Charlize Theron Defends The Street Protests of The Battle In Seattle

Feature Interview by Brad Balfour

Fashion Week-styled frivolities be damned. Glamorous and sexy though Charlize Theron may be, there's a funky lefty boho lurking inside this near-six foot tall, South African-born former model. So while some might assume love drove her to take a relatively small supporting role in longtime companion Stuart Townsend's directorial debut, "Battle In Seattle," her passionate promotion of the film belies her politics as well as her emotional ties.

A pastiche of true stories, amalgamated characters, and classic agit-prop, "Battle In Seattle" details the experience of several activists thrown together to mount massive protests against the World Trade Organization's 1999 Ministerial Conference held in Seattle, WA. After the mayor and Washington's governor had enthusiastically fought for conference to be there, they were blindsided by the intensity of the reaction and protests. During those five days, demonstrators peacefully protested in Seattle's streets to stop the WTO talks but as it escalated into clashes with police, a State of Emergency was established that pitted protesters against the Seattle Police and National Guard.

Within this framework, actor/director Townsend takes an in-depth look at characters on both sides of battlelines but his position—and that of Theron's—is clearly aligned with the anti-globalist activists, those who believe that unfettered capitalism is out of control.

Having already established herself as someone inclined to go against type—she started out playing the innocent wife and high class girlfriend—the 30-something Theron won an Oscar depicting a wretched looking serial killer in "Monster" and was nominated for another when she portrayed a sexually harassed mine worker in "North County." She played an unglamorous young cop in "In The Valley of Ellah" as well.

As intense as these roles have been, Theron can seem both surprising innocent yet fervently committed, if only because she doesn't to succumb to gossip-mag expectations. Since she refuses to be pigeon-holed, Theron has made a case for this film and the ideals it supports.

Q: Unlike a lot of films, where something is expressed in general terms like, "War is bad"—which everybody agrees with—this one specifies its targets, like the World Trade Organization conference that was held in Seattle.

CT: I’m so glad you think that. Thank you. Yeah!

Q: So do you see this as a political movie or a character-driven one?

CT: Have you seen the film? I’m always fascinated when people ask questions like that because I think that pretty much every movie I’ve ever done is a political film because I think the social condition is somehow going to intervene with what we live in, and what we live in is a state of politics with emotional highs and lows—so it’s both. You can’t have one without the other. Even great character pieces have a foundation of an economic structure or a social relevance.

Q: How involved or knowledgeable are you about the crisis with the world as a whole?

CT: I hope every single person who lives on this earth tries to be involved in that. It’s up to us to get the information, and I think it’s clear in this day and age, that what we get may not necessarily be the ultimate truth—well, it’s been proven historically to have been going on for eons—but it’s up to us to go and educate ourselves. We have to stop sitting back and bitching about "the media;" we have to take control and have to be responsible for getting the information that we need.

Q: Have you ever been involved in a picket or protest before?

CT: I haven’t, but I only recently became an American citizen, and we all know what happens to people who... I realize how tricky it was because right before I became an American citizen, I had produced and financed a documentary on Cuba ["East of Havana"], and when we started doing press on it, I realized that it was hard to just state an opinion without having any kind of aggression or negativity; to just state a fact, without people going, "you’re very unpatriotic and you should leave this country." I [figured] that I probably should get my American citizenship before I [say any more]...which is an unfortunate thing to say, but it’s the truth.

Q: Do you find American politics more fascinating, than say South African politics? You are international personality, but you seem to find American politics to be most fascinating.

CT: No. Politics, especially the things this movie deals with, know no border. This is trade, this is the world. What we do over here in our decision-making process, is going to affect everybody in the world, so I think about it in those terms, not as a politician, but just as a human being.

