Oscar-winning Actress Geena Davis Reappears and Makes Accidents Happen

Feature Interview By Brad Balfour

Every film festival yields an unexpected treat and this year's Tribeca Film Festival is no exception. With the premiere of Accidents Happen, the 51 year old actor Geena Davis steps into the spotlight again, this time by doing a quirky little indie--the feature directorial debut of composer and short filmmaker Andrew Lancaster--shot in Australia but set in the 1980s Connecticut.

For this Oscar winner, her startling and starring reappearance makes for a snappy and sharp-witted comeback. At a time when dysfunctional moms seem to dominate the news and daily talk shows, Davis plays a flippant Gloria Conway, the maternal head of a decidely distraught suburban family traumatized by a fatal auto accident in which one of the kids is killed and another is brain damaged.

Though partially responsible, 15-year-old Billy (Harrison Gilbertson) has become the de facto glue that barely holds together his bitter mom, distant brother (Harry Cook), and disaffected, disenfranchised dad (Joel Tobeck). When Billy starts to act out his anguish, things change for him and his family in this visually provocative, wry drama. Having been once married to such A-type arch personalities as actor Jeff Goldblum and director Renny Harlin.

With a career that has had her playing the first female president, Mackenzie Allen in Commander in Chief (a short-lived but critically appreciated television series) as well as a feminist culture hero in Thelma and Louise, the still svelte six-footer has established her range and smarts. Once she had been tapped to be in Tootsie, she soon proved her versatility and has done over-wrought adventure films (Cutthroat Island), crime-noir (The Long Kiss Goodnight), comic-drama (A League of Their Own), arch sci-fi (David Cronenberg's The Fly remake) a Tim Burton film (Beetle Juice) and won an Oscar for The Accidental Tourist.

Q: You went to Australia to essentially make an American film.

GD: Well, it struck me as odd, definitely. It was like, "Why aren't we shooting this in Connecticut?" But it actually turned out great. We wouldn't have had these incredible actors, and it was fun. I love Sydney. I love Australia. I always say that if I had to move I would move to Sydney. I loved it there.

Q: What kinds of adventures did you have there?

GD: Well, some run-ins with emus [Australian Ostrich-like birds] and there were some koala [bears] that were jumping out of the trees at me. We went to play bingo in Maroubra [a beach-side suburb of Sydney].

Q: Bingo?

GD: Bingo. We went to the bingo hall and there was a bingo parlor near where Sarah lives. It's this little kind of crummy building and in the basement. We went, and it was all old people. Instead of chips they had these stamp things, like you stamp a little dot.

Q: Did you play for money?

GD: Yeah. And we won. I got a $20 voucher. It was fantastic.

Q: Did you eat any weird foods while in Australia?

GD: Foods? No. I have to say that for someone coming from and living in L.A., Sydney [offers] the least culture shock you could possibly encounter in going to a foreign country. It's like L.A. only a little askew. They drive on the other side of the road, but you don't have to figure out, like, "How do I take the subway..." or "What's the money?"

Q: Did you have any Australian wine while you were there?

GD: Oh, yeah, I love Australian wine, actually.

Q: The culinary scenes in the film were fun--especially that mysterious mixture. What were you actually eating?

GD: It was like canned stew. It was fine and tasted good.

Q: Were you the only American in the cast?

GD: Yeah.

Q: Did these old cars bring back any memories for you?

GD: Oh, yeah. The prop guys were keen on teaching me to drive the car that I drove. I was like, "Are you kidding? This is what my parents had. I've driven this kind of car a couple of times."

Q: How was it working with all those young Australian actors?

GD: All these guys are so sweet, like the sweetest guys on earth. When we first met, one of the very first things that we did was to have a read-through around the table. I was sitting next to Harry [Gilbertson] and there's a word that's not in the movie anymore, a profoundly vulgar word that he had to say. We get to that scene and it's coming up, and he says the line and says the word sort of quietly and goes, [whispering] "Sorry." I think he might've even gone, "Sorry, Mrs. Davis."

Q: How did they feel about meeting you?

GD: Later they told me that they were so nervous about meeting me. I thought, "Oh, I really should've been like, 'It's Mrs. Davis, please...' just to torture them a little bit [laughs]. But they were nervous enough.

Q: You didn't call them on their American accents and make sure they were good? Did they keep you fooled?

GD: They were good, very good. They did a great job, really.

Q: How did the role you played personally resonate with you?

GD: I always feel like when I play a character, you just have to find that part of yourself instead of imposing something from the outside. So I had to find a part of me that could relate to feeling helpless and lost, but try to cover for it and try to rise above it and put up a shield. I think it's something that people can easily do to a lesser degree. I think it's just how big the circumstances are, how much you're forced by self-preservation in that particular way—denial and blocking and blaming other people.

Q: How was your character's guilt different from the other character's guilt?

GD: I think she feels horribly, horribly guilty about it. Her way of surviving was partly to put it on her husband, and try to force others to carry the burden and develop this sort of defense mechanism of outrageous language and vulgarity and brash personality as a way to keep people away. Also, it's from facing her own pain.

Q: Why is she guilty?

GD: Well, I [won't] tell you in specifics [or it might ruin the movie], but I think that in general, any mother—if anything happens to their kid, it doesn't matter what the circumstance was—you would always feel like, "If I hadn't let them be there, if I hadn't..." There's nothing worse than having your child die. I think it's that.

I imagined that she was going over that situation—that I was needling everybody and was yelling at the kids and so they fought. I didn't tell him enough to slow down, and all of those things that just probably wrack your life forever.

Q: Was this film specifically designed for you?

GD: No, not specifically.

Q: You've done television, big studio films, and now independent films. How do those experiences contrast--for a while you were in the television arena and now doing this opens must open up a whole range of new opportunities...

GD: Well, I hadn't avoided independent films. It just somehow never happened. I never got offered a part in an independent film that I wanted to do. So it's not like you made it sound, that I'm now in my independent film phase [laughs]. I don't know what'll happen. I would be happy to do more.

Q: How different was this experience from working in television?

GD: I don't find any of them that different. This was actually a lot like TV in that you shoot so much faster, so many more pages a day than a pricey film. But I like all mediums. I don't really do plays, but as far as TV and films and everything, I like them all. It's really just what the part is. I didn't notice…it didn't have pop-outs, my trailer. It's true. I did notice that [laughs]. But what I'm saying is that it was very similar.

Q: How has your training as an athlete shaped your training as an actor?

GD: It had a more personal impact on me, a more real-life impact than acting, because I'd been so un-athletic, and was sure that I was uncoordinated until I got cast in A League of Their Own and had to learn [how to play] baseball. The coaches were like, "You're picking this up fairly fast." I was like, "I have untapped athletic ability!"

Then I did some action movies. That spurred me to take up archery, and I became a sort of fanatic about that [to the point where she became a women's Olympic archery team finalist in 1999 but failed to qualify]. So it changed my feeling about my body and my physical abilities a great deal. What I didn't realize until later is that competing in tournaments was so satisfying.

But I think it's because it's the exact opposite of having a movie review, which is utterly subjective. It doesn't matter what you wore to the tournament. It's the points—did you hit the bull's-eye or not—and that's very satisfying. You can look at it and count instead of wondering.

Q: Do you still do it?

GD: I haven't lately because of the kids. I've been busy, but it's not age dependent so I think I can take it up again at another time.

Q: Since you've never done that before, what would bring you to the stage?

GD: I don't know, maybe a big musical.

Q: What's next for you?

GD: I don't know yet.

Q: You don't have anything coming up?

GD: Listen, I've never known what I'm going to do next when I finish one thing. I don't know how people do that. I'm always like, "Sharon Stone has four movies." She's got this in the can and then this… But that's never ever happened for me. I never know. I guess I just take a long time.

Q: I'd like to see you kick ass one more time, so do another action film.

GD: Believe me, I would love to.

Q: What's been the best accident that's ever happened to you and why? You met your husband in an interesting way--is that true?

GD: Oh, that's true. That's probably the biggest accident that happened. I met my husband because my dog bit him on the ass. I said, "Hey, who's that? Bite him." No.

The only reason that I met him and spoke to him was because he wanted to tell me that my dog had bit him. I left it at a friend's house, and he was a mutual friend who walked in to say hi to his friend and there [the dog] was. She had decided to guard the house, and chased him out over the fence.

Q: Did he need stitches?

GD: No.

Q: Was it a pit bull?

GD: No, an Irish Water Spaniel. Very sweet and soft, but she got possessive about the house.

Q: How are they now, your husband and the dog?

GD: Well, she fell in love with him [Dr. Reza Jarrahy with whom she has three kids]. She just absolutely fell in love with him.

Q: It's kind of like The Accidental Tourist.

GD: There's a doggish thing going on there... Yeah.

Actor Natalie Portman Launches Into The Making of Web Portal Makingof.com

Feature Interview By Brad Balfour

Oscar-nominated actress Natalie Portman joined her business partner and film developer/new media entrepreneur Christine Aylward to discuss the launch of their new website, www.makingof.com, at a special event in the Filmmaker's Lounge during the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. As they explained, the site is meant to be a gathering place and resource for filmmakers and fans of filmmakers alike. Their web project hopes to transform the way people view, enjoy, and participate in the filmmaking process.

The Israeli-born Portman, of course, is the actor who received international attention when she landed the role of Queen/Senator Amidala for Star Wars Episodes I, II, and III. This helped her get parts in Anywhere But Here and Where the Heart Is but she really came into her own with films like Garden State, V For Vendetta (where she shaved her head) and The Other Boleyn Girl. When she played the ex-girlfriend in Darjeeling Limited she did an accompanying 13-minute short, Hotel Chevalier for director Wes Anderson and offered her sexiest performance yet.

As an accomplished actress, she has performed in such established plays as Anton Chekhov's The Seagull and The Diary of Anne Frank, and garnered her Supporting Actress Oscar nom for Closer in 2004.

She also graduated from Harvard University where she studied psychology. Later on she directed her first short, has actively supported various humanitarian and animal rights causes, and has been romantically linked with various actors or musicians such as neo-hippie Devendra Banhart. She is also an entrepreneur having started an aborted vegan shoe line (its partner company dissolved through this econ crisis) who is now launching this media company with Aylward as CEO. The two had met on a film set and came up with the idea of a behind-the-scenes, insiders-look web portal off-the-cuff during a dinner.

The following interview was drawn from the Q & A session after they announced the launch before a small group of film professionals; it is boiled down to Portman's remarks and her response to several of my own questions as well.

Q: Why did you two start this website?

NP: Christine [Aylward] and I have been friends for a few years now and we were talking one night. I said, "I wonder why there isn't a website that sort of encapsulates the experience of visiting a friend on a film set?" Because every time a friend of mine came to visit I was reminded about how exciting a place it is to work and was reminded about how little we all know when you're just a movie-goer of all the different aspects that go into making a film.

