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Compiled by: Jack Foley
Q. The Coen Brothers certainly know how to pull the vanity
out of you.
A. [laughs] Yes, thanks, yeah.
Q. You seem quite happy to send yourself up in their company?
A. Well they're the kind of guys that you would do anything
for, you know. And, they say well, let's do a whole bit about
your teeth and you go, okay, do it about the teeth.
They really have opened up great places for me to be able to work,
you know. I trust them with everything, so I will do what they
ask. Fall flat on your face, but I'd rather fall flat on my face
with them than, somebody I don't trust.
Q. Well this is very much a farce.
A. Yeah, it's old time, sort of, the kind of films that I
grew up adoring, so, we'll see.
Q. Divorce lawyers rank just beneath personal injury lawyers
in terms of sleaze.
A. Yeah, that's interesting, I know a few of them, pretty
interesting characters, because it's really about staying out
of court and getting people to settle, really interesting. But,
I've had a couple of run ins with them before, interesting guys.
Q. And the concept of gold digging it's not a new one?
A. No.
Q. But it seems to have become a bona-fide profession these
days.
A. With some people I think that it has. You know that part
of the story seems more fanciful to me because I don't think,
it's really that obvious. I've seen some divorce lawyers who are
just about as out there as I was and I didn't see so many gold
diggers that are quite….I think we hyped that one up a little
bit just for the fun of it.
Q. That speech your character makes in front of…
A. …My Jerry McGuire speech?
Q. No man, the divorce attorney is a convention, it was quite
moving, I almost bought it myself.
A. Yeah, well you know the funniest thing with that one is
we start doing it and we're laughing hysterically because it's
a long speech, and we all know that the only way you can do it
is to play it straight and know that everyone's going to start
going, oh no, oh no, here he goes. I know that it pays off at
the end but that was such a fun shoot. All these extras were out
there and all we did was laugh all day.
Q. Clearly you're still one of the more eligible bachelors.
A. I got married this morning.
Q. Did you?
A. Yeah, some girl came up with a veil and threw rice and
she had a priest or something with a video camera and she married
me.
Q. So, it's official now.
A. It's over, I've got a honeymoon to get to.
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Q. How have you been able to resist becoming cynical about
love?
A. I'm not cynical about love, I'm actually not cynical about
it. You know, I don't know, I'm certainly not the person to give
advice on any of those things but I'm not cynical about it.
Q. Is it painful or disappointing for you to have to weigh
up people's motives when you meet them?
A. No, you know, look, I've met, knew and spent time with
a lot of people before I was well-known, or had some cash in the
bank and I had a fairly good eye, and was a pretty good judge
of people at that point. So, I think I still have fairly good
judge of character, and I think you can tell when people are…
when they have ulterior motives usually.
Q. You've been written some fantastically witty dialogue with
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julia Roberts, and Jennifer Lopez. Do you
feel woefully inadequate when you're left to your own devices?
A. Yeah, exactly. I think you're pretty, I really like your
hair, no, I usually just steal lines from the movies. It works
until the film comes out and then you get slapped.
Q. You could re-enact whole scenes?
A. Exactly!
Q. I imagine that kind of dialogue enhances the chemistry
with someone like Catherine Zeta-Jones, who's particularly lethal
in this film.
A. Oh, she's so great, she's so much fun, too, she's a funny
girl, she gets it, she really celebrates life. She and Michael
came to the house in Italy for a few days and I'm just taken with
the way they live their lives, they just love it, they're having
the time of their lives right now, it's really fun.
Q. You've experienced most of the trappings of success, have
you gone through your mid-life crisis yet, or is that still coming?
A. No, I'm waiting, I'm rolling into that right now. I've
got, there's the tattoo and I've still got to get a piercing of
some sort and then, I don't know, some 18-year-old and then I'm
on to maturity, right there, then I'm ready.
Q. You've always been avoiding growing up, haven't you?
A. What's the point, no fun.
Q. Exactly, let someone else do that.
A. I'll be the oldest one at the bar unfortunately.
Q. Oh Brother Where Art Thou was the Coen Brothers most successful
film and the odds are pretty good for this one as well. Do you
think your collaboration with them has allowed them to become
less of a specialised film-making duo?
A. I don't know, the other films that they've done since,
they haven't really… Oh Brother still didn't make a lot of
money.
They haven't made a film that was a hit really, I just love the
films they make, I just don't think they make a bad film.
And if one of these eventually ends up making some money that
would always be nice for them but we didn't do it to try and…
the big knock was, well now they've gone mainstream. They just
made a romantic comedy the way they would make a romantic comedy
if that's mainstream, you know, then we'll keep making mainstream
films.
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