People were fascinated that [New Zealander] Niki Caro could direct "North Country," which is like a quintessential American story. Stuart Townsend is Irish, and this is a quintessential American story. The fact that they’re both international, they’re not American, makes you understand that we have to be interested in world politics and stop looking at just what’s good for America and what’s good for the country that we live in. We have to start thinking about the world.

Q: Is it a struggle for actors to speak out politically?

CT: It’s wrong to believe that because you’re an actor there’s no way you could have a valid opinion. I think that’s unfair, that somehow when you’re an actor and you live in Hollywood you don’t understand real life, which is really interesting to me, because most actors, where they come from, it’s probably the most real-life stories you could hear, and it’s very much the American dream, which is, to rise above it, and reach for the stars.

I think actors speak out because you can’t help but look at your fortunate life and realize that, maybe out of your fortune, there’s a place for you to voice an opinion and care, because, you know, we’re not all born this way.

Q: Coming from South Africa, do you think street protests are effective?

CT: It’s amazing. When we say the government works for us, we forget that, and then you watch over a million people protest this war in Iraq, and [it's amazing] that those governments don’t go, "Wait a minute, we work for these people," and that was worldwide.

It was something magical to watch, and in many ways, it was to me, Chicago or Seattle, battle to battle, there is something about it that you can’t ignore when you see these images of people standing together [against this war in Iraq].

Whether you like it or not a lot of what happened in Seattle—the success of Seattle—was those tactics being used today that make the [protestors] effective. Protesting is not what people like to consider it; [they think of] this sort of hippie movement, peace, love, and let’s get high and walk through the streets naked.

It’s not like that anymore. It’s people who understand their rights, understand government, and they understand what their effect can be on government, so I’m always impressed when I see that, no matter what country it is.

And, just so you know, I wasn’t trying to deny that this is a political film. I think that life is politics, and we forget that, and a lot of times, when we do movies that are considered political, people run away so fast, but what they don’t realize is that is life, that’s real, and that’s what people need to start...

The brain needs to get re-wired so we can’t stop making these movies because people don’t want to go see them; we have to just start marketing them differently and talk about them differently, so that people understand, you’re not going to go and get preached at. You’re going to have an amazing ride, you’re going to watch amazing characters, and you’re going to maybe learn something about the world you live in, without being hit over the head with a hammer.

Q: Was your character entirely fictional, or was there some basis in reality?

CT: Stuart read so many different books, and looked at internet sites on the event, that you sort of double up on things. There was one story that didn’t double up so much in a lot of the coverage he did, about a woman who had a miscarriage from tear gas, and he remembered reading that, and thought, "This woman wasn’t a protester, and she had a miscarriage from the tear gas..." He thought that was so heartbreaking, and I think that’s where Ella [Theron's character] comes from.

Q: At the beginning, your character wasn’t thinking at all about the WTO, and then became a victim caught in the crossfire. She obviously goes through personal trauma... Did you think about what she was thinking about that?

CT: What I loved about her, was that she was the outsider, she was the audience. She was anybody. If you said, WTO, they might not know what that is. I like that she was that character that just lived in Seattle, didn’t feel one way or the other, and just went about her life, innocently, shopping at a store, not knowing that these little clothes came from little kids’ sweatshops. I think that, not in a judgmental way, is how a lot of us live, we just live, we don’t think, and I think we’re now at a time when we have to stop and have to start asking, "What does it mean when I buy this thing, and where does this come from, and what does it mean if I keep drinking bottled water? Where is this plastic going to go?" Yeah... [gestures towards the bottled water on table].

I love how she wasn’t there by choice, she got caught in it, and I think then, has to take a step back and realize, maybe she has to ask a few more questions. To me, she was the heart [of the film], and people were like, "You could have probably had any part, he is your boyfriend," and I was like, "That was the part I fought for..."

Q: Did you find that working with Stuart, the fact that he’s an actor, he had a kind of knowledge helped him get nuanced performances out of you and the rest of the cast (Woody Harrelson, Michelle Rodriguez, Martin Henderson, Ray Liotta, etc.)?