The site is supposed to encapsulate that experience and give access to people who don't have a friend that they can go visit on a film set. So they can say, "How did they do that?"

There are jobs that exist on films sets which people don't even know about. We can give an insight into that and offer that experience for the serious burgeoning filmmaker. There's this whole generation now of people who are making their own movies with youtube and similar sites. I'm sure that they want expert advice or the opportunity to see how it looks up close. So that's the goal of the site, to extend that access to everyone.

Q: You've worked on small indie films and very large studio films. How do you compare those experiences; the good things, the bad things, and being behind the scenes?

NP: The thing that unites all film experience is that it really is a team. It's a collaboration between so many people. There's actually this [David] Mamet line that [I think] Mike [Nichols] always quotes. So I'm going to quote the quote. "Film is a collaborative process. Bend over" [laughs].

It really is a collaborative process though and there are so many people who contribute in ways that are not highlighted. It's a really exciting opportunity to get to focus on those people. Also, [film-making] is such an insider industry. So many people learn to do what they do because their parents do it. You see on film sets a lot of time that the camera operator is the father of the focus puller and the makeup artist is the mother of the hair stylist. It's very much like that. It's really a family business and that makes it even more exciting to open that access because that's how people get access.

It's not like people come out of film school and get hired on movies. A lot of times the access is who you know and you learn by doing. You learn by being on the job. The goal of this, and obviously it's a work in progress and we'll be amending as necessary, as we go on, but the hope is to really let people learn by doing, learn by experiencing firsthand. 

Q: So the site is for people who want to learn what a grip is and for people who want hear expert advice from director Ron Howard?

NP: Yeah. It should be, like, [for] the kid who asks, "How did they do that explosion in the Bond movie?" to the person who's says, "What lens was he using when he got that very specific shot?" or whatever. The goal is to have that range.

Q: You've talked about the Vault section of the site; you'll be able to watch whole movies or just clips of things?

NP: It will have the making of related things with movies that are already past being in theaters. So we're hopefully getting archival things. That's what we want for the future on the site.

Q: Did you do some of the interviews yourself that we see?

NP: I did one interview that I think is going to be up. I didn't want it to be, like, the "me" site. I really want it to be about filmmaking. So I didn't want to be all over it, but I did one interview.

Q: Did you learn anything that you didn't know before from watching some of the other interviews?

NP: Absolutely. The interview I actually did was with [director] Jim Sheridan who I worked with recently and it was so exciting to get to ask him questions. It's so formal to ask those questions with someone that you know and to have that opportunity was really incredible.

One thing he said that was really helpful to me was about the sort of impossibility of screenwriting because how do you describe the look on the child's face that has just learned that his mother died, when you open the door and reveal his face. How do you put that in there. He said that's the problem because it's such a visual medium and to really write something that describes what you're going to see is impossible and that's half the impossibility of getting anything made.

There have been so many things from different interviews, but it's nice to get insight from really disparate points of view that a lot of times you don't get to hear. It gives people ideas, too, about the opportunities that they could have on films, what are the many aspects that go into it and what's the process behind the many aspects.

Q: Do you see the site as connecting, say, a hairdresser with a production company or things like that?

NP: In terms of connecting people, I think one of the future goals for our interviews will be to have filmmakers interviewing other filmmakers so that they're asking the exact questions. If you're a costume designer what would you ask a legendary costume designer? If you're a casting director what would ask of…. So in that we connect those people and have interviews in that way too.

Q: And what do you have planned for the future--an international version?

NP: As I said, this is a "work in progress." We just launched this [on April 23rd, 2009] and we're very excited. There are so many opportunities, and yes, definitely [we are planning that]. That's such a great opportunity that the internet has brought us. One of the things that I always bemoan in the United States is how little access we have to so many great films from the rest of the world. In cities like London and Paris, I think you get a lot more exposure to that stuff. So it would be really exciting to use this as a tool for that, but not yet.

Q: Will you be capturing content from the post-production process as well?

NP: That'll be in the "Filming Now" section.

Q: In your message to consumers what are the key differences that they'll find on your site than they might not find on a DVD that they've purchased which includes sections about the making of a film?

NP: It's like [we are going to be] a centralized resource. So if you're a big Michel Gondry fan, our hope for the future is that it's not just Eternal Sunshine, but you click on it and you'll get his commentary on all of his movies or, if you like him, then here's other directors like him, or also people who you don't normally see interviewed on DVD stuff like editors, cinematographers and design people.

So you get insight into different aspects of the film and also, if you're into one of those other areas, you can again, like, see the archived [stuff]. Lets say there's one costume designer that you love or you just want to see all costume designers or you want to see all action movies; the goal is that it'll be a centralized resource with archived materials that the serious student can go to. Obviously we're building [it now].

Q: And specific to that person--like specific to Michel Gondry and not just specific to the film?

NP: Right, or it could be specific to the film. It could be specific to the person. It could be specific to a department. It's organized in that way that you wouldn't get just from a DVD, one alone. This is great. I love it. It's almost like a brainstorming session. There are so many ideas.

Q: What have you learned about the internet that you didn't know before?

NP: Wow. It's a huge process and I've learned a lot from watching Christine lead the way of creating the business and building a website. It never even occurred to me, all of the elements that go into it. That could be a whole other MakingOf. It's incredible. I didn't realize everything that goes into it and it's been very impressive to witness and learn about.

Q: One exciting thing about the site is that it encompasses the whole business of film, from accounting to acting.

NP: This is really where we will expand and that's the goal. I think it was one of the Naked Gun movies in the credits, I remember seeing this as a little kid, that said 'what the hell is a dolly grip?" You watch the credits and if you don't know--if you haven't been on a film set--you're like, "What? What does that even mean?" So, yes, most people would be like, "Why does a film need an accountant?"

Q: And, if they're not an actor or director, still be inspired.

NP: Exactly. The goal is really to give an impression of [what] everyone does. We don't have a specific thing [in mind].

Q: What are you hoping that people will say about the site after hearing about it now?

NP: Again, the goal is to give the user the experience of being a part of the process. I think you should feel that. [As for] the end goal, as I've said, we're a work-in-progress and just starting out, but our goal is to have everyone feel like they're a part of the crew and that they know the elements that go into the filmmaking process so that they can experience it in a very personal way. That's our goal.

Israeli Director Eran Riklis Offers A Humanizing View of Palestinians in Lemon Tree

Exclusive Interview by Brad Balfour

When veteran Israeli director Eran Riklis made The Syrian Bride several years ago--a film focused almost entirely on the Druze community in Israel, with a few minor Jewish characters--he had joined the burgeoning community of Israeli filmmakers whose work is both markedly Israeli but also tinged with an international or European feel. Though clearly situated in their country of origin, their films are made for audiences who don't look at cinema so much as propaganda but as a force for critical thinking. In his latest movie (a Berlin Film Fest Audience Award winner), Lemon Tree, Riklis provides, if not a critical voice, then an empathetic one--one that often gets overlooked when the political discourse gets overheated.

Now that Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made, for him, something of an about-face--offering a truncated version of the two-state solution to the Palestinians--the release of a film that presents a humanizing, sympathetic view of Palestinians, resonates in a more powerful way than ever before.

Based on a true story, widow Salma (the great Hiam Abbass) defends her lemon tree field when a new Israeli Defense Minister moves next door to her and threatens to have her grove torn down. Living there for decades on the green line--the border between Israel and the West Bank--Salma has endured tragedy and loneliness when the Minister moves into his house opposite her comforting trees.

His Israeli security team declares her grove a threat to the his safety and orders it uprooted. In horror and defiance, Salma enlists an initially reluctant young Palestinian lawyer, Ziad Daud (Ali Suliman), to fight for her fruit-bearing foliage--and they go all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court. In addition, despite differences and borders, Salma and the Defense minister's wife Mira--trapped in her new home and unhappy life--develop an invisible bond. Along the way, forbidden ties also grow between Salma and Ziad at great risk to them both. This legal and personal journey throws Salma into the dark, complex, and sometimes funny, tumult of the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians.

Q; In both this and The Syrian Bride, you not only challenge certain preconceptions of Israelis, but you also challenge preconceptions of Palestinian or Arabic scenarios; you really like to get yourself into trouble.

ER: I change my address every [film]… And my name [laughs].

Q; You’re of Ashkenazi [European Jewish] descent but Israeli-born?

ER: I’m Israeli-born. But I’m no martyr, not at all—though I fear nothing. In the end, it’s only a film, for chrissake! I mean, I know you can be burned for it, but…

Q; Your co-writer Suha Arraf, the writer on The Syrian Bride, is Palestinian, right?

ER: From Israel.

Q: It would be interesting to sit in on your writing sessions.

ER: That’s funny, because we both believe there are no taboos. You can touch anything. When people come to me and say that wouldn’t happen in a certain society, obviously I check it, because if there’s a degree of truth that this or that would never happen, fine. But even then, you can always be controversial.

And it’s funny, because when I look at both films, I don’t see anything controversial about them. But obviously it’s all in the eye of the beholder. As far as it being legitimate for me, as an Israeli, to go into the Palestinian society, I have the right as a filmmaker, as long as I respect the truth and am honest about it. Truth and honesty are probably a guiding light for me, and if I use them correctly, these words, then I’m fine.

Q; You worked with Suha on The Syrian Bride--was there a difference this time around or did she take a similar approach?

ER: We got to know each other much better. Basically we had a very good relationship during The Syrian Bride and we developed it in Lemon Tree. Now there’s a kind of mutual understanding. Of course, I’m the director, so I can always take care of the material any way I want. But when you’re co-writing, it’s a matter of chemistry. It gets better with age—that’s the only answer I can give.

Q; Some directors like to work with the same people. How did you and Hiam—who also had a big part in The Syrian Bride--shape the characters to make sure there wasn't a trace of one slipping over to the other?

ER: The definition of the character in Lemon Tree is totally different from that in Syrian Bride. First of all, the Salma character carries this film on her shoulders, so it was really a wider spectrum of emotions and psychological depth [for Hiam to handle]. Beyond that, the challenge for both her and me was to really overcome the stereotype of a Palestinian peasant, a simple woman, a poor woman struggling against a system—and as I speak, I think “Oh my God, that sounds terrible.”

But with Hiam and the way we approached the writing, we said "OK, she is a peasant, she’s not educated. But she has this inner energy which keeps her alive all these years as a widow, which keeps her open to the option of having a second love in her life, however controversial, and she has this strength to actually go all the way to the Supreme Court." So already we’re talking about a different perception of a Palestinian woman.

I guess what Hiam brings to that is the fact that on one hand, she was born in a small village in Israel and grew up there; on the other hand, she's spent 22 years now in France, so she’s actually Parisian [as much as she's a Palestinian]. She’s a very European, sophisticated lady. I think that kind of tension and that kind of balance creates a different kind of character and solves the problem in a way. I never had an issue of, “Is this close to what she did in The Syrian Bride or not?”

