michael bay went out of his mind he was like you can't do that you know because i would do all kinds of crazy things i said i said without this toys there's no movie i said there's no michael bay i said you know for pearl harbor i said but this is this is what it's about do the right thing pino get a broom and sweep up front [Music] get a broom sweep out front huh get a broom and sweep out front get a broom and sweep out front i grew up uh in hollis queens which was predominantly a black neighborhood and i moved to kind of a more of a white neighborhood then i got bust out to a all black junior high school later on so a lot of the the film spoke to me and and i remember i liked the script a lot when i met spike he was very quiet and he said you know what part do you like i said i said i think because of the subject matter of it i i'd rather play uh you know the racist part because that's you know i i know where some of those people are coming from you know having grown up in a black community then going to a white community and and kind of feeling some of that prejudice even you know even towards me bob i don't believe this you're running welfare or something every day you give this a pep a dollar what's your pet what is so when you would watch me say these things over and over again sometimes people would think well that's that's who he really is and there was a girl who was on craft services and she uh she used to pass me by with the water and one day i said you may have a glass of water and she turned she told me she said i you know i hate you she said you know i hate you so much is not to be trusted i trust him no no moving on can be trusted the first time you turn your back boom the spear right here man in the back and spike was just very collaborative you know me and richard fighting in wrestling that was something that we we came up with on you know on the day you know uh to have a contradiction your physical contradiction and you're trying to kill your brother i mean saying you know i love you listen to me you know i mean but there was a lot of uh laughter and fun and all kinds of stuff in that until we got to the end of the movie which was not so much fun to do but it was a lot of energy on that set it had a different kind of vitality to it because people hadn't gotten to tell a lot of their stories and we was very exciting to do something that was about something i did think there was something palpable about it that's all i that's all i knew when i saw the first screening i was like holy moly i was and then you know when the film came out there a lot of people thought there was going to be riots in the theater and people you know be violence and uh it was just the opposite none of that ever happened but it kind of cemented my friendship with spike he grew up in italian neighborhood i grew up in a black neighborhood he saw that i would try to create a whole human being who was that way and not just you know a flat cardboard cutout a representation of that the big lebowski [Music] so [Music] you know i had no idea the movie would be as funny as it was and i even didn't even get the movie when i saw it the first time i was like some of it went over my head it was until later on that i realized how it's a religious film it's sort of a existential philosophy concept said that he was inspired in part by they saw even a play yeah what was the story the play was the play was called la puta vida by ronaldo provide and i played a character that was called chino and it was very close you know like a cousin and that's why when i did the movie later on sort of a sequel of the jesus i was really thinking about that particular play so i i loved that character when i did it on stage i liked when i did the sequel and so when it was a little part and i said wow what am i going to do with this and i said well you'll come up with some stuff and we're going to give you some extra time and they did so you know when you you're on for a little short time you have to like really make it count you pull any of your crazy with us you flash a piece out on the lanes i'll take it away from you and stick it up your ass and pull the trigger till it goes click jesus you said it man nobody with the jesus so uh but i didn't realize they would put it together that way when i saw it i was embarrassed the first time i have to say but it's a character that i love yeah i i could just i mean i could have a talk show as to jesus you could have all different people on like tom brady what's happening tom man why'd you retire you know i want to know i want to know what's going on man you know i could have been way better quarterback than you man yeah because i had the finger man [Music] barton thing did you somebody just complained no i didn't i mean i i did call down not to complain exactly really fun fun fun shoot i got to work with so many great actresses john goodman tony chalu michael lerner john polito i spent a lot of time in prep with joel and ethan rehearsing with them reading with them talking about it well i don't mean to get up on my high horse but why shouldn't we look at ourselves up there who cares about the fifth earl of bastrop and lady higginbotham and and who killed nigel grinch gibbons i could feel my butt getting sore already it was challenging and it was a lot of uh fun to you know attempt you know i was writing stuff while they were filming me and because i was watching films about writers and i did never look like they were writing anything and we didn't they didn't know exactly how everything would play too