CT: I always feel that no matter what I say, people think I’m biased because I sleep with him. So it’s very hard because you know, not just working with him, but I had to read the script. I was the first person who got to read the script, and unfortunately, I’m not the kind of person who can just bullshit their way towards something, and I knew that our relationship is very honest, and anything that we do, whether it’s just a movie, there’s always a truth in our opinions towards each other, and I value that so much.

So in reading the script, that was the scariest moment for me. I’ve worked with so many first-time directors... and I love the idea of not knowing. I love the idea of not having anything to look at and go, “This is what it’s going to be.”

I loved the idea of asking, "What will it be?" I found him incredibly effortless. I mean, the guy put five years of his life into this, and by the time that he got to Vancouver and was ready to shoot... Mind you, five days before production was supposed to start, they were going to pull the plug on him because he didn’t have a cast. Yet he was so prepared, so unbelievably prepared [that it worked].

I mean, we would go on vacation to Fiji and be like, “Romance!” and he’d have a pile of [things to look at], and I’d be like, “Oh my God, this is so not sexy!” But that passion paid off for him as a first-time director. He saw this story visually, so that for me as an actor, working with him was great, because he created a set that was effortless.

There was nothing forced, there was nothing pushed. It was quiet, just great. He loved it. I’ve never seen him so happy, which hurt my feelings [laughs].

Q: When two actors get together, they say it’s no good because one of them is always waiting to answer the phone but your relationship obviously works so well. How do you explain it?

CT: We have different phones, so we don’t have to answer for both phones to ring [laughs].

It’s about the person you’re with. It doesn’t matter what you do. I don’t believe that an artist can’t go out with a banker. It’s about the personal connection, and when you’re with somebody good who is looking out for your best interest and loves you in every possible way, then how can there be a jealousy?

My God, nothing makes me happier in my day to know that he got a good review, or that this movie is getting some really great buzz, or that this is his first film, or that he wrote a script. Those things actually turn me on [laughs].

Q: You are traveling with Stuart to promote this film...

CT: We have traveled nonstop to conventions and tons of film festivals. This has been a six-month effort... Another interesting thing about him... Stuart and Redwood Palms [are distributing the film]. This was a decision that Stuart made, which I thought was incredibly brave for a first-time director, talking about independent filmmaking, because so many people look at this, talking about the business of these films, and they don’t want to touch these films.

So Stuart decided, after he got an offer from ThinkFilms to buy and distribute this film, to basically self-distribute this film though Redwood Palms. Stuart has been working on an amazing grassroots [level]—which is the only way to do it when you only have a dollar fifty.

And the amazing thing is, everywhere we’ve gone, the audience has had this overwhelming emotional reaction, and you know that these people are going to leave that theater and spread the word. It’s the best marketing you can hope for.

Q: And you’re a part of it.

CT: Me and my lover [laughs].

Q: Are you encouraged by the great success of these movies [targeting] women—"Sex and The City" and "Mamma Mia?"

CT: I’m very happy when girls can go and sell movie tickets, always very happy.

Q: You were involved in one of the better Iraq War-based movies, yet like other films based on the war, "In the Valley of Ellah" was “ice” at the box office. Does is worry you about the fate of this film; some say it's a hard sell. Is this a passion project for you?

CT: It’s a badass movie. When I read [the screenplay], I didn’t think, “Independent,” or "What’s the message?" I didn’t think, "Political." I just thought this was a badass movie. I read it and thought, "Jerry Bruckheimer could make this film. This could be a giant blockbuster, and just because we had to do it on, like, a dollar fifty, and none of us got paid, and because it’s in that [indie] category, as we like to label things... But it’s not that kind of film. It’s a badass movie.

OSCAR WATCH: Documentarian Alex Gibney Rides The "Taxi to The Dark Side"

Feature Interview By Brad Balfour

Having previously made "The Trials of Henry Kissinger" and "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," documentary director Alex Gibney has become an expert on people with power corrupted by power and abusing their power.

