01:44really scary for everybody else.
01:46It's a very emotional part.
01:48It's all of that stuff.
01:50Even his voice, I found through an emotion.
01:55The way he speaks has a lot to do with an event that happened in my life, and that's always
02:01in me when I'm speaking like him.
02:05Whether it's laughing or experiencing joy or being brutal to somebody, it all comes from this emotional place.
02:13And so he's a very intense character to play.
02:17Even the smallest of scenes or the biggest of scenes, they're all very intense to play no matter what's going
02:24on in the scene.
02:25Only because I have to bring so much into it, like many actors do.
02:29We bring a lot of stuff in that's not scripted, but that make us feel like we're a living, thinking
02:35character while the camera's rolling.
02:37And there's an abundance of emotions and events from my life that I'm juggling while the camera's rolling.
02:46So it would be acting, reacting, his voice I'm playing, his posture I'm playing, and then these emotional things inside
02:53me.
02:53It can be tough and tiring at times.
02:55But it's intense, and it works well for Wilson Fisk, for Kingpin.
03:00So these days I just play all that in the context of how a king would behave.
03:07Who is this?
03:07I think you know.
03:10You've been asking about me.
03:13I thought it was time we spoke.
03:15Well, it all started when I showed up on set one day.
03:18I'd only met Charlie briefly at a dinner with Jeff Loeb, who used to run Marvel Television, and he was
03:24our boss.
03:26On Daredevil, a very hands-on boss, Jeff Loeb.
03:30Amazing dude.
03:31Also started in comics.
03:33I went to set I had to do off-camera for Charlie.
03:36Charlie, we were on walkie-talkies as the characters, but Charlie was on a set, but I could see him
03:41on there.
03:43I didn't want him to be able to see me.
03:44And then we were actually talking.
03:46I was mic'd, he was mic'd, but we were talking on the walkie-talkie, having this conversation.
03:52You know, he handled the dialogue great, and he was on the floor in this office.
03:58But then during the scene, he made this leap onto one of the desks, and then leaped to another one,
04:06and then walked on the furniture.
04:08And I was like, oh my God, this guy is actually Daredevil.
04:11I remember thinking, this is amazing.
04:14This is going to work.
04:15It all sort of just came to me in that moment.
04:17I said, if we're both kind of like grounded as actors, and we're not playing like over-the-top superheroes,
04:24we're particularly over-the-top superheroes.
04:29And we keep the show grounded, and he can do that.
04:32And if I'm able to bring in what I want to bring in, this show is going to be good,
04:36I thought immediately.
04:37And so that's where we started.
04:39In my mind, that's where we started.
04:41My relationship started with him.
04:42And then you jump to now, and just over the years, we are real partners on the show.
04:49All of our notes are very similar all the time.
04:51We never disagree about anything.
04:52I'm doing my side of the show.
04:54He's doing his side of the show.
04:55And when we're both on set at the same time, I might be with second unit, or he might be
05:01with second unit.
05:02But every time I'm there, or when I'm not there, I know that his side of the show is being
05:08done great, because I know Charlie is there.
05:11And also, we have great producers, and I know the scripts are already good.
05:16I've been very lucky with scene partners, like Kate Irby, who played Eames on Law & Order.
05:22She was an amazing woman, and just an extraordinary actress, too.
05:25And I've just been very lucky.
05:28I can't imagine working with anybody else this intensely on a show other than Charlie.
05:33He's really quite something, I think.
05:35You're a real man of the people now.
05:37A rich man, by his very nature, is self-serving.
05:40A mayor serves his city.
05:42Huh.
05:43Did you ever expect to come back to this role?
05:46Charlie didn't, but I did.
05:47You know, every time Charlie used to say, we're not coming back, I used to say, I think we're going
05:52to come back.
05:52And he used to think I was just being delusional, you know.
05:55I just felt like, you know, there was no reason other than them bringing, starting Disney+, that we were
06:02pulled from Netflix.
