Published on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - 12:07pm
A few weeks back, I interviewed Viggo Mortensen about a film coming out in very limited release this week called GOOD. Set in the early days of the National Socialist moment in Germany, GOOD centers on a German professor (Mortensen) who wrote a harmless novel years before World War II that inadvertently served the Nazis as a justification for their theories of racial purity and the killing of the Jewish people. The book serves as such a great inspiration and blueprint for the Final Solution that the professor is elevated through the Nazi ranks almost without any ambition on his part to do so. Jason Isaacs play's Mortensen's best friend, Maurice, who just happens to be Jewish. The changing dynamic of their relationship serves as the films metaphor for how ordinary people who never had a prejudice thought in their life could inch by inch be pushed into such deplorable circumstances and deeds.
Isaacs in one of the great character/lead actors working today. Most people recognize him from his role as the white-haired Lucius Malfoy in the HARRY POTTER films. But I remember him going all the way back to his early work in British cinema, including perhaps the only Paul W.S. Anderson film worth watching more than once, SHOPPING. He has made fairly memorable supporting appearances in such films as DRAGONHEART, EVENT HORIZON, SOLDIER, and ARMEGEDDON. But for many it was his prisoner-killing portrayal of Col. William Tavington, the evil British officer in THE PATRIOT, opposite Mel Gibson, that solidified Isaacs in their mind as a force in acting.
Since THE PATRIOT, he's been one of the busiest actors on the planet with roles in such films as BLACK HAWK DOWN; WINDTALKERS; THE TUXEDO; PETER PAN (in which he played Mr. Darling and Captain Hook); NINE LIVES; and FRIENDS WITH MONEY. Isaacs has also done his fair share of TV acting with a memorable three-episode stint on "West Wing," a recent hilarious turn on "Entourage," and a leading role on the recently concluded Showtime gangster series "Brotherhood."
Much like the interview I had with Mortensen, Isaacs and I
didn't really have a time limit…and the man is a great talker…and he'll answer
any question you put before him. I can't think of a better set of circumstances.
I've always dug Isaacs as a solid, all-purpose performer, but I was lucky enough
to find out he's a great guy to converse with on top of that. Just to put this
interview in full context, we actually spoke at the end of October 2008, so his
references to "Brotherhood" might make more sense in that time frame. Enjoy
Jason Isaacs!
Jason Isaacs: So this is for the fantastic Ain'tItCoolNews.com?
Capone: It is. I just got around to watching the episode of "Entourage" that you're in. I had no idea you were even in it.
JI: Ah right. That was really quite fun. I had such a great time doing that.
Capone: I'm not used to being surprised by "Entourage," but that was a great little twist about your character.
JI: Me too! My agent goes, "Listen, you're going to be in L.A. anyway, and they wanted to know if you wanted to do an episode of 'Entourage.'" And I said, "Are you kidding? I love that show; I'd kill to do it. What is the part?" And he said, "I don't know." And I said, "Whatever it is, I'll do it." So they sent the script over, and I suddenly got to the last scene and was like, "Oh yeah!" I'm in!
At should say that as far as Ain't It Cool News, I'm a total techno-geek. Even before my children arrived, I was on bulletin boards before there was a world wide web. I've been on Ain't It Cool News since its very, very first text-based construction. I have it on my bookmarks and go to it constantly. I love the breadth of it and the passion for film of the feedback, and how it maintains a sort of outsider status among the, let's face it, mainstream establishment of review sites. And I mean that in all the right ways. Like the Olympics used to be amateur, there's an amateur approach that you are not part of the establishment. I love it.
Dean Devlin [producer of THE PATRIOT and GODZILLA, among many other titles] is a friend of mine, and I remember he was one of the first people to go, "We should invite this guy to the set." It was one of the very first set visits web writers ever did, because that didn't used to happen.
Capone: Mel Gibson returned the favor by coming down to Austin a couple of times for screenings of PASSION OF THE CHRIST and APOCALYPTO. We weren't feel like outsiders then.
JI: Do you have a name you write under?
Capone: I write as Capone.
JI: Oh, you're Capone! And Moriarty, who I've met, has always been unbelievably nice about me. And it's weird when you meet people who have been nice to you because you think, "I'm going to blow it." And they're going to think, "That guy's a dick, I'm never going to say anything nice about him again." But he was really charming and lovely. And, hey, there's no social obligation for you guys. If you see something and you think it stinks, you have to call it like it is.
Capone: Are you still friendly with Paul W.S. Anderson? I thought I'd read somewhere you might be making a new movie with him.
JI: I'm very friendly with him, and he's a lovely guy who was very helpful to me early on in my career. But I've just never been available when he's been making films lately. I've read a lot of his scripts and saw cuts of DEATH RACE and stuff, but I never see him. He lives in L.A.; I live in London.
Capone: At one point I thought I'd seen you in a cast list for a film called MAN WITH FOOTBALL.