But few films resonate like “Taxi to the Dark Side”—a prize-winner at last spring's Tribeca Film Festival—a further exploration of the abuse of power. Certainly it has inspired enough reaction that it has garnered an Oscar nom for Best Feature Doc. But this isn't Gibney's first stab at the Golden Statue; a couple of years ago, he was nominated for his Enron feature as well. Through his own company Jigsaw, Gibney has produced several other award-winning productions, including Martin Scorsese’s Emmy and Grammy-award winning multi-part TV series “The Blues." And Gibney's upcoming release "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," features Johnny Depp, another Oscar nominee this year (for Best Actor in "Sweeney Todd").

"Taxi's" kick-off point—the story of late Afghani taxi driver Dilawar (who was arrested for driving around some Taliban members, and then tortured to death) and of the guards who beat him—sets in motion a contorted ride that leads through Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, the White House and Congress. Ultimately, we see who was responsible for a run-amuck policy that sanctions the torturing of prisoners in the War on Terror. Along the way, American ideals and virtues get dumped alongside the road.

Q: In “Taxi to the Dark Side,” the prisoners that are interrogated, including Dilawar—the Afghan cab driver who was beaten to death while in custody in Bagram prison—were generally innocent of any crimes.

AG: That becomes the big problem. When you have a system where there are coercive interrogation techniques, it's most effective at getting false confessions. Some people think it's a joke. But I went for my vacation over New Year's to Bangkok and Cambodia. In Phnom Penh, I went to the Khmer Rouge Genocide Museum.

As I was passing through the museum, it struck me that after I'd seen all the faces of the people who had been ruthlessly interrogated and confessed to horrible crimes before they were murdered, I noticed that there in the corner was a waterboard. Waterboarding was the key method used by the Khmer Rouge to obtain false confessions. Everybody is guilty when a waterboard is employed.

A lot of people who have been picked up in the War on Terror are innocent. I'll tell you what I find astounding. If you do a deep history of some of these interrogation techniques—temperature extremes, sensory deprivation, forced standing, sleep deprivation—you'll learn that some of the techniques were used by the Chinese against our soldiers in the Korean War to achieve some kind of brainwashing, so our soldiers would suddenly say, "I believe in the rectitude of the Communist cause."

So it was those techniques that made their way into the CIA's KUBARK Interrogation Manual and the SERE schools—the Survival-Evasion-Resistance-Escape schools where we teach our soldiers to resist horrible people when they get captured overseas. But all those techniques we use were designed not to get good intelligence, but to get people to falsely confess for propaganda purposes.

Q: How did you feel sitting there and interviewing the guards who had killed Dilawar?

AG: Initially I had trepidation, because I was kind of angry. I'd read Tim Golden in the New York Times, and one of the things about the Dilawar case that made me want to do the movie was that it was a five-day interrogation— although after day three the interrogators were pretty much convinced that he was innocent. But they tortured him for another two days until he died.

So I looked at these guy and thought, "What kind of people are you?" But after spending a good bit of time with them and being somewhat nervous myself about talking to them, I found myself having tremendous sympathy for them in a way that I didn’t initially suspect. So much so that in one of the cuts of the film, we went almost too far in portraying them sympathetically. So we put back some detail of the cruel things that they did, so that it was clear that I wasn't saying they were victims, too.

Q: Do you believe that if you put any bunch of soldiers to guard prisoners-—and give them no instructions—they will act exactly as these guards did? Does this administration believe this?

AG: I'm not sure what the higher-ups' intention was, but we know they exerted tremendous pressure on the guards even while removing restrictions. That should have told them something. I think they knew to some extent what they were going to get from these men. Philip Zimbardo did the Stanford prison experiment, and the volunteers who became guards did act rudely and the volunteers who were prisoners became very defensive. But I think people have the will to resist that stuff.