Q; You hear about the Palestinians' feelings of futility. Yet Salma resolves to fight this in the court, where it would seem impossible to win. You had to make that work and make it plausible that she would go so far as to believe she could go forward. You talk about fighting the system and taking it to the court, and having to make it seem convincing.

ER: Because we’re all sophisticated and naïve at the same time; that applies to Salma as well. Basically, on one hand, at night when she sits in bed on her own and she says, “Why am I doing this?” the answer is probably, “I’m stupid.” On the other hand, “Maybe I’m not. Maybe there is a chance.” And I think you always have to have this notion that things could be different. Maybe for you it’s like the lottery in a way. Maybe I’ll win, even though the chances are…

When you think about the Israeli legal system, it’s not obvious that they’re going to come up with this decision. You never know, because it is a legal system that works. So, of course, like any legal system anywhere in the world—nobody can convince me otherwise—it’s always affected by politicians, politics, the mood in the street, the security situation, all that. And yet, there’s always a judge who would say “I don’t care. This woman has her rights, I’m going to grant her her rights.”

It’s a little bit like Ziad’s decision in a way, which obviously is not very good for Salma. And yet the trees are still rooted in the ground, so there is something symbolically which gives a kind of future for her, and for her trees.

Q: In this country, widows are free to have another relationship again and even marry. Even though the Palestinians are supposed to be secular—it was hard for her to consider marrying again.

ER: It’s not about religion. She can get married, it’s not an official issue. The thing is that the family of the dead husband would expect to take care of that. It’s almost like, you can marry again, but you you have to marry one of the brothers, or somebody close to the family or a friend of the family. Certainly you can't go and marry a younger guy and he's much younger than her.

In the script, Ziad was described as in his early 40s, which was not that controversial. Then when I met Ali in the audition--I already knew him because he had a small role in The Syrian Bride—he was so charming, that I said “OK! He’s the guy. But how do I justify this relationship?” I had huge fights with Suha, because she said it would never work in a Palestinian society. I said “Give me a break! It works everywhere!”

You know, societies are societies, but things that happen behind closed doors—you never know. And I thought it added a great layer of tension, because of the fact is she’s under scrutiny all the time anyway. She’s under a microscope all the time and here is this young guy—on one hand, he’s the only one helping her. He’s the only one doing something for her for no money, or for minimal money. And on the other hand, he is really a kind of no-go in a way, and yet she fights for him. But also, to a certain degree, it’s a doomed love affair anyway, so the chances of it really happening are probably slim.

Q: The movie is not a comedy, but you show these humorous sides. Of course, the defense minister is one of the characters you’re really parodying… Did you have certain people in mind that you were referencing?

ER: The current prime minister was a good model for me. And Ehud Barak, who is now defense minister [and was a Prime Minister], was a good model [as well]. All these generals are good example, in terms of, they’re always pompous and with “Security Security” [on their minds]. But they can joke around, have kids, are married, and are also people.

I really tried to treat the minister like I treated all the other characters, and in that sense, I love him. He’s intelligent, but he’s also insensitive—who isn’t?

Q; He was the perfect parody of an Israeli politician.

ER: I think so. Yet, when you see him at the end of the film sitting there on his own in his empty house, you feel for him. Basically, he blew it. He could have just opened his eyes a little bit and changed this whole story, just like that. Like his wife says, he says, “What do you want from me? I can’t change history.” But in fact, he could have! At least, in this particular case.

Q; The Syrian Bride really isn’t so much about a place. This movie is all about a place. Was that an additional challenge--to getting locations visually--or could you have found this in any number of places?

ER: No. In fact, it was very tricky. Getting the lighting right, and the trees right, and the lemons right, it’s like a nightmare. Even the two houses at the grove were shot in two different places. We had to be very clever about [it]. You see Salma walk out of her house, and then a month later, I was shooting her arriving at the minister’s house, so it was quite tricky film-wise. But I think it looks really good in that sense.

Q; So why did you decide on a lemon grove rather than what would immediately be assumed, some kind of olive grove.

ER: That’s the answer. When I thought about olive trees, I said "No. I cannot see olive trees." The lemons have everything for me. They're fresh, sweet and sour, they have all the elements that you want. Visually they're beautiful. And I felt using olive trees was just overused symbolism that you can’t get away with.

Q; Was there any symbolism intended—the lemons for Palestinians, [olives] for Jews...

ER: Not really. It’s corny, because the first thing I wrote was Lemon Tree and I quoted the song, you know, the American song...

Q; I couldn’t get the damn song out of my head!

ER: It’s funny, because most people in Israel don’t know the song. But for me, [those were] the first lines I wrote. “Lemon tree… lemon tree so pretty.” So, I just found it a little fresher than any other symbol you could use. Certainly olive trees are really overused—you see them on the news all the time.

Q; Didn’t you want to make an Arabic/Middle Eastern version of that song...?

ER: There it was in the opening titles!

Q; In writing a screenplay, are you thinking about the music?

ER: Well, like a lot of filmmakers I’m a frustrated musician. Seriously. I wanted to be a musician. I learned a lot of instruments… I don’t play anything now. My son is a jazz pianist who’s actually studying here in New York at the New School.

At least, when you think of classical music, making a film is a little bit like composing a classical piece of music. And certainly the performance of a film is almost like the performance of a symphonic orchestra, in terms of all the elements coming together to crystallize into one beautiful thing.

But it’s not something I follow. It’s just intuitively—it happens because I connect well with music. I love music. And it’s true that when I look at all my films, there was always some kind of musical link. In most of them, at least.

Q; Is this simply a David & Goliath story--"Salma's last person who would challenge the system... Can she succeed?" If you ultimately had to sum up this film, how would you do it?

ER: It's a Mediterranean Erin Brockovich. I guess David and Goliath is probably a good example too. Even though I really don’t care for the headlines, I want to go beyond them. It’s really about the small details that make up this very simple story. Because in the end it’s a very simple story. It’s lemons, two women, and a problem.

Q; You also humanize the perceptions. Usually it's the Palestinians are "this" and the Jews are "that," but in one way or another you humanize everybody.

ER: For me, everybody has his moment of grace. You can be the security guy who has nothing on his mind but security, but in the end—the guy that lets them through at the roadblock [past] the security services, he’s also the kind of guy who could have said, “Forget about it.” But he said, “Go ahead.” So I think nobody is really evil in my films.

Q; The relationship between the defense minister's wife Mira [Rona Lipaz-Michael] and Salma shows there's that sort of an invisible connection. In the context of Israeli-Palestinian issues, are you presenting this as a metaphor of a relationship that doesn’t succeed even though they have a certain invisible bond if only they'd listened to each other... Do you find the conflict between Palestine and Israel, that they just need to listen to each other?

ER: It’s all about listening. It’s all about calming down for a minute and listening to each other and respecting each other on one hand. On the other hand, I think what I show in the film is more or less reality.

Mira represents a lot of Israelis, who do listen to the other side--yet there’s a limit to how far you can go. It’s always, "OK, I can respect you," but will they ever be friends? Not really. Is Mira really going to change in the sense that she’s going to go now and demonstrate every week? Not really. But the fact that she develops an awareness of the other side, of the enemy, and also has a self-awareness, I’m satisfied with that.

The same thing happens with Salma—suddenly, the other side is not this huge threatening machine that’s coming to take her lemons. There’s also somebody else there looking at her and feeling compassionate about her, and I’m sure Salma will be different…

When you look at the final image of Salma at the end of the film--when she’s looking at the wall—Salma has a small smile there, which is almost like saying "OK, I can accept this, I’m going to keep fighting, and my life is not devastated."

I think that’s part of a sense of growing, growing, in terms of, you know, there’s always a new day. It’s almost like with Gone With The Wind... “Tomorrow’s a new day,” or whatever the quote is. In that sense, I tried to keep an optimistic feel to the whole thing, because otherwise, why go on?

Q; How do audiences react to your films?

ER: I’m an audience guy. Seriously. I make films for an audience. I’m not about festivals and I’m not about media, really. No, the biggest enjoyment is to see a full house and have people excited about your film. In that sense, I think I have an American way of thinking. I put story and emotion first as well, and only then, politics.

I really don’t care about the politics as much, because I think in the end, whether it’s an arthouse or popular movie, audiences wants to have the same kind of feeling. They want to care about the characters. For me, that’s the most important thing.

Q; Do you ever want to have another lemon in your life after this?

ER: Yeah, I don’t mind lemons. They’re a fine food.

Oscar Winning Actor Michael Caine Asks "Is Anybody There?"

Feature Story by Brad Balfour

Whatever compelled Oscar-winner Sir Michael Caine to play 80-something retired magician Clarence in Is Anybody There?, it's fortunate that he did. The septuagenarian Brit takes even a simple, sentimental tale like this and, through his rich performance and nuanced turns, give us a real peek into a man whose life has been slipping away from him as he enters the twilight of his life. From his first raggedy appearance on screen, Clarence is transformed into someone much younger as he mentors a lonely 11-year-old boy Edward (Bill Milner) trapped in the makeshift nursing home that his house became when his parents started a business caring for a group of old people in the 1980s.

Clarence shows glimmers of his old self as he teaches Eddie some magic tricks and convinces to have a birthday party with kids he generally shies away from---he'd rather search for the ghost of the dead old folks rather than play with his peers. But inevitably it's too late and the ravages of Alzheimer's take control, bringing an end to Clarence and the film.

So Caine continues to turn out sterling work (as he should after working in more than 100 films) however one might feel about this quiet film. In delivering such a performance, he has also mentored in real life, giving a boost to the talented 14 year old Milner (who also did a remarkable job in his other film, Son of Rambow) and support to young directors like Crowley.

Certainly what career moves Caine makes now are for fun--and maybe a little money. He's done a slew of benchmarks, from early films like The Ipcress File, and Alfie, to Oscar winners like Hannah and Her Sisters and Cider House Rules. But it didn't hurt him in joining the latest incarnation of the Batman franchise as Bruce Wayne's butler and confidante, Alfred, in the recent two films, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Q: Do you believe that there's an afterlife?

MC: I'm hoping there's an afterlife. As you get older, you hope even more fervently. But I am still far enough away to have a few doubts [though] I'm sure they will tighten up as you get closer [laughs]. I've noticed it with older people.

Q: Your wife claims to have the ability to see ghosts--is there a story that you have that she experienced that you can talk about?

MC: No, not really, because I don't discuss it. It's one of those things where she believes in ghosts and I don't and we never talk about it. We never talk about it. I'm sorry. We just don't talk about it. I hope she's right.

Q: Why?

MC: Well, it'd be fun, wouldn't it? Something is better than nothing.

Q: You seem like someone who doesn't have the word "retire" in your vocabulary. How do you do it?

MC: I just enjoy what I do. You have to remember, when I started out I was an amateur actor, amateur meaning "to love." I like what I do and enjoy the process of filmmaking; provided this is the situation that I'm in--that I have complete and utter choice of where, what, why, when, how and with whom.

