Compiled by: Jack Foley
Q: John told us that you give out a feeling of wanting
to hug you instantly. Is that how people usually approach you?
A: Ah, it's such a nice thing. I wish, but no.
Q: You have a considerable fan base of teenage girls.
Does that affect your personal as well as professional life?
A: Your personal life gets affected, but I love my job
and I love telling stories and I want people to hear these stories.
If it’s not to see my work, the film will be gone in two
or three weekends, you know? Before Y
Tu Mama Tambien, I shot like 15 movies that no one got to
see. So this is a new feeling and a really nice feeling.
Q: Have you seen the original film Nine Queens, on which
Criminal is based, and what do you think about it?
A: I watched the movie a week before we wrapped this
one. Five days before we started shooting, I bought the DVD and
when I met Steven Soderbergh and Greg Jacobs, they told me not
to watch it because I would be thinking about the choices that
were made in that movie.
I can say the approach I had to this movie is what felt right
to me. The only story I knew was Criminal. Then I watched Nine
Queens when we wrapped and it's a fantastic movie.
Q: Do you think it’s a carbon copy or that it's
something different?
A: I think it's different. I think LA becomes a character
in this movie. I think it's a movie about how many different people
live in the same city, how many little frontiers LA has because
they live in the same city, all these different cultures and accents
and languages, but they don't really share it. I don't know, it's
a weird thing.
LA’s a very important character for the movie and in the
other movie, Argentina is very important. And that makes a big
difference.
Q: In the movie, there's a line where John C. Reilly’s
character says that there’s an advantage to you being nice-looking…
has that been an advantage or an obstacle for you in your life?
A: Well, he doesn't say nice looking. He says that my
character looks like a nice guy, which doesn't mean you're nice
looking. But no, it's never an obstacle. I mean, if you look like
a nice guy, people are going to trust you. And if that’s
everything you are, you should use it as an advantage. If not,
life would become painful.
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Q: Maggie said that she doesn't
like people who lie and she doesn't like telling lies, is that
the same for you?
A: No, I have to say that, when I was a kid, I enjoyed
lying a lot. Then I found out there was a profession that got
paid for that and that's what I do. Basically, I tell stories
that are not totally true. And I pretend to be a guy that I'm
not, I pretend to be somebody else. When you're doing a movie,
you're somebody else and you try to get people to believe that.
But now, I don't lie in my real life because I do it in my job.
Q: What about when you were a kid, what did you lie about?
A: Oh, everything. I used to say that half of my family
lives in England. I always told stories about my family that were
not true.
One day it was Scotland, the other day it was Ireland, the next
day it was London. My grandfather was an admiral for the navy
and I always used to tell stories about him that he never told,
like about a submarine that he had and how he got hit by a huge
ship, whatever. I loved to tell stories. But now, I do it for
my job.
Q: What impact has Hollywood made in your career now that
you're getting more and more Hollywood films?
A: There's a lot of directors and actors I would like
to work with here, like the Coen brothers or Paul Thomas Anderson,
but basically, Hollywood is not the goal, you know? I just want
to do good movies, tell good stories, and work with people that
I can learn from and that I admire.
Q: You have worked with big Hollywood directors like
Steven Spielberg and you have worked with tiny productions in
Mexico, can you tell us about the difference working on both types
of films?
A: Well, it's just the amount of money that is around.
At the end, to do a good film, you need a good story, a good guy
to tell it and enough days to shoot it. We shot for 28 days in
this movie and it felt right. We used every second we had and
we have a good movie. If the story matters to you, it's gonna
matter to other people, so...
Q: Do being on big sets intimidate you in any way?
A: No. It’s definitely amazing to be on a set where
everything is real. It makes your job easier instead of more intimidating.
Like on the airport set of Terminal,
I really felt like I was at an airport. And in Open
Range, you see 200 horses running and in a Mexican movie you
would have to imagine the 200 horses running.
Q: How was it working with Maggie Gyllenhaal?
A: It was amazing. With Maggie, the greatest thing is
that there's always a lot happening in her eyes. You can see what
she's feeling because she has very expressive eyes. It's really
nice to be working with someone like that because it makes your
job easier. She's a great actress and again, she has a very intense
look, so it's really nice to look at those eyes when you're acting.
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