Q: But these were untrained guys.

AG: Totally untrained kids, who were put into a situation and told that the gloves were off and they could do what they needed to do to get results. They don't speak the language, they don't have any cultural training, they don't have any understanding about the difference between a Pashto and Farsi speaker. And they're told to produce and are criticized if they seem too lenient.

Q: Did any of the soldiers you spoke to explain what they were fighting for in Iraq—or Afghanistan, for that matter?

AG: Many were gung-ho after 9/11 and wanted to kick some ass. Today a lot of them are deeply-scarred people because they were asked to do things they don't feel so good about. I talked to people who were disillusioned. I'm sure there are some who aren't, but most I talked to were. Almost all of them felt let down by the civilian administration. There were a lot of Marines and other soldiers who felt they always were being misdirected by the civilian administration.

Q: What was the challenge in bringing together the many elements of your film?

AG: It was a real challenge. It was very hard. After making "Enron," I thought, "Not again!" I didn't know I'd come across another story that is so complex and intricate that it's going to give me nightmares every night trying to find a structure. To some extent, that was one of the reasons I chose the Dilawar story. I chose that story for a number of reasons, but one of them was that I could follow the ripples of his murder out of Bagram, as his interrogators move on to Abu Ghraib and the passengers in his cab are sent to Guantanamo.

The way they were sent to Guantanamo is the perfect example for how many people were sent there, we've now learned. They weren't the worst of the worst. They were people sent there for bounty or, in the case of Dilawar's passengers, to cover up the fact that we murdered an innocent man. We sent them over and people are supposed to think they were all part of a cabal. These peanut farmers spent 18 months in Guantanamo.

As we were weaving this structure and trying to keep the Dilawar story going, there were key aspects of the larger issues that had to be reckoned with, like the whole "ticking time bomb" scenario and the differences between Torture Lite and the brutal torture that was inflicted on Dilawar. Even liberal-minded people I know get seduced by that ticking-time-bomb scenario in a way that I find appalling. All of these issues come up in the movie, so it took a long, long time to get the structure right.

Finally, on a dramatic level, we didn't really get it right until the end. We'd somehow done an update on the guards' stories far too early in the film, and when viewers saw that they felt they were done with the movie. So we took their stories and put them close to the end, to just before Bush effectively pardons himself. That seemed to be kind of a resolution, where we could tie up all the threads and the emotional Dilawar story, where we return to his family, comes full circle. It was very hard to get that narrative right, but I think we got it.

From the beginning I wanted to tell the Dilawar story and the story of the guards. My editor, Sloane Klevin, and I had some conflict on this. Early on, I went to Guantanamo. That was an interesting trip. We filmed it in a different way than most crews who have been allowed to film down there. I took it to be a dog and pony show so that's how we filmed it. That was a lot of colorful and lively footage. Meanwhile we had the testimony of only one or two of the Bagram guards. So our tension early on was about whether we'd keep the structure.

There was a huge Guantanamo section that we later broke up into two Guantamo sections, and made that work with the Dilawar narrative. One decision proved valuable. The film was mostly shot by two people: Greg Andracke and Maryse Alberti, who also shot "Enron." We tried to figure out a visual scheme for this film, knowing that we'd shoot hither and yon and she wouldn't always be there.

I made the decision that all the Bagram people would be shot in the same way. So we painted a backdrop that I carried with me everywhere, whether it was to Birmingham, England, Columbus, Ohio, Washington, D.C. And every time we filmed someone who had been to Bagram we filmed him against that background and lit him in the same way. It gets complicated knowing who all the people are, but if you see them in front of that background, you know instantly they were in that prison. Also it was a visual scheme that kind of represented the prison and gave it a visual coherence and structure that helps the film's narrative.

Q: You're a film noir fan, so did you borrow from that for those darkly lit prison scenes?