That's what happens to me now. I don't work for a living. I just work in order to improve myself as an actor which is what I've always done. I've never been competitive with other actors. I've been competitive with myself and I'm my own worst critic, a terrible critic I am, and unless I get something right, I feel very unhappy.

But with this picture I couldn't have done any better than I did. There are probably a dozen other actors who could've done it better than I did, but I couldn't have done it better. So I'm very happy about what I've done.

Q: What excited you about playing this angry senior citizen?

MC: The depth and range of it. You go through every emotion and so does the audience. If we do it right, we should make you roll with laughter at one point and cry your eyes out at the next. That to me is the epitome of an actor's job, to get the most extreme emotions out of you with the most reality. I love the relationship with the boy. It's sort of like a hill. I lead him up a hill into his childhood and he leads me down a hill to my death.

Q: Did you visit any nursing homes or want to spend any time in one for the role?

MC: No, I didn't. I knew all about them. My mother was in a nursing home, but not like that. My mother was in a very luxurious nursing home. But I did see a lot of people like that. People, when they get older, get infirm and do strange things.

The great thing about it was that I'd known all those actors for 50 years [who played the nursing home inhabitants] like Barbara Harris who was in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with me. I've known [actors] Leslie Phillips all my life, and Sylvia Syms [they play Reg and Lillian, two of the nursing home residents]. I was looking at them and didn't know what they had turned into when they had become old. Then, I saw it. They had become old just like everyone else and it was fascinating.

Q: Here you've got the challenge of working with a younger actor in Bill Milner. Did he give you a run for your money?

MC: Oh, boy, did he! Bill is a very wonderful, natural actor. He's never had theatrical training and so he didn't have to get rid of all those tricks for when you act in front of a camera like a stage actor. I was a stage actor for years. He's very professional and, of course, he has an incredible advantage over a lot of other child actors.

Bill doesn't have a theater or a stage mother. She's not acting out her failed fantasies through her son or daughter. She's a very, very nice, very, very educated woman who's quite surprised by his choice. I think that he was found in the school amateur dramatic society and not in a drama school.

Q: He reminds me of the talented Freddy Highmore, the young British actor who was in Neverland with Johnny Depp.

MC: Oh, yeah, I remember him. He's very self-possessed and so is Bill. Journalists ask if I gave him any advice and I said, "No. He didn't need any. He could do it."

Q: Did Bill give you any advice?

MC: Oh, yeah, he'd give me advice all the time [laughs]... He didn't [really] give me advice but we were very lucky because without a great little boy. of course, the picture was in the toilet.

Q: You've never had to worry about losing your career over the years, but your character is someone who did. How did you draw on those observations, not having experienced them?

MC: Well, I've known so many people like him in my life. I worked in repertory, and if you're an old character actor working in repertory, you were working for 10 pounds a week--and you're him. I've learned from dozens of those [people]. I like old actors, though. They're funny.

Q: To see you go from the sophisticate in Sleuth to this character... There are those little details that you pick up on, little mannerisms and looks. How do you make those choices?

MC: Well, they're just a guy. It's just observing people of that age. I mean, I'm nearly that age. I reckoned that he was about 84 or 85. I'm 76.

I've just done another part where I've played an older man called Harry Brown. The picture is about an old man who lives in the projects and becomes a vigilante when they kill his friend. What happens to me is that I keep getting made down instead of made up when I go into makeup in the morning. Instead of trying to make me look the best that I can, they tried to make me look the worst that I can.

So now I'm looking for a movie where I get made up and it's not Batman, because Batman is a bit of a ways away, but something else where I get made up.

Q: Do you ever get sentimental, looking back on your younger self in either film or photos?

MC: No. I never look back at all. All of my sentiment and emotion goes into my family. I'm an extremely family oriented person and I have a very, very happy family life. That doesn't just include blood relations. I have friends who are close to me.

But one of the things for [me with] this movie was that one of my closest friends had Alzheimer's while we were doing this film. So I knew exactly what it was because I had lived with Alzheimer's for five years. Though not like his closest friends or family, I knew the stages and what happened. In one case, it was a bit scary doing it, but I did know what I was doing on a daily basis.

Q: What are some of the films that have been most memorable for you in your long and distinguished career?

MC: Well, films are memorable for different reasons. Zulu, because it was my first speaking part where I had more than 10 lines. The Ipcress File was the first time I had my name above the title. Alfie opened a market for me in America. It goes right through to films like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, where I made a very funny film, a very happy film, and for that location they gave me a villa in the south of France for three months. I'm still waiting for another movie like that. I've never gotten it.

But the films that I loved making--the original Sleuth.... Well, I loved making the second Sleuth but we got slaughtered for that, but I still loved making it. And, [there's] The Quiet American, Little Voice, and Hannah and Her Sisters.

I loved working with Woody [Allen] and love New York, so I was very happy with that. I thought that Hannah and Her Sisters was Woody's warmest film with sort of Thanksgiving and everything. It was funny then because I would have a line of dialogue in the picture, I'd say, "Well, you know me, I'm not fond of kids and I don't like the country." Mia [Farrow] would always say, "He's right and he's saying that to me. It's personal to me." All these things, I kept saying lines to Mia and she'd say, "That's another one. You see?" It was very funny.

Q: In further reviewing your career, what are some of the things that you realize you accomplished in terms of craft, accents, or whatever?

MC: I managed to get to a stage where I imagine--and I've never taken drugs--if you take a drug of your choice, you get some ecstatic feeling. I have a situation now [that in [various] takes where I know I've absolutely nailed it. I know.

I think that's why I'm still doing it because that's the drug I need. The director says "Cut" and nobody even says, "Lets try it again." They say, "We're over here" and they just walk away because you can't do it again. That for me is what I've learned to do.

Q: How did you avoid drugs all your life and these years in this business?

MC: Well, they weren't there when I was young. It was alcohol. We were all drunks. All the British actors of my time were all bombed out of their minds. I remember seeing a Shakespeare play--I forget what it was--with Trevor Howard and a very old British actor who's a very famous drunk called Wilford Lawson. He was always pissed. I saw a matinee, and they came on--both were very drunk in this Shakespeare play. A member of the audience shouted out, "You're drunk." And Trevor Howard said, "If you think we're drunk, wait until you see The Duke of Buckingham."

Q: You've never been drunk and done a role?

MC: Oh, no, I never drink at work at all. Nothing. I'm very professional. I mean, I can drink. Well, I used to drink vodka like the lads and [go to] discos and piss [off] and all of that stuff, but I mean I'm very, very family oriented. I'm a big cook and a good connoisseur and I only drink very good red wines now.

Q: You've been married for so many years; how are you and your wife Shakira alike and different?

MC: My wife and I are alike in that we're both Pisces and we're both slightly off-the-wall and very gentle people. But we're at different ends of Pisces so she's very, very gentle and I'm the other end, into some serious [stuff]. I forget what it is, but I can be quite tough for a Pisces.

Q: You've said that you met her on a TV commercial.

MC: Well, I didn't meet her, but I saw her on the television, yeah.

Q: And you're still together after all those years.

MC: Yeah, 38 years together, which shows you that I was right, doesn't it? I've seen thousands of beautiful girls on television commercials. Why I went nuts over this one I don't know.

We never watched television in those days. But my best male friend and I, we just stayed in one night from the discos and getting bombed and all of that, and we just had a quiet night in. I cooked some dinner and then we watched the television--we were just going to have a quiet night, get some sleep.

Q: Of all the many actors you've worked with, who have you bonded with the most and stayed in touch with the most?

MC: Sean Connery. That's a bit of a cheat really, because Sean and I were friends anyway before we made the picture. Actors--movie actors--don't see each other again. I've worked with Roger Moore, too, and he's another one that I'm close to.

But even for those... I live in England. One lives in Switzerland and the other lives in the Bahamas. So I never see them. You never see each other. My circle of friends are not actors at all. None of them are actors, really, because they're are not available. They're always off somewhere.

One of my friends was my tailor, one of my best friends, who died of Alzheimer's. Dougie Hayward. Another close friend is Leslie Bricusse who's a composer. He's always where he wants to be and he lives near me in England. There's the photographer Terry O'Neil and a guy called Johnny Gold who had the big London discotheque, Tramp, in the '60s where I used to go and drink vodka.

So you bond with actors and get on with them very well, and then, you don't see them. If you're a leading actor you don't work with another actor. You work with a lady, if you see what I'm saying.

Q: How did you bond with James Bond, so to speak? Did you two meet outside of work?

MC: Oh, yeah.

Q: What was the connection that made you such good friends?

MC: Well, we always were. When I met him, Sean Connery was a chorus boy in South Pacific. What had happened was that [its producers] came to London to do South Pacific and had to have all these American sailors, big tough sailors, singing "There's Nothing Like a Dame." They did auditions with London chorus boys who were not really very butch. They had all these little, skinny guys, and it looked ridiculous when they sang "There's Nothing Like A Dame." So the producer went around to all the gymnasiums and Sean was like Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was Mr. Edinburgh. He was going for Mr. Great Britain and Mr. World. He was a big weightlifter, a great big guy. The opening night of South Pacific was a Thursday and I went to a party on the Saturday night and met him there. He was 24 and I was 22. That's where we met.

Q: What still excites you about the parts you do?

MC: The degree of difficulty and the people that I'm working with. For instance, I like to work with young directors, and I had seen the two films that John [Crowley] made [Intermission and Boy A].

I made another picture [recently], Harry Brown, and saw the one picture that the director Daniel Barber made. I think it was called The Tonto Woman. He got nominated for the [Best Live Action Short] Oscar in 2008 for it and now, this is his first feature. So I like to do that. I mean, even Christopher Nolan was a young director with only two small movies when we did Batman Begins.

Q: Is there a certain kind of fun when you do big tentpole movies like The Prestige or Batman?

MC: Oh, yeah, it's wonderful. I love doing those [kinds of films]. I love working with Christopher Nolan. I think he's a new David Lean, Christopher is. He's extraordinary.

I've seen everything he's ever done. I've worked with him on three pictures and I just think he's the most extraordinary director and has an incredible imagination. Remember, he writes these scripts.

Q: Having worked with him, what do you think about that business that went around about Christian Bale's temper?

MC: Well, I was surprised that Christian did it, because he doesn't have a temper. He's a very quiet man. I can't remember, and I will swear in conversation not in anger, but say things like "Bugger this" and so on. I don't even remember Christian swearing in conversation. So it was a big surprise to me. The fact that he did it is not a surprise to me. If I had been him, I would've done it and I would've done it longer and better than he did.

Q: You have a line in this movie that goes, "There are so many things that I'd like to say and do before the curtain comes down." What's your bucket list?

MC: Unlike [Clarence], I've been very successful. So I was allowed to say and do everything. I don't have any regrets because I'm very optimistic, and live each day as though it's the last. So I don't have any feelings that he would've had about life.