they they i said one day they said oh you're making it much more horribly human than we imagined then i was like well that's kind of my job i is my think this is how i serve the common man this is where i feel [Music] miller's crossing they said they were writing this part for me for a couple years and took them a long time and in the middle they wrote part and think when they had writer's block get to the point huh okay the point is i'm a good guy i've heard up a lot of people today good guy lots of friends that's the way it works maybe if you appreciated me a little more you wouldn't be making waves with leo you know when someone's giving gives you that much then your feeling is well i want to surprise them and do something even more than maybe they imagine and that's how i've always felt working with joel anything and the two of the nicest people the most humane people you know i've ever worked with and so i would what i would do for them i wouldn't necessarily be able to do for other directors [Music] i had a picture of leopold and loeb and i said this is how i want to look i interviewed a lot of people i had them do the lines for me in yiddish and in english so yeah i really put a lot of uh work into it and they gave me plenty of freedom in how i attacked it but because it was so specific the look and everything i i felt very very free scratch huh what bonus what did make tech rugs have that beat to me the kid was dizzy 50 50 on the doll or or maybe i should get a little more since i did the deed i think when you know someone has written something for you or whatever you just feel like wow they believe in me and it's unsaid the things in relationships that are really deep are are not said they're not given words it's like if you really love someone can't keep saying to them hey i love you it's what you do quiz show i was with redford a long time in prep so i had all this footage i met the real her but gained a lot of weight which made me sick later on but i had a wonderful time working with robert redford he was a terrific director and we really got along really well and he's from the theater and we we spoke the same uh language well it's a danish thing would you plateaued plateau what kind of word is that well plateaued plateau plateau uh it's well it's like uh you mean people don't like me anymore i did gain a lot of weight but my teeth were discolored my hair was thinned and someone came on the set one day told redford like wow john looks very different kind of like let himself go a little bit he just loved that you know he thought that was the greatest thing ever and redford really got a kick out of what i was you know doing and the whole crew used to do my warm-up because i used to try to get my voice very high well uh for example he told me how to breathe heavily into the microphone and sigh such as this he told me how to stutter and say in a plane of voice i will take uh nine uh nine points i used to have to go you know my um whole crew used to do this whole thing but i would do the whole mask warm-up to get my voice which is not normally that high you know to uh but uh herb had this particular kind of voice you know you you take what you can from the person then you have to make them your own but herb was so unique and there was so much great stuff to mine you know that's part of the fun of it [Music] oh brother where art though [Music] crazy movie and you know learning to play the mandolin and they told me not going to do the mandolin and this and that and you know i had learned an accent and then i and then i had to get fake teeth and had my head shaved and i got him i had a ball doing it and uh once again the film did pretty well because of the album but people were like obsessed with it you watch it again and again it's such a funny movie i've always wondered what's the devil look like well of course they're all manner of lesser amps and demons pete but the great satan himself is red and scaly with a bifurcated tail he carries a hay for when you work with those guys they know what they're doing they know what they want every little thing counts you know sometimes we wouldn't know what to do in the scene and ethan would tell me to to show my i had all these rotten teeth this you know lower teeth and he would just say show your teeth you know get that kind of teeth like that you know and i walked around all day like i talked about that the entire day i would try it out on people i would talk to people a lot you know and uh they would talk back to me i was thinking all right well they believe it so uh you know you stole from my kin who was fixing to betray us you didn't know that at the time so i borrowed it till i did know that don't make no sense i mean some things are like so cartoony it's different but some things are are larger than life but there are people in life that are larger than life not everyone you know talks like this in a movie and that's one of the things that sometimes gets me because i can't understand what they say you know what i mean a lot of young i can't understand i can't hear them no maybe i'm getting old i'm getting deaf but i'd like to be able to hear what the you're saying but sometimes in a movie like that if you were being very ultra naturalistic it would not register i've also done a lot of theater so it's not a big deal for me to say okay go from here to here but should i go to there you know within it but it depends where the camera is stage you learn how to sustain a whole entire performance and you are the editor because you know when people are