AG: Well, yeah, there's the light and dark, good and evil, but I didn't want to overplay it. There's something about it being a dark prison and being lit straight down the middle that I thought was effective.

Q: Once you had the footage, how long did the editing take?

AG: The fact is, the shooting and editing happened simultaneously. We didn't go out and collect and say, we had enough now. There was some sense of urgency with the story because it seemed so timely. Nevertheless, the investors and my father, who died while I was making the film, kept saying "hurry up."

As we were going, we were finding new material and getting new and interesting people to come forward to talk. Then that footage would have to be integrated into the narrative. It was the same thing that happened with "Enron." The woman who was very close to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling didn't agree to be interviewed until very late, and we had to completely change the structure to accommodate her. It always happens. In this film, the trip to Afghanistan didn't happen till very late, partially for safety reasons.

The first time we were set to go, my cameraman chickened out because there were riots in Kabal and people were being killed. Some of the photos of Bagram, which had never been seen publicly by anyone, came in very late in the game. That suddenly gave us a visual representation of Bagram, which was so important. I can't tell you where I got them, but we kept following different people and asking, and finally somebody came forward and said, "Here they are."

We knew something was there because some of those photographs had surfaced. But we hadn't gotten the autopsy photos of Dilawar or photos of the isolation cells or holding pens, the so-called air-locks. Getting them was big. And from the same source, we got the videotape of the JAG officer confirming that these things were de facto policies.

Q: When did you know the film was done?

AG: Oh, I don't know. What do they say, "Films don't get finished, they get abandoned." We were racing to finish it to get it released and it was too long, too long, always too long. I think once we moved the soldiers to the end, we thought that it felt right. We did some final trimming and we were done.

Q: Your father's experiences as a Naval interrogator during WWII influenced you to make this movie.

AG: That was big. He was the person who really pushed me to do it. There were other people who came forward and said, "Look, we're angry about the subject. If we raise the money, will you do it?" I was thinking about it and it was a tough call. But I was talking to him and he was very upset about the issue of the harsh torture being used in the war on terrorism and really encouraged me to make the movie. It had been a very formative experience for him.

Back then, his eyesight was too bad, so he couldn't go into the Marines. He was sent to the Navy's language school and learned Japanese, and then he was sent out to the Pacific theater to interrogate Japanese prisoners, first at Pearl Harbor and then in Okinawa. So he was interrogating them much like the people at Abu Ghraib, right in the heat of one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Looking back, it never occurred to him to even think about using some of the techniques that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were all blithely thinking about using this time.

There already had been reports of Japanese atrocities toward American and British prisoners, but he felt that as an American he represented a higher ideal. I'm not suggesting that being an interrogator is all about being nice. But once you take them out of the war-time paradigm, the prisoners are gone, so now instead of the interrogator and prisoner relating to each other as enemies they can relate to each other as human beings.

Out of that human relationship comes a certain trust, and then the disclosure of information. Most skilled interrogators like my father and Jack Cloonan, the former FBI agent in the movie, feel they get that even when dealing with tough, ruthless prisoners. He was really pissed off when he discovered some of this stuff happening today. So the film became very important to me.

Q: How much of the movie did your father see before he died?

AG: I don't think he saw any cuts of the film. He only heard me talk to him about how the movie was going.

Q: Why did you decide to put the footage of him expressing his opinion on the use of torture today in the final credits rather than in the film itself?

AG: It was a decision made when the structure was already in place. Even so, I was a bit nervous about using the footage. I loved it, but I didn't want anybody to feel I was forcing this footage of someone who had recently died into the film. I said I couldn't be objective about it, so I had my colleagues in the editing room look at it and tell me if it made sense and worked. If I'd do it over again, perhaps I'd have structured it differently, but at that time it seemed right to give him the last word in the dedication, where he appears and actually speaks.

Q: You did a good job as narrator. Was there any trepidation about doing it?

