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So how are you your not having any acting flashbacks
are you?
I would have loved to have done this just because I’m
fascinated with the past the way we were the way people
were even if it was just for little little bit of time.
Or putting on a costume or being an extra.
Just to see the environment as an actor with such
large-scale extras and so forth that had too have been
a trip?
It was you know the chance to.
It’s one thing to do a Movie with a director who is not
obsessed with every little detail because then you’re
like I’d really didn’t feel like I got to know that
period all That well.
But one of the joys of working with ang lee is that
he has a beautiful mind and his kind of obsession with
every little facet of details of the period Really
rubs off on everyone else and you find yourself
learning a lot more about the period venue ever
thought you would bat was something that happened with
me and I found myself really consuming a lot of the
material that he would give me a lot of the DVDs,
he sent me probably 25 or 26 DVDs about Vietnam about the
60s and 70s and Woodstock and so it was a pleasure
being able to be in a period movie with somebody like ang
lee.
Now you’re doing this research and watching these
movies that he wanted to see if you immediately zero in
on one particular performance or character or
somebody that you may be siphoned a little bit off
of?
Well there’s a couple of different influences for me
that were kind of heavy.
One of them was there was a certain type of pensive pain
that Heath Ledger had in broke back Mountain that I
really liked and that was a performance that Ang also
directed so there was some some of that.
Billy is not a gay character but that there was something
about the internal conflict that Heath had in that that
I really enjoyed.
Also there’s a few moments of Christopher Walken in the
deer Hunter where I was like oh that’s a great moment
that maybe Billy could have in a certain way.
Now I understand that you even went to a shooting
range is that necessary to get that deep into a
character?
I mean I think that the power of the guns and how
loud it was his something that you kind of,
especially for someone who is going to have flashbacks,
you can’t.
If the flashback shakes you up and is the sound of the
gun that puts you in that state it’s hard to think
that without actually knowing what it sounds like
to hear a gun go off right next to you it’s a jolting
feeling it’s really kind of alarming so actually having
done that it made that much easier for me in those
scenes to kind of have that snap quick awareness
reaction.
Because before I remember I tried it in rehearsal before
a win shot the gun and I was like agggh,
it wasn’t as real as after I was gone.
You just snap you know what it is you know.
It’s those little subtleties that maybe a lot of the
people in the audience when they watch it if it’s not
there they won’t consciously know that,
but with Ang it’s part of his genius is filling in all
those little question marks to where all were people
watch it it just has this feeling of honesty and
perfection in truth that they don’t exactly know why
it’s like an amalgamation of a lot of really precise
details all working towards the story.
Why is it that I always hear the word obsessed with Ang
Lee?
Why they always those two together?
I mean I say that in the highest complement that I
can possibly give.
There’s nothing more exciting to me than an
artist who’s obsessed with their work.
It just shows a discipline and a passion and a rigor
that is only beneficial in my opinion.
He.
He is, me and Ang had an hour if not more
conversation just about what shoes Billy should wear how
we should dirty the shoes.
That’s just an example of the kind of details that we
talk about we would have hours talking about what
kind of person really was, we would create little
stories are minds about who Billy was and what it
happened to him and why he feels a certain way.
I loved it.
I’m very similar in that I like to obsess about my
character when I work on things,
I feel like a lot of the nuances and details are
there for the taking when you work like that.
99% of the time for me improved performances.
Well really shows on screen, oh thank you,
thanks a lot