06:03So we weren't pulled.
06:04We were at the top of our game on Netflix when we were pulled.
06:07People were loving the show.
06:08I know somebody like Kevin Feige is not going to not know that.
06:12Like, I know him and his people are going to know that we kicked butt.
06:17I just couldn't imagine them not seeing dollar signs and not seeing a great opportunity in some way.
06:25And not seeing them in their minds.
06:29I can't.
06:29I mean, I know this for a fact now because I know Kevin a little bit.
06:33You know, he's very into Daredevil and I can imagine.
06:39I always thought, you know, if they're into Marvel characters, these are some cool Marvel characters and that's why we're
06:45back, you know.
06:47That's why I thought we'd be back and eventually we were.
06:50I hope Kingpin is in the movies someday.
06:53We'll see.
06:54I don't know.
06:54Maybe it'll be me.
06:55Maybe it won't.
06:55I don't know what they'll do.
06:56But right now they don't have the rights.
06:59They have a bit more rights than they did last, a couple years ago.
07:03But, you know, it's tough right now.
07:05They don't have, they have the rights to a lot of characters from the Spider-Man series, but they don't
07:11have mine.
07:12Not completely.
07:13So I think that's been holding it back a bit.
07:16But I hope to be able to do it.
07:19You know, we'll see.
07:21Full Metal Jacket.
07:28Pull! Pull, Pyle, pull!
07:31One pull-up, Pyle.
07:32Come on, pull!
07:33You gotta be shitting me, Pyle!
07:35Get your ass up there!
07:37Do you mean to tell me that you cannot do one single pull-up?
07:41You are a worthless piece of shit, Pyle!
07:44Get out of my face!
07:45Get up there, Snowball!
07:47I approach things in a very practical way.
07:50My feelings about acting and my feelings about actors and directors and how to execute a performance and what an
07:59artist is and all that is, I have very romantic feelings about all that stuff.
08:03But when it comes to being on set and actually doing the work, it's a very practical thing that you
08:07have to get away with.
08:08So I'm not, you know, a lot of times I think people are bullshitting when they say that they did
08:15boot camp stuff and it was like real boot camp and everything.
08:18I don't think a bunch of actors could survive real boot camp, you know.
08:24That's just my opinion.
08:25But we did have to learn how to march.
08:28And Stanley told us early on that he was going to mix some actual footage from Parris Island with what
08:36we were doing.
08:37I don't know if he told me that or if that's what I heard.
08:39So I knew that our marching and cadence and monkey patrol with the rifles, you know, when they spin the
08:46rifles and all that stuff, had to be like really salty, like really, really good, like crisp.
08:53And so we really focused on that.
08:56And I had to handle the rifle and be able to take the rifle and put it back together, blindfold
09:01and all that stuff.
09:03That was all pretty easy stuff to do.
09:04But the cadence and the monkey patrol spinning the rifles and all that was intense work.
09:10You know, it wasn't digging ditches or anything, but it was intense because it had to be perfect.
09:16To me, personally, it never felt like we were actually at war or in some kind of boot camp, real
09:23boot camp situation.
09:24You know, Full Metal Jacket was my first feature film.
09:27So I'd never worked with a director before.
09:30Stanley worked in a very practical way, too.
09:32So I was just following his lead.
09:34Actually, execution, when the camera was rolling sometimes with Lee and I and Modine and Arliss Howard, it got intense
09:43at times.
09:43It was pretty intense while the camera was rolling, especially some of those boot camp scenes.
09:49How do you feel like that experience impacted your career as far as that being your first?
09:52I don't think I'd be here talking to you right now if Kubrick didn't cast me in that movie.
09:56I mean, I have no idea.
09:58I'd been on Broadway.
10:00Probably I would have stayed in the theater and just done that kind of stuff.
10:06But I was a big film nerd and wanted to do films.