AG: I couldn't afford anybody else. I only did it because my dad is in the film. At that point it became personal, so I thought it would be okay. It just made sense. I wrote the narration slightly differently as a result. My narration is pretty objective, but when I changed it for my voice it allowed me to be a little bit angled. There was a certain amount of nervousness, not only on my part but also on the part of my editor. But she was happy enough with it.

Q: Is there anything you regretted leaving out of the film?

AG: I wish I'd put more of the SERE school in, but at some point the film become unwieldy and I had to trim it. At one point the film had a certain amount of black humor in it. We learned that a hunger-strike at Guantanamo was being broken through the use of these mysterious restraint chairs that immobilized prisoners so they could force-feed them. We learned that these chairs had been discovered by an enterprising person at Guantanamo who found a website called restraintchair.com, and there was a sheriff in Denison, Iowa, who was manufacturing them, to momentarily restrain people on crack until they could be calmed down.

So I went out to visit this sheriff and his lovely wife, Pam, who was dressed in a way that was color-coordinated with the chair and she sat in it and they demonstrated the chair. It was in the film, but parts had to be cut for the better good of the whole. Losing the SERE school was harder, because that's where the administration is getting some of its harsh interrogation techniques. They were taking techniques used for defense by trainees and turning them into offense.

Q: Were there people you tried to interview but couldn't?

AG: John McCain was one. I tried very hard. I wrote him several times. To some extent, when you're dealing with the political establishment, being an independent documentarian is not very advantageous. If you're from CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, or Fox, they'll give you the interview, no problem. But if you're an independent, that's trouble. So for whatever reason, McCain ran away from us. I hope some day he'll see the film.

Q: The most frightening images in the film are of Congress giving Bush standing ovations when he says he'll treat prisoners harshly—would you agree?

AG: I agree with you. It happens twice, and I think those are two most frightening images in the movie and I put them in for that purpose. Because both times, both sides of the aisle rise as one. The second time, when Bush says that one by one by one terrorists will learn the meaning of American justice, you even see John Kerry applauding a little. Congress utterly abdicated its responsibility. If you go back to Cheney's minority report on Iran-Contra, he says he always believed strongly in executive power. He made no secret about it. We have all the power, therefore we now have the opportunity to exert our values on the world.

Q: What do you think about our new attorney general, Michael MuKasey, and his new independent investigation about the destruction of CIA video tapes that recorded the torture of prisoners.

AG: I don't know what to think. He could have appointed a special prosecutor, but he didn't do it. So it's too early to tell. The jury is really out on MuKasey. Speaking about Congress, I’m so disappointed in two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Charlie Schumer, for just rolling over and allowing for his confirmation. When a guy won't say that waterboarding is illegal, it's shocking.

Q: What do you think will happen in the future in regard to America and the use of torture in the war on terror?

AG: My view is that we can't go forward unless we reckon with the past. In other words, we need to hold some people to account or we can't really go forward and hold our heads high. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, John Yoo, David Addington, and others. I'm not saying they're guilty, but let's have a prosecutor look at it and decide. In some shape and store, we have to roll back some of the crazy laws we have enacted, but we need to deal with the past before moving on.

That's the one thing that scares me a little about Barack Obama. While I really applaud his ideas on inclusion and that he's willing to be critical but at the same time unify everybody, you also don't want to sweep crimes under the rug—because they have a peculiar way of coming back to haunt you.

Q: You said that you don't say they're guilty, but doesn't your film say they are?

AG: I mean guilty in a legal sense [but], I'm not a judge and jury. I can try them in the court of public opinion, and as far as I'm concerned they're guilty.

Q: Back in the Nixon days your phone would be tapped and you'd be in some secret government file.

AG: I’m sure my phone is tapped. I'm not kidding. George McGovern called for the impeachment of Bush and Chaney and said, "Next to these guys, Nixon was nothing."