RSS
Home
Billy Crudup and Matthew Goode reveal their 'Watchmen' mystery men
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Billy Crudup and Matthew Goode
Billy Crudup and Matthew Goode aren’t known for appearing in lightweight movies, so for them to sign on to "Watchmen" meant that this would be no ordinary comic-book movie. Crudup is a Tony Award-winning American actor who’s appeared in major-studio ensembles (2000’s "Almost Famous," 2006’s "Mission: Impossible III"), as well as little-seen indie flicks (2005’s "Trust the Man," 2007’s "Dedication" ). British actor Goode has been making a name for himself in the film industry, with roles that include 2000’s "Match Point" and 2008’s "Brideshead Revisted."
In "Watchmen," Crudup is Jon Osterman, a physicist who, after a freak accident, becomes a blue man-creature with superpowers named Dr. Manhattan. Goode plays the role of "the smartest man in the world," Adrian Veidt, a wealthy businessman who also has the superhero alter ego Ozymandias. During the "Watchmen" press junket in Los Angeles, Crudup and Goode revealed how they brought these characters to life, and what being part of the "Watchmen" phenomenon means to them.
Billy, what did they do to you in the motion-capture special effects?
Crudup: I am naked often. I was not naked during the filming of this [movie]. However, I wore pretty elaborate pajamas, and they were studded with about 1,200 blue LEDs, so that [Dr.] Manhattan would glow blue. There were motion-capture symbols on them and about 140 dots on my face. All of those things corresponded to points on the computer Dr. Manhattan. So my performances was basically manipulating that version of that puppet version.
Billy Crudup in "Watchmen"
Billy, your character is naked for a great deal of the film. Did that make it a lot harder for you to play?
Crudup: Extremely. I took for granted that when you’re playing a character, you have their coat, you have their watch, you have their glasses. And those are all things that are quite useful, it turns out. Because when you are bereft of all of them, and in fact you have all of the artifacts that you can have around you are taking you in a completely different direction, your imagination becomes your only real resource. I realized my imagination was a little rusty, and it took me a little while to get it going again.
Dr. Manhattan doesn’t have eyes. Can you comment on how that affected your performance?
Crudup: That’s one of the confounding things about the character is that he appears sort of soulless. Isn’t there a line about the eyes being the window of the soul? I think that’s part of it.
Goode: Rorschach had eye pieces to his mask.
Crudup: That’s true.
Goode: We were really lucky to be able to look into his eyes. Even though it’s not necessarily going to be used, you can see what’s going on there. It’s all about a connection, isn’t it? … I don’t think that in rendering [the character without the eyes] distracted from us at all …
Billy Crudup in "Watchmen"
Did you ever think that you wanted to play a more traditional hero?
Crudup: I’ve thought that about almost all of the roles that I take. I always end up taking parts that are morally ambiguous in some ways or they’re in a transition. Those are the characters I find fascinating. I do wish I had more of that hero gene in my acting imagination … but ultimately, I don’t think I’d be very good at it. When you’ve got Harrison Ford, there you go. I’ll watch him run from anything. He’s compelling in that state.
What were your impressions of your respective characters when you first read the script?
Goode: I was curious about why Zack [Snyder, the director of "Watchmen"] wanted me to do it. And when I was reading [the script], I was like, "Oh no, this is already one of those roles where already people are going to want me to be doing it" … I was worried about do you do this guy, because people are going to see him as the villain very early on.
Crudup: I didn’t understand how that character existed. I didn’t understand how you could play that character. There was no apparent motivation that was recognizable to me. The things that motivated him were not familiar to me. So I was very curious about how you would go about playing a character whose understanding of time — one of our most useful constraints in acting … you pretend that you don’t know the middle of the end — well, this character knows the middle and the end of every scene that he’s going to play and is still somehow surprised by it and emotionally invested n it in some way. So to try to find a way to play that, as an actor, was a kind of puzzle that was very interesting …
It’s possible to play a character like that with any point of view and be malleable. I guess you could go in as a sort of automaton and say, "This is how I’m going to do it." But there’s no way to modulate that, there’s no discussion about where it fits into the whole piece. So from my perspective, you have to have a point of view: that he’s distracted; he’s interested in something else. He’s not interested in humanity the way that we are. He has motivation, but that motivation is elusive form what we understand to be motivation, which is go to work, eat, have relationships, have children and stuff. He’s interested in the most economical way for him to fuse two particles. Well, I don’t know much about that, and for him, it’s an exercise that’s happening perpetually in his mind while he has to deal with the mundane. So for me, to try to find the right way to be distracted and invested was really the [challenge].
Billy Crudup in "Watchmen"
Goode: The conceit that Alan Moore [co-creator of the "Watchmen" graphic novel] set up was that anyone who’s of German heritage is guilty because of what happened to the Jews, and Americans don’t seem themselves as guilty for dropping the bomb on Hiroshima … So I was interested in [having that duality] and I gave him a public and private persona, with a German and American accent …
And so by the end of the movie, have people go, "Well, was he ..?" And not be villainous, and not be two-dimensional and not be Machiavellian. And there might be a lot people who think, "He was a sh*t villain." Well, actually, someone who’s an intelligent person who’s been planning this for a long time … it’s not a big performance. "Watchmen" is a character study on sociopathic behavior and what is morally right and wrong … It’s very f**king complicated, and that’s what drew me to it. It’s a head f**k … Adrian has so much duality.
