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Compiled by: Jack Foley
Q. What do you make of Kiss Kiss, Bang, Bang yourself?
A. I love this movie, it's such fun. I like that people
are seeing it and then talking about it. It’s like when
my kid and me and his friends all saw Napoleon
Dynamite last year, and talked about it for the next six weeks.
Q. Is the final result much different than the first
script you read?
A. Yeah, it’s like a good script come to life,
which I think is really rare. The onus is mostly on the director,
and the people developing it and the producers and then the cast
and crew and everyone else. When you have a good script you’re
almost in more trouble than when you have a terrible script. With
a terrible script you hustle and try to make it better. But with
a good script it can be trouble because you rest on your laurels,
so to speak, you think it’s going to translate easily.
Q. Do you think that, for all you have experienced in
the last few years, you are better equipped to play a character
like Harry now than ever before?
A. I think it’s a great part. But I will agree
that I think that things happen with people in relationships,
that you might have been able to enjoy Morocco, say, if you weren’t
getting out of a bad marriage. You know what I mean? I think you
wind up doing the stuff you were supposed to do largely at the
time you were supposed to do it.
Q. What do you like about Harry?
A. He’s just the Energizer Bunny, and roughly about
as intellectually equipped! I get that, it’s not a Hollywood
story, or a typically American story to me. It’s a story
about guys, men and women and our perceptions of each other and
how hilarious it is. It’s about these roles that we think
we’re supposed to play.
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Q. How was it working with
Val Kilmer?
A. We came into this film from different angles, but
with the same amount to win or lose. Val hadn’t done a comedy
in a while, and I’ve been living a comedy in my private
life for some time. It just seemed like we both wanted to score
with this.
But Val is one of those guys you do the scene with and afterwards
you say ‘okay, that worked’, and he’d be away
already, eating a sandwich or talking on his cell phone. Then
you’d watch the dailies later and see a totally realistic
performance by a fantastic actor. You ask yourself ‘how
does he do that?’. My RPMs are like at 6800 just to look
like I’m not a mess, but it was completely effortless for
him.
Q. Were you ever concerned that the script might be too
clever, too self referential?
A. Sure. I read the script for Wonder Boys, and I said
that was almost perfect, it was so classy, cool and funny. It’s
a really specific thing. We stuck to it, it turned out good and
a lot of people liked it.
But I think Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang really got that thing where,
if a movie reads really funny and then has some dramatic or violent
or sinister stuff in it, you can’t forget that primarily
it has to be even funnier than you read it or that other stuff
doesn’t work. If you’re doing a drama that has some
comedic elements you can’t forget that it’s primarily
a very serious film that has some light relief. Tone is tough,
and my hat goes off to any writer who achieves it so that it doesn’t
get messed up when you put it in the hands of a bunch of neurotic
Hollywood types.
Q. With this film, your recent marriage to producer Susan
Levin and a well received CD release this has surely been the
year of your life, hasn’t it?
A. Look, even bad years are pretty good years I think.
Everything is kind of okay if you think about it. It was just
a really busy year. I’m like Harry in that I came to LA
and was a little naïve, and was immediately disillusioned.
I was kind of like chasing my tail and trying to do the right
thing, and was a little bit stupid. Or irresponsible, which is
the same thing I guess. It’s just been really busy and I
had a lot of great opportunities.
Q. But it’s fair to say that your life has changed
significantly now, isn’t it?
A. I think life changes every year. This is just a little
more comfortable.
Related stories: Read
our review
Val Kilmer interview
Shane Black interview
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