10:12But I had no agent at the time.
10:14I just kind of sent the tape like everybody else did.
10:18You know, Modine gave me the address and I sent it.
10:23It was a long shot.
10:24And I, you know, suddenly I was in that film.
10:28And if it wasn't for Stanley, I don't think, I really don't think I would have the career that I
10:34have.
10:34Do any of you people know where these individuals learned how to shoot?
10:39Private Joker.
10:41Sir!
10:42In the Marines, sir!
10:43And the Marines, outstanding.
10:46Those individuals showed what one motivated Marine and his rifle can do.
10:51And before you ladies leave my island, you will all be able to do the same thing.
10:56Stanley was very aware that I was very green when it came to filmmaking.
11:01Without giving me any speech or anything or talk to me about anything in particular,
11:07he was also the kind of director that didn't want to talk about process or anything like that.
11:12Which is fine with me.
11:15I work with all kinds of different directors and that's fine.
11:18But Stanley was one of those directors that didn't want to talk about acting,
11:23didn't want to talk about the performance or the execution of it in any way.
11:27Or the actual scene itself he didn't want to talk about.
11:29But he did know what was right and he did keep you going until you got it right.
11:35He wanted to see what kind of actor I was and how far I could go emotionally and how far
11:42my intensity was.
11:43So we waited.
11:43I think he waited for a long time.
11:46There was one scene where I was sitting outside on the bleachers and Lee is doing a speech about snipers
11:52in the context of assassinations.
11:55I did this thing.
11:57I wasn't directed to do it, but I just did this thing where I'm staring out into the distance where
12:04everybody else is listening to him.
12:06And I just kept an inner life going on and just stared out for his whole speech.
12:14And the next time I shot a scene, Stanley said, do you remember what you did at the bleacher?
12:22And I'm like, yeah.
12:22And he goes, okay, so this time, and it was the scene when Lee is handing out our orders, which
12:33is just before the bathroom scene.
12:35I was sitting on the floor.
12:37He said, I'm going to raise the camera.
12:38I'm not going to bring it down to you.
12:39I'm going to raise the camera and I want you to look at this mark, but I don't want you
12:43to move your chin.
12:44I just want you to look up at it.
12:46And I knew immediately what he was talking about because I had seen it in Clockwork Orange and The Shining.
12:54So I'm like, I guess I'm doing one of these Stanley Kubrick shots.
12:57In my head, I'm like, oh, shit.
12:59I'm on.
13:00It's me.
13:01It's my turn.
13:03He kept on raising the camera and look up a little higher at the mark, a little higher at the
13:06mark, keep your chin down like that,
13:08and now just play it the way you played that scene that we did in the bleachers.
13:12And I just did that.
13:14And then for every scene after that, that stare was in it a bit.
13:20And then eventually in the bathroom scene when I killed the sergeant myself, that whole look developed into that whole,
13:28the tone of that scene.
13:31And the way that I'm speaking in that scene and the way that I'm sitting in the bathroom and I
13:40sit back to kill myself and stuff,
13:42all of that comes from me first doing a thing on the bleachers and then Stanley turning that into the
13:48Kubrick Stare thing.
13:49And then me just riffing on all of that stuff.
13:57Men in Black.
14:04Oh, your skin is hanging off your bones.
14:14Oh, yeah.
14:18Yeah.
14:19Is that ready?
14:20I had done a movie with Stacey Sher, who, as far as I'm concerned, back then, she was one of
14:26the best movie producers.
14:27She ran Danny to be those companies for a while, and then she started making movies with Tarantino.
14:31But anyway, I had done Feeling Minnesota with her as a producer, with Keanu and I played brothers in that,
14:38with Cameron Diaz.