Crudup: That’s what interested all of us. There’s no one way to play these characters. We could have license to try and solve pretty exotic problems while finding our voice in each of them. That’s a pretty exciting thing to do in a movie that’s ostensibly a studio comic-book movie.
Matthew Goode in "Watchmen"
What was it like working with Zack Snyder?
Crudup: He would have to be very open to take the two of us. We’re friggin’ Chatty Cathys and very confused, clearly. He was engaged in it. One of the reasons why the material was interesting to him is the same reason why it’s confusing and interesting to us. We want to solve these problems. He was never dogmatic with me at all. It was all part of a process. That was a really exciting and exhilarating experience, because sometimes you feel a little bit afraid if the director isn’t dictatorial and showing you the path, especially with a behemoth like this. You want somebody to say, "This is what’s happening."
So for him to be able to do that steadfastly and at the same time carry on these conversations with us to help us solve the minutiae and the character motivations and how do we render it subtly, it takes a very special kind of person, and I think Zack is that.
Goode: The first thing I shot in the first two weeks was the second half of the Lee Iacocca scene when he gets shot and the elevator comes up … Then I had three weeks off, and it was only during that break that I came up with the idea and brought it to Zack: "I know Adrian Veidt is not originally from Germany, but can we go down that route? It would just be an interesting exercise to do. Who the f**k is Adrian? You don’t actually know who the hell he is." And the only thing that came out of Zack’s mouth was "Awesome!" Thank God, or I would’ve been left very bemused …
Matthew Goode in "Watchmen"
You’re both known as serious actors. What compelled you to do a comic-book movie?
Crudup: I’m thrilled to get anything, frankly. To get the chance to play this kind of character, as a 40-year-old, is pretty rare. I was very excited at the opportunity, and the fact that it happens to be material that is so accomplished, not just revered … It’s so rich and textured and vital and subversive and interesting, and you don’t typically get that. Typically, after the first page of a movie about superheroes, you kind of know what’s going to happen. And the question is, "How do they make it happen?" And that’s also why we see those movies: because we get paid off in a way we expect and want. So to have something that stood in stark contrast, with a level of self-conscious about that conceit, was exotic.
Goode: It’s set up for adults … [The movie] twists it [and] says that people who dress up and beat people up are more likely to be sociopathic …
Crudup: What do you mean more likely? Only likely.
Goode: Only likely.
Billy Crudup in "Public Enemies"
Billy, can you talk about your role as J. Edgar Hoover in "Public Enemies"?
Crudup: J. Edgar Hoover in that movie serves as a motivating factor for [Melvin] Purvis, who’s played by Christian Bale, to go get [John] Dillinger [played by Johnny Depp]. So it was quite exciting to try and get in the mind of somebody like Hoover. But it was Hoover when he was young and quite bright and the youngest appointee of a position of that rank at that time — and a visionary, in a way. That was another role where it was an elaborate dress-up. I had a fat suit. I got rid of my neck somehow and I shaved my eyebrows …
This is a story about Dillinger and Purvis. There’s no character study of Hoover beyond his role as an agent of good … At that time, he [Hoover] was thinking about crime fighting in a way that people hadn’t before. The idea of a Federal Bureau of Investigation was a new one. Spending the kind of money training agents the way they were meant to be trained, using the forensic technology, creating fingerprinting — he was a couple of years ahead of his time. And there was a reason why he was there. He was an interesting character to play.
Matthew, what can you say about your movie "A Single Man"?
Goode: I hadn’t done anything since "Watchmen," and Tom [Ford, the director of "A Single Man"] came along asked me to do it … It’s with Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. My character plays Colin Firth’s lover. What’s great about it, particularly as it was being made when Prop 8 was f**king up, it’s a really sweet love story.
Tom Ford is such an extraordinary individual. We did our first scene, Colin and I were sitting in the desert, sort of arm and arm, and it was like three minutes of dialogue. And Tom came up and was like, "OK, guys, what I want you to do is keep your chins up, because you’re getting a bit older than you used to be and there’s a bit of fat that hangs down." And you’re like, "All right, Tom, thanks for that. Anything about the scene?" He’s such a smart man and it was a real pleasure.
Colin Firth and Matthew Goode on the set of "A Single Man"
Tom Ford is known mainly for being a fashion designer. Did you have any concerns about working with him as a first-time director?
Goode: He’s got a real flair for it. We had a lady [on "A Single Man"] who was a script supervisor who worked on John Ford Westerns, and she’d done all you could possibly do under anybody and she said, "I’ve never worked with a first-time director who was more prepared." When you think about it, what he does [as a fashion designer] is so visual anyway. He wants to be involved in every single part of it … And obviously we look great in it, apparently. It was a great experience.
What did you think when you saw the final cut of "Watchmen"?
Goode: Good film, nice cock!
Crudup: I didn’t say anything! Matthew Goode said that. It’s impossible for me to say. I don’t have a small answer for that. I’m overwhelmed by what they’re capable of doing with computer-generated imagery. I thought it was really remarkable.
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