falling asleep and you have to shift gears constantly so you're like a more of a maserati you know where you're a piecemeal worker in a film you're doing it you you're you're moment hunting transformers i was offered a lot of big-budget movies a lot of them and i turned them all down i used to do medium small plays sometimes on the advice of my kids too uh i would give them a script they would say it isn't no not good they said don't even read it just do it and so i did big guys big guys with big guns what is sector seven answer me i'm gonna ask questions around here not you young man how did you know about the aliens where did you take my parents i am not at liberty to this disgusting hey i had a lot of fun working with michael bay i think michael's really i think kind of aped his energy you know was it was exhausting because it's not like the most nuanced work it's sort of like a bold action painting or a sketch you know but within that i did enjoy his uh you know his energy and and i liked working with gyre anyway mr nbe1 here aka megatron that's what they call them it's pretty much the harbinger death wants to use the cue to transform human technology to take over the universe i mean i used to laugh because you know there was nothing to look at you know like was a microphone you would go oh my god it's you know you know it's prime it's it's optimus prime my god you know and they would let me improvise all the time and i was like well don't you guys get a lot of money to write these kind of scripts bill big fan great to be here now agent simmons you would have us believe that it is in our best interest to formally take sides in this so-called alien civil war well the other side wanted to spank us for breakfast so i wouldn't exactly call it a toss-up i had all the stunt men get me all the original toys which i knew about you know so i took it out in a shot and i said they said it was a toy you know i said but then i transformed it you know into the truck i said but now we know it's bad you know it's not it's real and michael bay went out of his mind he was like you can't do that you know because i would do all kinds of crazy things i said i said without this toys there's no movie i said there's no michael bay i said you know for pearl harbor i said but this is this is what it's about i think that kind of uh spirit is essential when you do something like that you have to be like a five-year-old in a way when they play you know five-year-olds they're serious night of i mean those are two of the best writers you know richard price and steve zalian and i had a lot of time to prepare i met a lot of lawyers and courts and there's a lawyer kenny montgomery who was very very helpful to me the material was rich and i felt like my connection to riz was very organic your man is here as it were johnny the red buy now and don't lose that key 25 years the berlin wall comes down and this throwback's still going on about communists so i know bill camp you know genie berlin i thought but steve's casting with av kaufman was great it was about something that is a big problem you know i mean rikers island is bigger problem now than it was then and what happens you know to people when they enter that system you know any system you see the pros and cons and the nuances of it and the little deaths that happen within it and so just a great car you know it's a great was a great character too great character i brought you some clothes that you can collect them after did your folks put some money in your account uh no i don't think they knew to well i'll make a deposit for you you need money in here how you doing okay and i wanted to do another even a different case with it but we've never been able to agree not me they have you know on like what that case would be or whatever but i loved working on it i really did it was one of those you know experiences that you just felt like it's all there you know i had enough time to know it backwards and forwards a batman i love you know filmoir and all that stuff but you know those kind of people who last whether they're politicians whether they're businessmen whether they're gangsters who become businessmen you know they're the person who's like lives in the subterranean world you know and they are the person behind the screen who pulls all the strings and also figures out people's vulnerabilities and once they find that vulnerability and once that person needs help they come in as this altruistic person this benefactor and then all of a sudden you're in their debt and they own you and matt wanted it very grounded and everything and uh so that's what i was sort of attempting and you know i've been around enough people growing up my dad was in the building line and i saw some of these people up close and uh you know there was something that was really my father used to say don't look in this one particular person's eyes he said don't look in his eyes if he talks to you just look away because there was something kind of dead and seductive at the same time so i thought you know that could be something you know interesting i mean i'm a batman fan i've been a batman fan since i've been a kid and amadeo my oldest works for dc comics and resident batman expert so matt was just very you know collaborative and i liked working very much with robert and with zoe very much is there a specific kind of logic or philosophy that you have when choosing roles i mean looking for things that you know that you haven't done you know you're looking to not do something that you think you could do
2022-03-14