14:39And years later, I got a call from her saying, hey, it's, you know, Stacey, she said I've been talking
14:46to Barry Sonnenfeld, he's interested in you for a part, but he's asked me to ask you that if I'm
14:54going to give you the script that I have to promise,
14:56and this is the absolute truth, and Barry and I have talked about it since, I would have to promise
15:02that I would never speak to him about acting or the character or anything that had to do with my
15:08performance,
15:08that I would just say yes, and then I would just do it.
15:12I felt that that was, I had never heard about that before, I'd never had a director ask me that
15:17before.
15:18But I had just seen Get Shorty, and it was such a great movie.
15:23And I knew about Barry already, because he was the cinematographer for Raimi and the Coen brothers early on.
15:31And when I started reading, this alien comes down and takes the body of a guy and then wears the
15:39skin for the whole thing,
15:41and I couldn't talk to the director about it.
15:43It was, I had no idea, and the lines were kind of wonky and weird and sort of like punchlines,
15:52kind of.
15:54You know, I had to figure it out, so I went and rented a bunch of videos on insects, documentaries
16:01on insects and blah, blah, blah.
16:02And I remember sitting on my couch with my roommate at the time, and we were, I was doing a
16:10movie in L.A. at the time.
16:12You know, I'm watching this shot of this beetle crossing this porch, and the camera sort of like moves in
16:19on this beetle and then tracks with the beetle.
16:21And I was just like, enough.
16:23I just got up and turned the TV off.
16:25I was like, this is, I have no idea what to do.
16:28And so I was very frustrated, and I left the house, and I walked down Laurel Canyon to Sunset Boulevard.
16:34And I'm walking on the street, and the absolute truth, I passed by a orthopedic store, if you've ever been
16:44in one.
16:44But they're always empty, but there's always somebody with a white lab coat in there.
16:48And in the window, there were these knee braces that, like, basketball players wear when they're injured.
16:57I didn't really question it.
16:59I just, really not knowing what, it was all kind of full in my head.
17:04But I was attracted to these braces.
17:06In some way, I thought they could help.
17:08But it wasn't about defining.
17:10It was just about trying to research and see if I could, if this was going to be something.
17:15And I went in, and I explained to the guy, and he got very excited.
17:19I explained what I was doing, playing an alien, and all the line.
17:22He thought it was, like, he thought it was amazing.
17:24He ran in his back room, and when he opened the door to his back room, it was like a
17:28storage room.
17:29And he was painting his walls in there.
17:32So there was, like, paint sticks and paint and rollers.
17:36And he went in there, and he gathered up some duct tape and some paint sticks, and then brought these
17:41two braces out.
17:42And I kind of stood and bent my knees a little bit, and we put these on.
17:49And he duct taped the paint sticks to the braces, and then we did my feet like that.
17:55So basically, I couldn't move my knees in any direction.
17:58I couldn't move my ankles in any direction.
18:00And then I simply just tried to walk, and I was like, yes, like, this could work.
18:06Like, it all kind of came to me that, like, it's this 20-foot alien packed into this body.
18:16It would be tough for him to move, and that will frustrate him.
18:20And so the whole character really, the physicality of the character came from me going into this orthopedic store.
18:28I bought them.
18:29He charged me about $500 for both of them.
18:32And, you know, I couldn't really afford it at the time, but I did it.
18:36And he gave me the paint sticks and the duct tape, I guess as a bonus or something.
18:42And then I went home, and I went to my friend.
18:45Hey, look, I'm going to try this thing.
18:47So he helped me do it, and we did it to my arms and my wrists.
18:50And then I just tried to walk around, and I thought, this is really working.
18:53So I spent, like, a week doing the dishes in the house and, like, cleaning the house, making my bed
18:58with this thing on,
18:59and figured out the whole physicality in a week about how this guy could move and why.
19:06And it gave me all these new intentions for the character.
19:09And then I needed to find his voice.
19:12I had, like, one of the first big screen televisions, and I was, like, I collect laser discs.
19:20And back then I had, you know, over a thousand of them.