JI: I don't even know if that's a film. I said to him, "What is this film we're making together?" [laughs] I hadn't seen him in ages, and he had a baby with Milla [Jovovich], and I went 'round his house to see him. I never come to L.A. anymore because I've been making "Brotherhood" for years and doing other things. L.A. is a place I go to find work, and I wasn't really available for a time. I was in L.A. for the Golden Globes this year, which didn't happen, so I had time for social things like calling on old friends, like Paul. So I called Paul and went to see the baby, and saw a cut of DEATH RACE. And I said, "Hey, do you know we're making a film together?" And he said, "Yeah, what the fuck is that?" I had no idea. But I'd love to work with him again because there is a shorthand--I know this is cliché. As an actor, your job is to feel loose and free and you're going to have fun and remove every trace of fear and anxiety from your body so you can do your best work. The last thing you want to think is, "Geez, all those people by the monitor are wondering how I'm going to fuck up their film and waste their $100 million." And when it's someone you like and likes you and likes your work and you like their work, you just feel free to go nuts and reach for stuff.
I'm doing GREEN ZONE with Paul Greengrass as soon as we finish "Brotherhood" next week. You get the same feeling, when it's an old friend of yours, you get to do your best stuff. So I'd love to work with him again.
Capone: Paul gets a lot of crap on the internet…
JI: Especially from you guys, are you kidding?! [laughs] He is an absolute hate figure for you guys. But if you spent time with him, you'd think he was a really nice guy. He loves the kind of films that he makes. He just likes simple, cracking, bold-edged storytelling. Every time I see what Paul is up to, I ask him, "Is this really what you want to make?" And he's like, "Are you kidding? I can't wait to make it." It's great that he loves those films and likes that genre and that he likes to work on those types of stories with those types of pallets. There are people out there, not just in film, who are worthy of that kind of venom, and he's just not one of them. It's so odd for me to read it.
Capone: I'm not one of the knee-jerk haters. I actually had fun with SHOPPING, RESIDENT EVIL, and DEATH RACE. How does he handle all of that disdain?
JI: You know what? He's a really remarkable man. One of the reasons I like him so much is that he's remarkably optimistic and positive about everything in his life. And there's no question that SOLDIER was a setback for everybody involved. There's no way to reconstruct the experience; it was an out-and-out failure for everybody. And Paul just retrenched, locked himself in his lovely house, wrote some scripts, worked his way back, never felt sorry for himself, never got bitter or blamed the marketing or the poster, never got jealous of anybody else. He just went, "Okay, well that didn't work. Now I'm going to do something that does." He did a pilot for FX. He wrote a script for someone else to direct. And finally RESIDENT EVIL was the thing that put him back at the Hollywood top table. There was no part of him that became embittered by the process. He thought, "I got very well paid to learn a very expensive lesson to follow your guts." He had a great script for SOLDIER, which was not the script that they shot. And God knows, everyone should be allowed failures. I don't really understand baseball statistic, but if you bat .450. you're one of the greatest players ever. If that statistic was applied to a film director, you'd be a Hall of Fame film director.
Capone: Most of his movies make money. There's no denying that.
JI: Right. And more important for me, the end result is one thing and it's key if you want to keep being in films like he does, but the process of making them is really my experience. You write your articles; you don't read it. So my experience has been, I have a great time making stories with him, and that's important.
Capone: I did not have a chance to meet Paul at ComicCon this year when he brought the DEATH RACE footage, but I would have liked to.
JI: He has a relish. You know what I really enjoy in filmmaking? There's nothing greater than a relish from everybody who can't wait to tell the story, and they're enjoying themselves. There are two types of directors to me who sit behind the monitors watching--and the end result may be the same, but for an actor the experience is very different. There are those who call "Action" and wonder what's going to fuck up. How is this person going to get it wrong? How is the camera going to move wrong? How is the scenery going to be wrong? What will we have to correct to get what I need? And you feel that; you feel that negativity, that fear. It may produce good results, but it's not as much fun as an actor. Then there are the ones who sit behind the monitor and go "What awesome magic is going to be unleashed now?" And you see it sometimes, they sit there biting their knuckles or shouting out things that need to be cut out of the soundtrack later. They get up if it was good and say, "That was great. Hey why don't we do one like this?" And all you feel is positive energy.
Capone: I've always been a fan of Paul's film SHOPPING, which you were in. And it was probably the first time I'd ever seen Jude Law in anything.
JI: Yeah. Paul came from a world…he'd written a couple of episodes for television…but he came from Newcastle, and he and a couple friends of his set up a little video company and wanted to make fabulous, glossy commercial flicks, at least that's what Paul wanted to do. That was not the climate at all in England at the time at all for filmmaking, and he made SHOPPING, which didn't look like any other British film at the time. And it got him MORTAL KOMBAT. It's just like Roland Emmerich, he made a sci-fi movie for film school in Germany, and it was big at the German box office, because he's always wanted to tell stories like that. He loves them. There's nothing cynical about either of their approaches to storytelling.