Q: And that's keeps you young and looking great?

MC: Well, I do a lot of exercise.

Q: Do you go to the gym?

MC: No, I'm a walker. I walk about five miles a day and I'm a gardener. If you're a gardener you don't need a gym, I'll tell you. You're always carrying large sacks of manure all over.

Another Tribeca Film Festival Spreads Downtown Throughout the City

Advance Story by Brad Balfour with Eric Lurio

It all started with 9/11 when the planes that hit the twin towers devastated lower Manhattan and one of the wealthier neighborhoods--TRIBECA (the TRIangle BElow CAnal Street). Originally an industrial area, artistic types moved into inexpensive lofts and turned them into luxury housing during the 1970s.

One local resident--megastar actor Robert DeNiro--decided to start a film festival in the area to revive the neighborhood and city. So, in the fall of 2001, mere weeks after the attack, he and producers Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff announced that the first Tribeca Film Festival would happen the following May.

In 2002, the initial Tribeca Film Festival was a major success. Unlike most film festivals in New York City, the emphasis was as much on "festival" as on film, and the event included a rock concert in Battery Park and a children’s street fair.

Now, with the exception of the street fair, the festival has all but abandoned Tribeca itself eight years later. With this year's Tribeca Film Festival--running from April 22nd to May 3rd--most of the screenings take place either in Chelsea or the East Village; and there are a bunch of screenings at the DGA theater on West 57th street (the opening night is at the Ziegfeld Theater on W. 54th St.), miles away from the neighborhood it was originally promoted.

De Niro and company have been trying to create a New York film festival like those in Toronto and Berlin that has an impact on both the entertainment industry and the public at large, something a bit populist, a worthy cause.

With the price at $15 per individual ticket (general screenings prior to 6 pm or after 11 pm are $8, but of course that's doesn't include service charges which depend on how you get tix) there may be problems for attending, especially in this recession. And keep in mind, there are some expensive panels--"Behind the Screens" and "Tribeca Talks"--are $25.

[left: image from Love The Beast] This year, there are only about half the films that were there last year, which may be better idea if these are more hits than misses--plus you usually get the directors and cast doing Q & As after the screenings. And the free outdoor films--The Drive-In--are going to be at the World Financial Center Plaza, so no one has to cross the West Side Highway as in the past.

There are free things as well: a couple of panels--and some at the Apple Store in Soho--plus the aforementioned Drive-In. And there's the one event that actually takes place in Tribeca--the Family street fair on Greenwich between Hubert and Chambers Street.

But most people come here for the movies, so there are 45 World Premieres,15 North American Premieres, 12 New York Premieres, Five International Premieres and Three U.S. Premieres. If you go, The fest has lots of new films to see.

[left: image--Kobe Doin' Work] The festival is divided up into the following categories: The Galas (which includes the opening night film, Woody Allen's "Whatever Works"--to be seen at midtown's Ziegfeld; Spike Lee’s “Kobe Doin' Work” and the Nia Vardalos starrer “My Life In Ruins”) World Narrative Competition; World Documentary Competition; Encounters; Showcase; Midnight; Restored/Rediscovered; Shorts; and the ESPN Sports Film Festival track.

Then there are other things like panel discussions for those who are into the mechanics of filmmaking and the issues surrounding it; they have famous people talking about the craft which is always more fun to see live than on screen. Plus, there just all those people that come to town to remind us that NYC is Hollywood East!

For more infomation--check out the website www.tribecafilm.com/festival or call (646) 502-5296

Q & A: Actors Sienna Miller And Peter Sarsgaard Explore "The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh"

Feature Interview by Brad Balfour

Somewhat like her character in Mysteries In Pittsburg--the alluring classical violinist Jane Bellwether--Sienna Miller is a compelling, straightforward person who makes no bones about what she's about and how she handles her life in the spotlight. Her fellow cast member Peter Sarsgaard, who, like his character, the seductive Cleveland Arning, can be this wry, almost snarky, individual who, in a rapid-fire manner, replies as playfully to questions as much as he answers them.

In a sense, they replicate the experience of meeting their cinematic alter-egos in this celluloid approximation of Michael Chabon's debut novel Mysteries of Pittsburg. While novice director Rawson Marshall Thurber makes a valiant, though flawed, attempt to render this story of just-graduated college student Art Bechstein--played by Jon Foster [who wasn't available for this interview]--son of gangland boss Joe The Egg Bechstein (Nick Nolte), who struggles to break away from his father's suffocating demands before he's forced into a job he doesn't want. during that summer in 1983, he works in a bookstore, repeatedly screws his attractive but clingy boss Phlox (Mena Suvari) and then meets provocative Jane and Cleveland in this coming-of-age story set in Pittsburgh--all against his dad's wishes.

Thanks to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Chabon's support, Thurber (who wrote Dodgeball) fulfilled a 10-year obsession to get this novel adapted as a film. For Sarsgaard, he got to play the meaty role of a doomed, off-beat provocateur; he understands such parts. After all, the 38-year-old Illinois-born actor has tackled such difficult, or even nasty, characters in Jarhead, Rendition and Boys Don't Cry.

For Miller, this film's release adds to a cycle of films she made one after another (from Alfie, to Layer Cake, to Factory Girl and more), that she hopes, will deflect attention away from her celeb status and place it squarely on her career efforts.

And in a world fraught with such dire events as the Taliban executing a couple for trying to elope, a film that offers a touch of enlightenment is worth talking about (with a small crew of journos) and writing about as well.

Q: Peter, you have your beard--but this was shot more than two years ago.

PS: This is [because] I just went canoeing in the Everglades and just got back and I didn't shave down there.

Q: Does canoeing in the Everglades save the Everglades?

PS: Do you think it saves the Everglades if I canoe in them and talk about it?

Q: Did you see tons of alligators...

PS: And crocodiles and sharks and dolphins and bald eagles and spoonbills and flamingos. I saw two bald eagles.

Q: Have you been to the Everglades as well?

SM: I have not been to the Everglades, no. It sounds amazing, but I've been to Pittsburgh. We both have.

Q: What was it like shooting in Pittsburgh?

SM: It was great.

PS: Totally great. Pittsburgh is obviously a city that's undergoing huge changes in the last couple of years since the mills closed. It's really become this extraordinary city. It's so clean. I was never there when the air was not clean, but it's just this gorgeous city if you love green and rivers...

SM: The bridge when you go in is stunning.

PS: It's fantastic. It kind of opens up this whole thing.

Q: Can you explain about your characters' relationship in this film; is it doomed even before one of you is doomed?

PS: Well, it's only doomed if you have expectations for what it might be, I guess. They're doomed to get married...

SM: It's a destructive relationship.

PS: Oh, it's not that destructive.

SM: No, but the character of Cleveland is one of those people that's very magnetic and very drawn to you, but ultimately can't be tamed in a way.

Q: Was your character conscious of that and just couldn't let go?

SM: Well, she talks about it.

Q: But was she honest with herself about it?

SM: I think she was very in love and very blinded by that.

Q: What about his bisexuality. do you think it really matters in their relationship--is she bisexual, too?

SM: I don't think she is. I think from the scene where she discovers it, it's obvious that she was hurt. I don't think that I alluded to being bisexual in the film as a character or in life, but hopefully that scene says it all. Her reaction to seeing that is one of hurt.

PS: Cleveland's bisexuality, it even seems like a funny word to call it that, but it is.

Q: Peter, you can call it something else?

PS: It's like he's an omnivore. If someone else went and filled up my plate and put whatever they wanted on it, I would eat the entire thing. It's about appetite. And the beautiful thing about him is that he doesn't have any shame about any of it. It's just the way he is and it's just the way he wants to live.

In his head, he might even think that all of his behavior, including his bisexuality, is pretty mythic, pretty awesome, pretty rock-and-roll because he's living in his own fantasy of a thing. It's like, did his heroes have bisexual relationships? Sure. Did they have heterosexual ones? Sure. They did all those things.

Q: Sienna, was your character aware that he was bisexual prior to seeing him with another man?

SM: I don't think she was or if she was I don't think she chose to acknowledge it.

Q: She's trying to warn the other friend, Art, though, that he has an explosive persona.

SM: Yeah, I think she warns him that you can't change him, that this is who he is and he's very much staying with his own personality. But again, when the image she's confronted with, that image of them in bed is, I think, [is of] massive hurt. Not necessarily because he's with a guy, but [it's] hurt because the two people she loves the most in the world have betrayed her. Also, he sleeps with other women. I think she's not naïve [about that].

PS: If it had been another woman would Jane have been upset the same amount or more upset?

SM: Well, there was also the scene where you [Cleveland] is sleeping with another women. I don't think it was necessarily about--I'm sure she was probably shocked that you two were in bed together--but it was more the betrayal of the two people she loved and trusted most [who] had done this to her.

Q: Do you think we're living in a time when it's impossible to be shocked at anything we see onscreen anymore?

PS: Oh, if your goal is to shock people with your movie then, you know…like [see] I Stand Alone. Did you ever see that movie? I found it pretty harrowing and shocking.

SM: Or Irreversible.

PS: Irreversible. That's by the same director [Gaspar Noe], I think.

SM: Yes, exactly. Oh, my God. I couldn't watch it. I was traumatized. I think that people like to feign shock because it's what you're supposed to do, but actually deep down it's not that shocking. Irreversible and I Stand Alone is shocking, brutal and brilliant. But two men in a scene is actually not shocking.

Q: Did you find that you guys used the [Michael] Chabon book or that you wanted to stay away with it?

PS: My character had been so combined between two characters that the book was confusing to me. I read the book out of curiosity, but I read it after I'd read the script and decided to do the movie. So it was like, "Oh, I wonder if there is anything in there."

But sometimes I would think, "Oh well, I guess anything is okay to use." But if you read the book, it's unclear who Cleveland is exactly in [it].

SM: After I'd agreed to do the film, I read the book again, and I loved it and I actually did get some more insight into who [Jane] was from Chabon's point of view. But then he was very much involved in the film process and the script. So any evolutions that it made he'd approved and was content with.

Q: What did you get out of playing this character? What was the appeal? Aren't you doing a big summer movie like Gi Joe: The Rise of Cobra too?

SM: I've historically always been drawn towards and gravitated to the smaller movies, independent films. That's kind of where I've always been and that's my comfort zone. Doing something like GI Joe was just a new experience and after that I'm going on Broadway in the fall.

I think for me it's the ability to hop between all different types of genres to figure out what I love. I think honestly I'm more comfortable doing these roles and that they tend to be the films that I prefer watching personally, but the experience of making a film like GI Joe is so different and fun in it's own way.

Q: Do you play a soldier in that?

SM: No. I play a villain.

Q: So you're a bad girl?

SM: Well, I'm a villain with guns, rifles, black leather, black wigs and gadgets.

PS: I'm first [one] in line!