19:23And we were watching Chinatown, and in Chinatown is the director, John Euston, plays a part.
19:28He plays for the den of his father, and he has a voice that he accentuates the last vowel and
19:34things.
19:35So it would be, like, pond, or how are you?
19:39It's good to see you, like that, you know.
19:42Mister, how are you, you know.
19:44I still got a few teeth left in my head and a few friends in town.
19:49And there was this one line about pond scum in the script.
19:54So I just said, pond scum.
19:56And I'm like, oh, shit, this could work.
19:59You know, like, that could work, but I thought it was too slow for comedy.
20:05So I remembered George C. Scott's performance in Dr. Strangelove, where he played a general, and he kind of talked
20:12like this all the time.
20:13And he would, like, rush around and do, like, a somersault and stand back straight and talk like that.
20:17This jet exhaust, frying chickens in the barn.
20:20So I combined those two voices together and came up with the voice.
20:23Now, this is the point of the story.
20:26Months later, after working with Rick and I, Rick did the makeup.
20:29I was doing the voice and walking around Rick's studio, and Rick was Rick Baker, who won many Academy Awards
20:35for his makeup.
20:36While he was fixing my face and developing the makeup, I was developing the character with the voice and the
20:42movement and everything.
20:43And then skip a month later, I'm doing the first scene, which took place in a barn.
20:49Now, remember, Barry has no idea what I'm going to do because I wasn't allowed to discuss it with him.
20:55I promised I wouldn't.
20:56I mean, and I'm standing outside.
21:00It's a scene where I have to cross this barn, go into a barn, cross it, and kill the Orkin
21:06man.
21:07So I start this monologue, and I walk in, and I get halfway through, and Barry calls cut.
21:12I'm like, okay, whatever.
21:13You know, it's, like, typical.
21:15It could be something technical or whatever.
21:16But then I saw the first AD go over to him, and the first AD turned with this microphone and
21:21said,
21:22Barry would like to clear the set.
21:24So, you know, I started to walk off, and then I heard, not you, Vincent.
21:28Okay.
21:29I could be getting fired.
21:31We'll see.
21:33And Barry said to me, can you do that again?
21:37So I did it again, and he cut at the same place again, and he goes to me, Barry kind
21:45of talks like this, and he goes, are you going to do that the whole time?
21:51That's what he said.
21:53And I said to him, yeah, it's pretty much my plan.
21:57Like, I don't have another.
21:59I said, I don't have a plan B.
22:01Like, this really is it.
22:03And, like, meanwhile, all the blood is rushing out of my head.
22:05Like, I think I'm done.
22:06Like, I think it's my last hurrah with Barry.
22:11And he said, my God, this is horrible.
22:14It's horrible.
22:16And I'm about to say, okay, where do you want me to go?
22:21Like, and he said, it's really just, and he just kept shaking his head, and he said, but let's continue
22:30and see what happens, he goes.
22:32And I'm like, okay.
22:34We never spoke about it again.
22:37We just kept on shooting, and I just kept on doing that character the way that I brought it in
22:41full out.
22:43And I didn't get fired.
22:46And years later, Barry and I had a situation where we were able to talk about it, and we sat
22:53together and just talked about the whole thing, and it was just fantastic.
22:59You know, the trust that he put in me, a lot of directors have done this for me, but that
23:07was a pretty big amount of trust he put in me to pull that character off for him.
23:12And, yeah, I can never thank him enough for that.
23:16Caught stealing.
23:45I got called in last minute.
23:47I got called in last minute to do that.
23:48I think an actor pulled out of it or something like that.
23:51So I had three weeks to learn Yiddish, and we had a lot of dialogue in Yiddish.
24:00Liev knew a little Yiddish, but not a lot, so he had to do it, too.
24:04Better than Giecher.
24:06No?
24:07But he had been involved, I think, with the project for, like, just under a year or something like that.