Capone: I interviewed a director earlier this year who went to film school with Michael Bay, and he told me a similar story. "He's always made movies like that."
JI: Well, I was in ARMAGEDDON. He is a phenomenon on set, really something to watch.
Capone: We should talk about Maurice and GOOD for a little while. The character of Maurice is a reminder, sometimes an unpleasant reminder to John [Mortensen's character] of where he came from and who his friends used to be. What kind of man is Maurice to you?
JI: One of the reasons I couldn't wait to play him is that he was nothing like any of the Jewish characters I'd seen in films set in the 1930s. To be strictly honest, I don't think I've seen a film set in the '30s about the Jewish experience. Some journalists have said to me, "This is not a film about the Holocaust." And I say, "Are you insane? Have you watched this?" It's set in 1933-36. The Holocaust barely comes into it until the end of the film, but this is about a society will all kinds of very powerful modern parallels, which is why I wanted to make the film. And Maurice is a guy who is absolutely German to his core. He fought in the first World War. He unapologetically carnivorous and misogynistic. He's a big character. He fucks and he eats and he drinks, and the reason that his first World War buddy likes to hang out with him is that he's got a very sedate, dull suburban life. And he love the kind of light and energy that comes off Maurice, and the fun and scabrous wit. And what was really engaging was to watch the dynamic of that relationship change, as a microcosm of Germany generally. There's no message in this film; these people are representative. They are very specific individuals. Viggo and I were both very careful when we were shooting and researching the film, we only read contemporary stuff. We didn't read anything retrospective. I read diaries from the time, listened to recordings from the time. I read books and newspapers from the time, so that nobody had hindsight.
I like the unapologetic nature of Maurice, and how he dominated the friendship. You watch that power paradigm shift gradually, and I thought that was incredibly engaging. What it cost Maurice to lose his dignity--the kind of incremental change in his life--I had to chart, because obviously you film things out of sequence. Not only that, I was shooting "Brotherhood," so I'd go over to Hungary for a week, came back to do two weeks of "Brotherhood," went back to Hungary for a week. As I get off the plane, I had to turn into Maurice from having been a Providence gangster. So I had to have very specific reference points: "Okay, this scene in 1935. At this point, I can still practice as a doctor but I can't employ my maid. This scene, I've still got money in the bank, but there's been two boycotts. I had to know exactly where we were in this gradual erosion of my life. We made the costumes get slightly bigger as time went on because he was getting skinnier; he couldn't afford meat any more. And his apartment, they were brilliant at taking some of the paintings away, because he was hocking his possessions. So you see this beautiful art deco thing--he's clearly a very wealthy single man when you first meet him--then you see the same place bare later in the '30s.
So I loved that it was a character from that time that I had not seen before. And that friendship reflected things I hadn't seen about that time period. But mostly what I liked about the story generally and why I got involved in the first place was that I find modern life really difficult. I mean, I've got two little kids, and I struggle to do things that I am ethically okay with, that I go to sleep at night not thinking, "Fuck, I just completely sold myself out." Or more importantly, will my kids judge me and find me wanting? I don't know what I should do about the fact that we torture in my name or that we'd done away with the right to silence. I don't know what we should do about in Britain that asylum seekers are locked up behind barbed wire fences and are given no appeal and are sent back to places. Sometimes there are these economic migrants--a phrase that seems to be on par with leper or a being from outer space--when I think of them, I think it means someone who has come here looking for a better life. And what's the sin in that? I don't know what to do about the fact that probably everything I'm wearing is made in China by people working in conditions I would find abhorrent. But I know what I can easily do if I'm not careful: I could rationalize everything. I can say, if I don't buy this stuff from China, yes they're kids and yes they work in conditions we wouldn't allow in the west, but they need to work. I can rationalize why I don't give money to every homeless person in the street, because I give to a homeless charity. I don't want to pull a $20 out because they might drink or take drugs, but either way I'm not taking money out of my pocket. I can rationalize why I don't give more of my money to charity, when I know that an extra $3 can pay for a cataract operation.
My life is a morass of rationalizations to make me feel okay with the things that I'm ignoring. And the temptation is to go, "You know what? Fuck it. There's just too much of it. I can't draw a line in the sand anywhere. All I can do is vote, hope the representatives make the right decisions." They shouldn't take planes for leisure, but I'll vote for a higher airport tax. But while there isn't one, I might as well get on the plane because it's going anyway. You could drive yourself insane with this stuff, and the film reminds you to do, even though it's complicated, never to lose sight of the fact that we do have a moral compass or we need to have one. And you need to draw a line in the sand, no matter how difficult it may be or how shifting the ground is. I think it does it. I call it an ethical thriller. It does it in a great storytelling fashion, so you're not quite sure what these people are going to do next. What they don't do, any of them, are any of the things I expect them to do. It's Viggo Mortensen, it's Aragorn for God's sake [laughs], surely he should be joining the partisans and hiding people in his attic and getting a machine gun. Maurice should be grateful and slide off somewhere and cower in the corner. None of the characters do what you expect them to.