Q: Did you work out your characters together before each scene or did that happen more spontaneously?

PS: There was no working out of anything.

SM: We tend to approach [it] the same way. Show up and jump.

Q: There's a fourth character in the book. Did you find that the movie changed a lot by not having that character?

PS: To be honest with you the book is kind of a distant memory for me. Rawson [Marshall Thurber, the director] took liberties with the book. Michael Chabon, it's huge of him; [he] was very agreeable to that. It really was about the script and not the book.

SM: But in essence you come away from the film and the book with the same feeling.

Q: Which is... sadness or astonishment?

SM: Which is a nostalgia and sadness, yeah. I cried at the end of the book. I haven't [yet] seen the film.

PS: I was about to go into a reverie that no one would find very interesting [laughs].

Q: Peter, your character is described at the very onset as a lunatic and you've just referred to him as a omnivore. Did you take the hint that he's kind of crazy and self-destructive?

PS: I didn't take any of it that literally at all. To be honest with you, when I thought about playing this character the things that came to mind were like the image of Julian Schnabel holding onto like a big piece of chicken and sitting in front of a huge fireplace.

SM: In like his dressing gown.

PS: In his dressing gown. The jazz musician Ornette Coleman wears these blazers that always have primary colors on them. He just has this style that I've always been fascinated with. I don't wear things like that in the movie though I did wear one blazer in honor of that.

But I was searching for this guy that had transcended even what it meant to live in Pittsburgh, that there was no relationship between him and that time. The way that I look in the movie came from something that he had really dreamed up, that he was trying to become something that was in his mind.

There have been a lot of great artists like that. It's too bad he didn't play an instrument or something because a lot of great artists are like that. Like Andy Warhol came from Pittsburgh, but where did he get the whole thing? It came from him mind.

SM: Do you know actually, about Warhol, that his mother used to feed him on Heinz baked beans and in every cupboard there were rows and rows of beans. This is true. I've studied a lot [about] Andy Warhol. He got inspiration from the mundane.

PS: His hair. Where did he come up with the style and the whole thing? That's from his mind.

Q: You've both played bohemian characters before. What's your attraction to that type of character?

SM: I don't know if Jane was that bohemian in this film. I think she's in love with someone who's very bohemian and she's experimenting as people do when they're growing up and discovering things about themselves. But in essence she plays the violin. She wants to go to college. She's trying to setup her own life and isn't a bohemian. I have played bohemians.

PS: I wouldn't call her bohemian at all.

SM: No, I wouldn't either, but maybe we just bring an element of being bohemian into our characters because we are.

Q: Your bohemian-ism seems to inform the characters.

PS: With internet isn't everyone bohemian now? Everyone knows everything. I mean, my dad grew up in West Point, Mississippi, a town of just a few thousand people on the border of Alabama and my dad has been doing this photo project of people in the East Village that he calls bohemians. So my dad says, "I'm photographing bohemians." To him it's like going to the zoo. It's like amazing. It's like, "A bohemian. A poet. Look at this person."

You would have to be that sheltered to not have ever been exposed to that stuff and think that it was other. I think it's been so incorporated into the way that we live that every kid knows of Allen Ginsberg if they want to. But it's not even Allen Ginsberg. Look at their heroes, they're all bohemians.

Q: What was your attraction to this role?

SM: I went through this year of working back to back to back and I didn't want to stop.

Q: What did you start that year with?

SM: I started that year with… Oh, God, I can't even remember. I just know that I think I'd done, or no Factory Girl was done.

PS: You'd just done Factory Girl or it was just being cut as we were filming.

SM: Was it? Oh, yes. I'd done Factory Girl, Interview, something else I don't remember, this and it was just this crazy year of work and I just wanted to keep on working. I'd always really admired Peter. I had actually read an interview with Peter in The New York Times Magazine and thought that he was extraordinary as an actor and as a person. So I really wanted the opportunity to work with him.

PS: And I respond extremely well to that kind of flattery.

Q: What about the erotically-charged film you did with Keira Knightley?

SM: That was after, yeah. I think that I did something after this. The Edge of Love was a year and a half ago. This was two and a half years ago.

Q: Was Casanova before Gi Joe your lastest...

SM: It goes... Layer Cake, Alfie, Casanova and then Factory Girl into something else, this [I think]. I'm just trying to work it out. I can't remember. It's awful.

PS: It's not awful. Nobody remembers anything.

Q: Do you feel like you've gotten the focus back on you, Sienna Miller, The Actress, rather than the tabloid stuff?

SM: It's very hard for people. I think the media comes up with what they want you to be and there's very little you can do to change that. I can do several other things in my life that won't be documented because it doesn't sell newspapers. So they will document or create [what they want].

PS: They won't take pictures of me being an ass. They just won't print them. It doesn't matter. I can walk down the street, pushing the baby carriage, smoking a cigarette, propositioning a hooker and no one takes a picture of it.

SM: Your irony or sarcasm will actually translate to print. Mine somehow gets very lost in translation.

Q: To change the subject, both of you have done theater. Do you have a ritual before going onstage that you're superstitiously do?

PS: No. I have a practical one. I use the toilet, but every actor does that.

SM: I generally just sort of quiver and shake going into a complete, "Why have I done this? I can't do this" moment.

Q: Do you cry every performance or just on opening night?

SM: I get incredibly nervous, but that's something, a quality in some actors that you like putting yourself through hell like that.

Q: Peter, you're going to do a benefit for an organization that works with children who stutter?

PS: I am because I just worked with Austin Pendelton who's a stutterer and has used it to fabulous effect in his career. He talks about getting jammed on a word and how freeing that can be. Do you know his work? He's an incredible, incredible, incredible actor and director. Just a ferocious director.

Honest, [Sienna] you would love acting with this guy. I'm going to it, honestly, because he asked me to. He directed Uncle Vanya. And he teaches acting.

Q: And what about Broadway?

SM: I'm doing a Patrick Marber play in the fall with The Roundabout Theater. After Miss Julie. The adaptation is from [August] Strindberg's Miss Julie that's been done at The Donmar in London. Me and Johnny Lee Miller at the moment. It's [just] three people in the cast. I'm playing Miss Julie in that.

Q: The dominatrix?

SM: The dominatrix? No. I think it's far more complicated than that. She's absolutely not a dominatrix.

PS: She's a dominatrix. He's bisexual.

Q: When do you start the run?

SM: We start rehearsals the 20th of August. We open the 22nd of October and I'm doing it until the 14th of December, but I think just extended.

Q: What characters have you not played that you would like to play?

SM: There's nothing specific. I don't have a list of things. There are eras that I'm fascinated with. I know when I'm doing a film I really research the time. I'd love to do something in the '20s around Scott and Zelda [Fitzgerald]. All of that I'm fascinated by. I'd love to do a real period [film], but way back, a medieval type thing. I'm a big fan of history.

PS: When I'm a little older, I really want to play Col. Vershinin from Three Sisters by [Anton] Chekhov. Maggie [Gyllenhaal, Peter's wife] and I did Uncle Vanya this year and we're talking about it. It was so nice performing together in a theater that only has two hundred people max, one hundred ninety nine that there's no effort to sell.

It will never be something that transfers. It will never be a commercial product and we've always wanted to act together, but it's hard to do a movie together as a couple and then watch it bomb. How many couples have you seen do that and how horrible that must feel for them.

For us, we didn't know whether people loved it or hated it. We just knew that it was filled every night and they clapped and we didn't read the reviews. We just went home and we felt fantastic and we just want to do that as much as possible.

Q: Do you prefer the stage more than film?

PS: I do like acting onstage more, but there's a craft to acting on film and it's very cool. I really like acting. So when you're doing a stage play you do tons of acting. Every night you act straight for two hours straight, plus and then you do it again. It feels good.

SM: I think there's nothing like the feeling of live theater, but people then, if you do a play, say, "Oh, that's real acting." And I've done work in film where it felt very much like real acting. It's just a different technique. But the buzz of being onstage with a live audience is kind of unbeatable. Anything can go wrong.

I've gotten terrible giggles onstage and incorporated it somehow into a Shakespeare heavy scene and it worked. You just have to absolutely jump and go with your instincts. Anything can happen and I get a kick out of that.

Q: What happened to you playing Maid Marian in Robin Hood?

SM: The script has been evolving and changing and it often happens in films. They've been trying to make this for a couple of years. They've rewritten the script and needed someone who was older. I think now the husband, the person who plays the husband has been away for 10 years at war and comes back and it's feasible.

So Cate Blanchett is doing it. But this happens everyday. It's just the media doesn't make quite as much of a meal of it as they do when it happens to me, but this happens all the time. I'm sure it'll be a wonderful project and this is not an absolutely shocking thing to happen in the movie industry when scripts evolve. Casts change. Other people have also been changed in that cast, but they just were not documented.

Q: Were you disappointed?

SM: No. It happens everyday. I would obviously love to work with Ridley [Scott], but I hope to in the future.

Q: Peter, In the Electric Mist only came out in English as a DVD?

PS: In The Electric Mist has two versions. It does. It has the European version and the American version. The European version is the one that Betrand Tavernier, the director, wants everyone to know is his version. It is one that would not appeal to most American audiences, or might not. Who knows. But there are two versions of the film. I've seen neither.

Q: You're good as the alcoholic movie star, Peter. You're poking fun...

SM: See, with him it's good. With me it wouldn't be poking fun.

Q: Of all those movies what's your favorite role that you've done in this period?

SM: I loved doing Edie [Sedgwick].

Q: Is there a place in the world that you want to visit?

SM: So, so many. Easter Island--I'd like to go see it before I die.

Q & A: Versatile Actor Craig Bierko Bets On A Revived Guys And Dolls

Exclusive Interview by Brad Balfour

What uncanny timing for a revival of Guys And Dolls. Based on gritty writer Damon Runyon's Depression-era short stories (and one in particular, "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown"), this version appears set in the Great Depression, peopled by characters of questionable morality struggling to survive, maybe thrive, and--while generally avoiding it on the surface--to find love and commitment in the midst of it all.

So it must be tough to be in a show that's gotten mixed reviews after you've worked so hard to realize your character, hammering away at learning the songs, hitting the right note (musically and theatrically), all the while getting the wry tone in place. And this isn't for just any musical. It's for one of the greatest Broadway shows of all time, one shadowed by the spectre of the late Marlon Brando--one of the greatest actors of all time. Brando played, if not the definitive version of Sky Masterson in the 1955 Samuel Goldwyn Company film version, then, essentially, a unique one.

With all that in mind, Guys And Dolls could come off as dated, a bit cranky and crusty, or even over-scrubbed if rendered in a too-sanitized fashion. That's not so much the case here, because veteran director Des McAnuff (his hit Jersey Boys got its period right) strives, though not entirely succeeds, in serving up both "a simultaneously razzmatazz and tawdry affair," as Theatermania's reviewer put it.