24:17I'm not quite sure, but I was just new to the whole thing.
24:20I'd met Darren once.
24:21I auditioned for him for something early on, which I got close to getting, but he didn't give it to
24:26me.
24:26Darren is great.
24:29He reminded me a lot of Stanley Kubrick, actually, because Kubrick was from the same area that Darren was from
24:36in New York,
24:36and their voices, their accents were very similar, and he was just, I was immediately comfortable with him.
24:44He's an amazing director, and he knows exactly what he wants and doesn't stop until he gets it,
24:50and I found it very easy to work with him.
24:53But I think, I think him and Austin and Liev, the three of them were all very helpful.
25:00I was able to just immediately fall in love with Liev.
25:04I mean, he's such an awesome dude.
25:05I really focused on how much I liked him as a person and as an actor to give us some
25:13kind of chemistry and kind of brotherly love,
25:16and we were just bouncing things off each other all day.
25:19It was so much fun.
25:20And so the idea of executing these scenes with this Yiddish accent in the Yiddish language was tough.
25:34It was tough, but they all supported me 100%.
25:37I wish I had, you know, two months or three months to work on it, but I had three weeks,
25:41and Darren Aronofsky is one of my favorite directors.
25:43He always has been since he started.
25:45First thing I saw him, his film was Pie, and it was just amazing.
25:51Law and Order Criminal Intent.
25:58Is that why your girlfriends don't have patients for you anymore?
26:01Is that why you bring hookers home to flatter you?
26:04And young girls like Bethany, because they don't know any better.
26:07I got a call from Dick Wolf, I guess, yeah.
26:10He asked me if I would be interested in doing some television.
26:13I'd only done a couple of guest star things when I was much younger.
26:20So I really didn't know much about television at all, especially doing one of the leads on a show.
26:24So it was a big ask.
26:26I definitely took a while to make my decision about it.
26:32But then I read the first script, and Rene Balsay was the showrunner for the first, like, four years.
26:40It was just so good.
26:41The scripts were written so well.
26:43They were really kind of not whodunits, but, like, whodunits.
26:48It was all about the intent, very much like, you know, Sherlock Holmes or Columbo, or it's really about, if
26:58you find out why it was done, why the crime was done, then that will take you to the criminal.
27:07I realized immediately that it gave me an opportunity to create another version of one of these shows that are
27:15sort of like Agatha Christie or Columbo or whatever, you know, Perot, or, like, I always enjoyed those shows myself.
27:23And that was the thing that kept, that was on my mind mostly, was the fact that I could create
27:29another personality type that hadn't been done yet for that type of show.
27:35I had already been a bit versed in interrogation and in interviewing in the context of, like, law enforcement, just
27:48from some research that I had done previous for other parts.
27:52So, you know, I went down the rabbit hole with that again.
27:58Mirroring is a big thing, you know, to mirror, to match the person that's being interrogated by you's, to match
28:10their energy.
28:11There's all kinds of tricks you can play to get people to open up or get people to wonder about
28:17you, which is like a trick to bring them in.
28:21But immigration officers, state troopers, agents for different organizations, have all commented about my character on that show.
28:40And, which I find pretty funny, that I learned from them, and then they would take ideas from me, and
28:50it was very bizarre, the whole thing.
28:53I remember one time in particular, I was getting off a plane in Australia.
28:58I was stopped by the immigration, and they brought me into this back room.
29:07Nobody would, I kept on asking them why, what's happening, like, why aren't, you know, do you have to search
29:12my bags, search my bags, whatever you want to do.
29:14But they took me to this back room, and their boss was back there, and they just all wanted to
29:19sit and talk to me about interrogation.
29:23And I just thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever.
29:27But at the same time, it was sort of flattering that they would be even interested in this little, silly
29:33little thing that I did as an actor, you know.
29:36But if he tells us how he came by that knowledge, well, that implicates you, doesn't it?
29:43That's not true.
29:45Those interrogations that always ended the show, they used to, when we did this show, they used to, the crew
29:50and the writers used to call them the arias, the last scene.
29:56They were usually anywhere from 7 pages to 14 or 15 pages, and we would shoot those scenes from top
30:04to bottom in wide shots first.
30:07So it was sort of like doing a scene from a play.
30:09So eventually, I was able to get the trust of the company and start doing that kind of stuff myself.
30:17It was a really cool job in that way.
30:20It was exhausting for Kate Irby and I.
30:22Kate played Alexander Eames on the show.
30:25It was a lot of hours.
30:26It was 17 hours.
30:28We basically averaged about 17 hours a day, every day, for 10 months a year.
30:33So that was tough.
30:35You know, I hated that.
30:36And I'm glad it's really not allowed, nobody's allowed to do that anymore with actors.
30:40But I left that show a better actor than I was before when I went in.
30:46There was so much dialogue to learn all the time.
30:48And there were so many weird transitions that I had to make within one scene, very different than a movie
30:55where you would make emotional transitions or the arc would change.
31:02In a movie, it probably, like every act, there might be one or two of those transitions.
31:09But in a TV show, there could be three transitions within a scene, within one scene.
31:13So I didn't know how to do that.
31:16I had to learn on the job.
31:17And I don't think I would have evolved like I did if it wasn't for that show.
31:24Magnificent Seven.
31:28Oh, my Lord.
31:42We have to talk about Denzel a little bit because he's one of the best actors in the world.
31:47I remember I once told him, we were all on our horses.
31:51This is Denzel in a nutshell.
31:53Like, he's amazing, this guy.
31:55He was in the lead, and we had to cross this river and then come back and cross the river
31:59again and come back, you know, like you do every movie, you've got to do it over and over again.
32:02And he was passing me to get back in front again, and I said, ladies and gentlemen, the best actor
32:07in America.
32:08And he looked back at me and he said, only in America?
32:11Like that.
32:12And I thought that was awesome.
32:13So working with D was an experience that I'll never forget.
32:18He's quite something.
32:19But I had friends.
32:21Pratt was already a friend of mine.
32:23Ethan was already a friend for many, many years.
32:26Previous.
32:27There's seven, the Magnificent Seven, obviously.
32:29But the six of us outside of Denzel really got close.
32:33We're all still friends to this day.
32:35I talk to them all the time.
32:36I talk to Manuel, who played the Mexican gunslinger in it.
32:40I talked to him a couple days ago.
32:43Martin Sensmire, who played the Native American in it.
32:45I talk to him all the time.
32:46He's like a little brother to me.
32:47And, you know, Chris and Ethan are buds.
32:50So it was a very comfortable set to be on.
32:52And it's another thing very similar to the thing that happened in Men in Black.
32:58Because I had chose to do this high voice for my guy.
33:03Everybody got very nervous on the first scene when I did that voice.
33:18I remember Antoine, them cutting, just like in Men in Black.
33:24And I remember Antoine coming over and came real close to me because he wanted to whisper.
33:29And I had already known Antoine already and thought he was amazing.
33:34He said the same exact thing that Barry said to me.
33:38He said, are you going to do that the whole time?
33:40And I'm like, yeah.
33:42And he goes, is that going to work?
33:45And I'm like, I think it's going to work.
33:47He goes, are you sure?
33:48And I'm like, I'm pretty sure.
33:50He goes, okay, I got your back.
33:52And, you know, and he turned and he went back.
33:54And producers never approached me, didn't let anybody get near me.
33:57And I played the whole character like that in this high voice.
34:00These two ungodly creatures broke a rock on my head, robbed me of my possession.
34:09I trailed them for two days.
34:10He got a little low when he got emotional and stuff, but it was mainly high.
34:17But to be in the service of others, with men, that I respect, like you all.
34:30Well, I shouldn't have to ask for more than that.