Armed with Frank Loesser's grand lyrics and score, and the dead-on book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, this show guns for grit and sentiment in "a mythic New York where a kind of perpetual sense of hopefulness exists, even when things are at their worst."

And that's where a solid New York theater veteran like Craig Bierko comes in. Since this version was cast with two neophytes to Broadway musicals--Oliver Platt (Nathan Detroit) and Lauren Graham (Adelaide)--it needed the strong broad experienced shoulders of the 6'4" Bierko to lend support to this production. Along with Kate Jennings Grant (playing Sarah Brown of the "Save a Soul" Mission), Bierko (as gambler Sky Masterson) delivers some of the most seductive, time-tested love tunes of the show.

With his 25 years of experience, from delivering a Tony and Drama Desk Award nominated performance as Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man to his stint on Boston Legal (as Jeff Coho), the square-jawed Bierko was a sensible choice to be in this show (currently playing at the Nederlander Theater). And certainly a smart choice of actor to be interviewed about the state of Broadway and the world in this exclusive Q & A.

Q: This show has a dramatic element to it that enhances it as a musical.

CB: It's deceptive. It's a spoonful of sugar. Aside from what I think is a brilliantly talented handful of co-stars that I'm blessed with, I think the reason you appreciated it was because [of director] Des McAnuff, whose directing was very sure handed, and realizes we've been handed the keys to a Ferrari.

This musical works, and is as close to perfect as an American musical can be. The mistake that a lot of people make with musicals when they come over here is, they'll take a Ferrari and paint flames on it and think it's going to go faster. There's an argument that you're actually slowing it down.

To extend the metaphor, [McAnuff] doesn't paint flames on a Ferrari, he repaves the track--the things he's done with the LED screen, the things he's done with casting choices, and also making sure that with each character he's lifted out a specific attribute, which is usually, what does this person want? How has it been working for them so far? Where's the point where they realize they're completely wrong, and if they don't change their way of thinking, they're going to be alone the rest of their lives?

That's the subliminal message being sent through this musical, and it's a message that every human being over 30 can relate to. Everybody's been all four of the main characters. Everybody's been running from somebody, been running after somebody, or had a childish preoccupation that they have had to give up. There are even people who've hidden behind morality and discovered, like Sarah, that they're truly just hiding from the world, and that God isn't impressed.

In my opinion, Adelaide and Nathan are two of a kind. It's easy for me to say--I'm not playing them. They're idiots, they're morons. But they're two of a kind, so it's sweet. They're made out of lead. They're very sweet, they love each other very much, they're operators and schemers, and they're lower rung.

Sky and Sarah are also two of a kind. The interesting thing to me, and the reason why this thing is ahead of its time--it was written [in the] late '40s or '50s [the first Broadway opening was November 1950]--she's hiding behind the Bible, he's hiding behind this code of being a sharpie, and they're both prevented from making contact with other human beings. It's almost like God is saying: "I created the world, but I don't need you to sing to me on Sundays; I'd rather you use that day to connect with other human beings."

Q: Did it makes sense to revive it now because of the times?

CB: Maybe that's true but a good play is a good play. It's a great story, so rich and compelling. It's a masterpiece and stands up any time you do it. I don't think there's a time not to do a great play, though certainly there are times not to do horrible plays. And to go back to the Ferrari metaphor, it's always nice to see a beautiful car take a couple spins around the track.

Q: This play has a relevant theme, besides just the ever-relevant theme of romance--especially if you put it into the context of the '30s. People turned to crime because, what other options were there? To put that on a Broadway stage during the '50s was a radical thing. Now, it's not so radical. We've had lots of plays about the dark side of life: Gypsy, Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, even Sweeney Todd.

CB: Every single play you've mentioned, they've come back and somebody brilliant has reinvented that play, and, largely, it's fallen flat. That's because these are American musicals--that is, a light presentation; it is fluff pastry with a meat center. The minute you put the meat on the outside, it falls apart, it doesn't work. The whole recipe falls apart.

You don't need to talk about gangsters and Depression and all that stuff. You can imply that stuff. But what people are responding to is: "I'm so afraid of being alone, even with this person I'm with, I'm afraid of being alone."

Q: But it was the idea that even gangsters have those feelings--that's what was fresh--The Sopranos of its day.

CB: People love to be told stories, but it's the sugar that draws you into the theater. This is a spiritual play. This is a play, let's face it, that was put mostly together by Jews. I wouldn't necessarily say this is a Christian play, although it uses the mission church, but it is about God. These were men of God. I don't think they were atheists. This is a deeply spiritual play.

Sky Masterson--Obadiah [Sky's birth name], by the way, is the guy in the Bible who leads everybody to God--goes down into the sewer, into Hell, to find the sinners. He bares himself, throws out all of his material stuff on one bet; he may have lost the bet, but he's willing to do that. He's willing to walk away from everything because he just wants to connect with God. Maybe I was going too far because I got excited about connecting the dots here that I went: Sky Masterson, Sky Masterson... Sky Master's son. That was the point where Des went, "Don't go nuts on me!"

And that's the novelist Damon Runyon, [whose stories] the play is based on. If you break the elements down, it's a witnessing event. The moment at the end of "Luck Be a Lady," the first day, Des said, "I've never seen this before and I've always wanted to see it: I don't want you to sing it to the guys, I want you to sing it right to--it could be God or whatever you believe in--and I want you on your knees."'

So I said, "Des, they're going to laugh." And he said, "Maybe some will, but I'm not interested in them." He was absolutely certain that this man needed to be brought to his knees.

I really fought him on it right into previews. You don't hear anything, so you don't know what people are responding to. There hadn't been a laugh. I can't know what people are responding to, but I know, in my own work, connecting my own dots to the story, not only was he right, it was necessary, and I can't imagine it any other way.

This is a spiritual story. This is a story about men and women being broken down to their bare essence, to the part of them that is God. This is a man who's in Hell, who's not only saying, "help me," but "help these guys get out of here; I'm going to give you everything." And that's what's happening. That's from the Bible.

Q: Runyon's stories were about down and dirty, grounded-in-reality characters. This play gives these characters an ambiguous humanity, which traditionally hadn't been seen with such characters. You don't always get that when you take the songs out of context, but when you put them back in context, you really appreciate the songs in a very different way.

CB: We're saying the same thing. I'm even digging a little deeper in saying once you get to these guys... What makes gangsters and Huffington Post writers the same? We're all in the fucking sewer. And maybe we do have a guy who's guiding us, leading us and inspiring us to give up an enormous amount to get out of the sewer.

There's a very basic human story churning on: people sink down, and then they get inspired again. It's human nature. This story reminds us that it's okay. That's what you're down here to do: you're going to sink down, and then... What's your reaction time? How long before you get out of the sewer? Once you're older than 40, are you doing something to help the other guys who are having trouble? That's what the play is about for me: save yourself, and grab two guys. Try. If they slip out of your hands, at least you tried.

Q: That's why the gospel scene--"Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat"--works so well.

CB: By the time that scene comes, it's an orgasm. There's a reason why Sky leaves the room. Tituss Burgess is amazingly talented; that's a great vessel to send that song through. Now we're a church--we actually brought church to the Broadway stage.

The reason people are reacting is because something has been released inside of them, and they're flying. The people who are open to something better, it's a great play for people to be experiencing at any point. But it's also like you said, especially now, because we're at that point in America where we're going to go through something tough, and once we do it we're going to be very happy we did it. And maybe we won't go back to the sewer again.

Q: All Broadway show characters, especially musicals, are "ratcheted up" They're not a real people, they're mythological persons. To make that real on stage is tough.

CB: The joy of it for me is, it's an opportunity to say, "Hey, I'm having this experience. Do you recognize this? Isn't this weird sometimes? Isn't this scary? Does this make you sad? Are you scared of this?"

That's the joy I get. You can feel that coming off an audience. Usually in the first few rows you can see the people's faces. You can see them reacting or not reacting to certain moments. I don't use that to drive what it is I'm doing but when you have that moment of connection, it's not in the words. It's in the behavior of somebody realizing--you can feel them kind of with you. It feels like what we're doing right now: human beings talking, souls rubbing up against each other. It's positive.

Q: What is it that makes us who we are or where are we in the world? Sometimes when you get a chance to talk and think about it, you're really getting in touch with it. That's what that experience of theater is: you have an encapsulated human process at work in this sort of abbreviated but hyper reality.

CB: My fear is, you buy a ticket and you go on a ride for something like that, and you have the Guys and Dolls experience, and from the very first note you're like, "Oh," and then you literally feel like you're on a ride.

Hopefully, you're fortunate to have someone like Des McAnuff as your ringmaster, so you're in good hands. He's certainly known as an impresario, a man who's in control of traffic. He's in the middle of what's going to be a long career. I suspect as it goes it along people are going to recognize him as a genius.

There are a lot of people who can pull levers and visualize and blurry the lines between film and stage and have you feel like you're moving through New York--that's all very exciting. What he did do is, he looked at this play, and Des's vision of the play is complete.

He has very strong personalities to work with in myself, Oliver Platt, or Lauren Graham. And they didn't agree on some things sometimes.

I look at Oliver as Muhammad Ali. It's his first musical. He's fearless and he's staying in there. There's a lot of actors who, because it wasn't in their wheelhouse naturally, would've backed off, shrunk away, and ended up in the corner. Whereas Muhammad Ali is one of those rare people who just stands up and gets right back in and ends up winning the fight, knowing that they're probably going to die going into the center of the ring. You just get up and you go anyway.

It's kinesthetic--the stuff I learn from Oliver. We're both fairly intelligent guys, and we can sit over coffee and we have a lot in common, we have friends in common. I've known Oliver off and on for close to 15 years--never worked with him, always been an admirer.

My conversation with Oliver is purely physical. I've watched his adjustments and it's made me braver as an actor. Not because of what he's saying or doing specifically, because the characters are different and our wheelhouses are different. But just the fact that he was starting at point A and he's getting to point Z is rare. I know what he had to do to get there, I've watched it every day, and I know that the bravery he had to summon, and really do it, and is in the midst of doing it.

And when I say that 98% of the actors I've seen don't have the balls to do what he's doing, forget the talent. If your natural inclination is to talk softly, which is what he does, and to have to play [in a loud voice] one of these guys, and be on stage for three hours and be one of these guys in an ice skating rink where you're not accustomed to ice skating--and there are blades under you so if you trip you're going to get cut--Oliver needed to go through this process in order to come around to the performance. In a very real way, Oliver has had to stretch himself as an actor. It's an extraordinarily inspiring thing to see, and it's rare.

A lot of actors like to talk about it because it's interesting interview meat, but I've been doing this for 25 years and I can count on two fingers the time I've actually seen people do and pull off what Oliver is doing. Everything he's doing complements every aspect of the production. He's the engine.

Q: Did you and Oliver talk about Ron Howard? Both of you have that ground in common since he was directed by Howard in Frost/Nixon and you were directed by him in Cinderella Man.

CB: Only in the sense that we were both pleasantly surprised when we met Ron Howard and were like, "Oh, he's just what Ron Howard would be like!" He's just a very nice, hard working, industrious guy.

Q: So did you guys talk about Frost/Nixon at all? Did you get to see it?

CB: I did see it. I thought it was very good. Oliver is always great. I'm always happy when Oliver's face pops up on screen. He has such a unique face. I had just watched the actual interviews before I saw the movie. I'm a YouTube junkie--they're fascinating. But no, Oliver and I hadn't talked much but Guys and Dolls the past month and a half.

Q: It's an interesting mix: Graham is known for television; Platt, for film. But you and Kate Jennings Grant are the Broadway vets. You see what they're going through, because they have to rise to that challenge that you can understand. Lauren Graham was a surprise, finding out that she can sing and dance. That was a pretty impressive display. Were you surprised yourself?

CB: No. First of all, I don't dance. When I did The Music Man, I called Susan Strohman a couple hours after she hired me and told her that I don't dance. "You didn't audition me as a dancer." She said, "I know." And I told her, "Well, I'm just telling you I don't stand up very fast, so I'm not kidding with you." And she just knew. She said, "Don't worry, just come ready to work." And she worked me and I've never worked that hard.

That's the thing: these people work hard, they work harder than most people. I don't know how much of a dancer Lauren was, but she started working out in Los Angeles before rehearsals even started. She's extremely dedicated. I never saw Gilmore Girls, so I don't think of her as a TV star, I just think of her as this girl Lauren. But when she walks out onstage and you hear all the Barbie dolls screaming, you realize, apparently she did a television show. My nieces are going to be so nervous around her. But I just see her as my friend Lauren who's doing this part. And she's incredible.

Q: Do you want to do something where you're much more of a comic?

CB: One of the reasons [Guys and Dolls] is a success is because Oliver and Lauren are funny, but those are funny parts. Kate Jennings Grant is hilarious, and that part has always been the one you forget while you're watching it. It's always been Bud Abbott in a dress. And she's hilarious; she's light, a knockout, she's extremely generous on stage, which is not always the case with actors. You can leave a stage with invisible bite marks that nobody in the audience is ever aware of; somebody is just tearing you apart on stage. She's not that person. I only met her for the first time at the audition. I get text messages from her every night just saying, "I feel so lucky."

Q: It's interesting, that you never thought of yourself as a dancer yet you did The Music Man and was nominated for a Tony Award.

CB: That was a beautiful production. Yeah, before that, I didn't dance. Before Cinderella Man, I didn't box. But I boxed. It's possible. You go and you work hard at things.

Q: So you had to train for that?

CB: Six months.

Q: So you really had to be able to be in that ring then?

CB: Yeah.

Q: So do you have to be really almost boxing each other?

CB: Well, there were some loose hits, they were genuine mistakes. [Russell Crowe] is a fantastic actor, very responsible. It's dancing. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers could've knocked each other out. We weren't doing anything different than Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were doing, just faster and with our arms. But it was dancing, and it was highly choreographed.

Q: So did you always know you were going to be an actor?

CB: Yeah, but I don't feel like one. Just at the point I got this play, I happened to be going through a period when I thought: this is silly, getting up and leaping around in Ferngully like this at the age of 44. And I thought, what am I doing? What is this world?

A lot of actors I had worked with seemed mentally unbalanced. It's only a matter of time before I go nuts myself. Around that time, and for a few years now, I never felt quite like what I figured an actor should feel like. I don't know that any actor does. I think feeling displaced or slightly removed is what an artist feels like.

Naturally I've always felt more like a writer myself, and I've always written. I have people who are writers who've been promoting that side of me. I also draw, too. Those things I feel most comfortable in. I don't know why, but as soon as I started doing this, I came around to thinking that the art that you actually do practice, maybe you don't feel entirely uncomfortable.

There's a wonderful book by David Mamet called True or False. I'll boil it down for you: most of the mythos that surrounds acting--this implied importance, usually generated by actors themselves--is bullshit. Not only are you not curing cancer, but there's an argument that in certain circumstances you're probably causing it!

I don't know exactly what acting is. I don't think it's not a noble profession. there are people who are good at it, even geniuses at it. I look at what some people do and I don't know how they can do that, how they can access that fury of emotion. But I'm not entirely sure what it is.

I also don't think it's that important, quite frankly. It's as important as being served a delicious meal and then putting too much emphasis on the silverware. Guys and Dolls is the meal and we're the silverware, essentially.

Q: Being able to do something like this and also being able to have an experience that people can have and share with their friends--that may be the cream that makes the coffee worthwhile.

CB: I suppose so. It does feel like cream though. In this experience, for example--reading this article, which I hope people do--it's not my experience with this that seems interesting to me, or any of the other people on stage romping around and having a great time.

The real fascinating thing to me is the guy I want to talk to, Abe Burrows--these guys pounded this piece of genius into shape 50 or 60 years ago. I read the book, and realized that this play didn't fall out of the sky. These people actually didn't know whether they had a bomb or not.

If you look at the construction of this play it's almost different from any other musical. It's scene, scene, scene, clump of song, clump of song, scene, scene, clump of songs. If you look at it on paper, it doesn't work.

Q: With the economy, will they be able to get the audiences into theaters?

CB: I know it's been doing really well. I know the word of mouth has been very positive. But I don't know the future better than anybody else does. I'm having a hell of a time.

I don't read reviews. Not that I don't have respect for reviewers, because I read reviews for other pieces that I want to learn about, and there's some very good reviewers. Some are mean, but that doesn't mean that they don't know their way around the review and you can't learn something from them.

But in terms of being the artist, I feel it's irresponsible to go by the opinion of someone who's observed your one responsibility. It gets difficult around preview time, and not everybody can do it. You listen to your director all the way through, he is your guide. There will be times when you don't trust him, and you may or may not come around, but he is your guide and you don't listen to any other voices.

Q: I haven't been to a musical in a long time where the people stand up and give you an ovation at the end. That's pretty impressive.

CB: Very gratifying.

Q: Do you have a list of which directors or actors you'd like to work with?

CB: When I had my meeting with Ron Howard, I was thinking, yeah, I'd love to work with Ron Howard. But I don't sit there thinking, "Boy, I'd love to work with Ron Howard one day."

You know who I'd love to work with? The Marx Brothers. It's probably not going to happen!

I love Fred Willard. I love Fred for the same reason I love W.C. Fields, and Groucho [Marx]. Fred Willard discovered something that nobody has ever done--it is a completely unique comic voice. And you can say, 'Well, no, he's the dumb guy who thinks his IQ is 17 points higher than it actually is, and there are people who have done that.' But they haven't done that with his rhythm, and not with what he does.

You can tell someone is great when they keep popping up in stuff that's beneath them. Most of the material can't rise to his talent, which is why you realize that people like the Marx Brothers, or W.C. Fields, or Buster Keaton--these guys from yesterday created material to suit this thing they invented.

If Don Knotts' career had happened 30 years previously, I think he would have been as big as any of them. He was doing something that was completely unique. But because he wasn't a writer, he was kind of a slave, like Stan Laurel. That's another one I want to work with, Stan Laurel! I want to have him explain to me how to solve the problem that I always have of picking something off the desk.

I imagine it all the time. When you have a comic problem, you think, what would W.C. Fields do? Well, whatever it is he would do, he wouldn't be doing this. He'd probably get thirteen laughs out of this thing I'm trying to make happen.

Q: Are you going to continue Bathing with Bierko, your strangely comical series of web interviews?

CB: There are a few outlets that want me to. That was shot back in Los Angeles, and I would want to use that bathtub because it was perfect. That's the set, that's the Tonight Show set. That's Carrie Fisher's bathtub, which used to be Bette Davis' bathtub. And it's a little too small for me, so it's actually perfect. People want to do it, but it wouldn't happen for another year or so.

Q: Who is on your list to interview in the bathtub? I won't steal any bathtub contenders.

CB: It doesn't matter, I won't tell you anyway. It's usually somebody who won't do something like that who's on the list. That's why it takes time to put the list together. The people who wouldn't normally do something like that won't do that. Every once in awhile, you go up to somebody and they surprise you--like John Malkovich, who goes, "of course, why wouldn't I?"

Q: Did you interview Carrie Fisher in her bathtub?

CB: No. We're trying to figure out how to do women, it's a little trickier. No bubbles, though. That's like underwear with hearts on it, it can't be funny. It's the awkwardness that people respond to. And it's less awkward with a woman. It's mostly awkward with two straight men. That's one of the elements, that's what we discovered makes it key. And to me it's not even funny, it's just awkward, which is funny. But you've got to get to awkward before funny.

Q: What was your experience like with Boston Legal?

CB: My experience was that they create the illusion of the greatest, most fun place to work, but it was hard work. It was very interesting for me, because it's not a world I usually go to. I don't watch those shows about doctors and lawyers. It was such a compliment that [creator David Kelley] asked me to do this, that I did it. It was great, but it wasn't quite my sensibility. But I enjoyed doing it.

Q: They took the lawyer show and turned it on its head.

CB: Television shows, especially hour-longs, are hard, tiring work. Those people are very tired and very rich. But they're working really hard, and to create the illusion of having the time of your life like that, you really got to give it up to the people who do it.

Q: A lot of stage actors seem more exciting than film actors because of their range. How did you decide on your choices?

CB: I really don't have a strategy. At the beginning of my career I was sort of frustrated because I wasn't sure how to pinpoint myself yet. But in terms of having a plan, I'm not constructed that way.

I'm blessed with a faulty memory, which is not a good thing to have if you're going to start constructing a plan, because you need to have "this" experience in order to inform "[that]" experience. I really don't think like that.

Any decision that's made about my career is ultimately my decision, and it's helped me not to plan too much. I've never been the guy thinking, "I want to do a play this year, I want to do this kind of movie or this kind of character." I don't have that sort of control.

It's been just seeing what comes along and taking advantage of what excites me. It's led to what some people might consider bad decisions, and other times, it's been great decisions. Whatever it has, it's led me here.

Without getting too Buddhist, I just naturally have been in the moment in the entire time. I'm very happy with my life and with my career.

There's some alchemy between being present on stage and fulfilling the requirements of a scene, and also remembering that there's a funnel effect--you have to send it out through a megaphone so that people can experience it. I don't know how that happens.

I know that part of it is purely kinesthetic, it's not something you can articulate. That's why I get suspicious of acting school, to a point. Personally, I don't know what I did or didn't get from acting school. A lot of whatever it is that I have is experiential, getting up on stage and getting a sense.

I used to have a singing teacher who said, "You want to find the place with your voice where the room starts ringing." That's an impossible thing to relate to unless you've actually been in a room and you realize, "Oh, if I keep my tone here, it feels like the room is vibrating in a weird way." It's the same way, perhaps on an emotional level, that is purely experiential. It's like explaining to somebody how to run fast.