34:34It was a great experience.
34:35All those guys, like I said, we're still buds.
34:38And, you know, for what it is, it's a remake of, you know, Seven Samurai or the original Mag-7.
34:45You know, but it's, I'll always, I'll never forget the shooting of that film because I made some very, very
34:52close friends.
34:55Thumbsucker.
35:04Do you think Justin's had sex?
35:07That's just the image I'm on my head right now.
35:10Yeah, because we weren't much older when we got married.
35:19How old do you feel?
35:29Well, I mean, Tilda Swinton's, I mean, if you're an actor, Tilda Swinton is a name that, you know, just
35:38personally, I'll speak for myself.
35:40I think before I met her, I thought she was amazing.
35:43I'd seen everything she'd done.
35:44And then working with her, she's just amazing.
35:47You know, there's nothing like having an incredible actor as your scene partner.
35:54You know, everybody involved in a scene affects the scene.
35:59And when you have an actress or an actor like Tilda, it just elevates everything so much.
36:07And that's a really comfortable place to play when the camera's rolling, where anything goes and the creativity is just
36:17flowing the whole time.
36:19She's the, you know, she's, one might call her the consummate actor.
36:24You know, she's quite something and, and, and an incredible person and very fun to talk to.
36:30And yeah, no, I'll, I'll never forget working with her.
36:33She was quite something.
36:36The self.
36:42I don't know when should be treated like that.
36:55Is that right?
36:56No, I mean, it's all Tarsem Desnoir, the director.
36:59You know, he's a good friend.
37:00I've worked with him a couple of times now.
37:02He's amazing.
37:03You know, I would do anything for him.
37:05He's just a real legit artist.
37:08At first, I didn't want to do it because I played a couple of killers previous to that.
37:14I think two in a row before that.
37:16And I just didn't want to play another killer.
37:18But, and I hadn't met Tarsem yet.
37:21I just sort of like read the script and I thought it was okay.
37:23And, and, but I, I, and I thought the part was a good part, but I, I kind of just
37:29pushed
37:29it away.
37:31And then, so I didn't give him an answer.
37:34I don't remember exactly how long it took, but he sent me a videotape of a, of, of, of
37:43something that he had shot, which was a commercial, like a MTV type commercial.
37:49And so basically it was this.
37:52So the camera is up high looking down at a, a blue tile floor, big blue tiles.
37:59The camera's up like 20 feet in the air, but you can see the whole square of tiles.
38:04In walks a man with a bucket of water and he's in robes.
38:08He walks off the buckets there.
38:11He walks back on.
38:12He leads a goat behind him.
38:13He puts the rope down, he takes a knife, a long knife out of his, out of the sheath.
38:21And in this locked off shot, it's all one take.
38:24He cuts the goat's throat.
38:27The coat, this is for real.
38:29The goat falls onto the tiles and the blood starts to come out.
38:34The guy picks up the bucket of water and throws it on the, on the blood and the blood spreads
38:41across the blue tile.
38:42And I thought, holy cow, like who would make a travel commercial like that?
38:48I need to work for this guy.
38:51And I immediately said, I'm in.
38:54And then him and I started working together and we figured out the whole psychology of
39:00the character and all this stuff that wasn't scripted, which helped, I echo the, the designer
39:05who did all those incredible ad, uh, outfits and, and then the, the, the special effects
39:12makeup people who I think, I believe won an Oscar for it.
39:16And like, it was just an incredible experience, incredible visual experience, very intense.
39:22The playing the part, the actual execution of the part, I was able to dump it off every
39:28day after work.
39:29I didn't, I don't carry characters home with me or anything, but the research that I did,
39:34I sometimes still have nightmares about some of the research that I did on that.
39:38I've, I was exposed to some pretty terrible things and that was an intense job, regardless
39:45of what the movie turned out to be, or whether people like it or not.
39:49It was a really intense, intense job.
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