Interview with Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Brady Corbet (Mysterious Skin)

yeah I was standard my agent sends me lots of scripts um I read very few good scripts yeah and this was a good script A remarkably good script it's really rare and uh yeah I read the book and then I went and met Greg and auditioned for him it was kind of what's the normal way of getting involved with the movie yeah yeah it was sent to me um through Jeff Levy hinty who um produced a film I did a couple years back called 13 and um and then uh so Jeff they were getting Jeff knew they were kind of casting for this and um and he sent me this script I'd already read the book previously but um um but anyway it was uh so yeah that's kind of how I came into it and then I ultimately just went read with Greg well in most Scripts in the first scene you meet the hero and then the hero goes along his journey and whatever meets a girl kills a bad guy and and that's the movie and uh this script has got this this dual story going where you've got you know two characters going along who whose paths eventually intertwine but I don't know any other movie that that works quite like that and when you hear it described you might think like oh that sounds weird is it in one of those kind of Arty movies or is it one of those experimental thing it but it doesn't read like The Script didn't read like that and the movie doesn't seem like that it seems like you're just watching a movie and uh when the two characters that haven't met Until the End finally meet I know the first time I saw the movie I was like oh wow yeah there hasn't even been a scene between us yet and I really like it it's special it's yeah but it's it's a remarkable adaptation it's kind of like and having read the book it was I was kind of nervous actually to pick it up and read it and hoping that I was like great what did they do rapist corpse you know is it terrible and um uh Escape his corpse and and but because Scott just has the most beautiful prose and it's a Scott's corpse yeah yeah Scott's corpse yeah yeah yeah and so um so I was concerned um and I read it and Greg just adapted it was so much passion um and and it was so uh intricate and particular and specific and um it just got me excited and so uh um so so anyway yeah I mean it's it's a it's a beautiful story and uh I think the Dual storyline is kind of beautifully pulled off by by what uh Greg um right this you know what Greg did with the structure of it generally if you want like you want to build up a rapport with your other actors this one you know wasn't really the case and we saw each other in passing um on the set and stuff and kind of oh hello and hello and but nothing uh nothing major at all and it wasn't until we did uh that you know the the last scene or at least certainly the first scene that we meet um um that uh that we really spoke at all um are properly spoke anyway had a decent conversation yeah but it was interesting because I think that it was the first time we acted together and so it was kind of like there was something new to us I mean we'd already seen each other and kind of met each other we knew that we were both working on this movie yeah and we knew what the other one was up to because we had read those scenes but we hadn't been there for them right so there was that mystery and excitement to it like oh oh so that's him that's that's how he's yeah it was and it was really exciting because I was really um I I was uh I was just really pleased to see that Joe was doing such kind of a wonderful job with it because it's um it's a complete no but it's a really complex performance and because it's a complex it's complexly written yeah and um and it's hardly one note it could have seemed like this kind of um this kind of broken Hustler so you know but he's very charming and very and that was important so that everyone uh understood why it is that everyone's so kind of attracted to him yeah yeah so yeah anyway I think it's kind of freeing I mean if you have if you get to do something that is um the especially if you get to play a character that is that was completely silent for instance um I think that um it frees you up to be uh more spontaneous to not have to worry about getting the words out um I mean but I mean obviously there is you know plenty of dialogue it's just uh but you know I just don't even know what to say um I've been watching that I've been watching a bit of silent movies recently there's a whole different style of acting obviously you don't have the words to act with and what's cool about Mysterious Skin and the character I got to play in terms of those silent movie actors is you're right Neil the character I played he doesn't talk too much he tells a lot of his story with his body and with his actions but now it's 2004 so we can we can do some sexy stuff with the silent film actors wouldn't have been allowed to do and it's one of my favorite things about the sexy scenes in in the movie is uh a lot of sex scenes they're just sex scenes and it's like well here's the story and here's these two characters and oh okay the movie will now have an intermission while we look at our two actors naked yeah bring in the slow motion bring in the cheesy music and the scenes in in this movie they're the opposite of that they're they're crucial story points and the story advances within the scene and there's beats and and emotions and and it it reminds me it reminded me sometimes of that silent film acting where you have to hit the the beats and tell the story with your body yeah and a lot of people um tell me that uh that I swallow my words in in the movie which first of all um I met a guy in Kansas City who talks just like that and uh you had to pay attention to understand what he was saying but I also I kind of like the fact you can't exactly understand everything that he says because it's not so much about the words that he says it's about what he's doing or yeah how it looks and what yeah what his body's doing I I actually have really lovely memories of it you know I mean uh even though it is [Music] um even though we were dealing with uh with with subject matter that we all had to be kind of delicate with in light of the kind of potential darkness of the subject um we we were all so passionate about it and loves it so much that we were just so pleased to be working on on something we loved even on days where we were shooting really dramatic heavy stuff I mean when when you're kind of immersed in that of course there's kind of a Darkness to that afternoon or that day or that evening um um but but ultimately when it's all done it's just so invigorating to to just be be pleased with with everyone and I just I I truly it was really a set of friends like it was just a set of of wonderful talented Sweet People the sweetest set I've ever been on and so um it was um it was a genuine pleasure very specific yeah Greg uh knows real well what not to say a lot of directors say too much and that they'll get you confused and almost self-aware I remember a conversation I had with Greg before we started shooting we sat down and I had my book with me and I wanted to show them all the different stuff that I'd underlined in the novel and my thoughts on the who knows what I was talking about all the different things that I learned in college how to say um and he listened to everything I had to say and he had his comments but basically at the end of what I said he was like yeah I don't think you need to think about it too much I think you got it don't worry right and uh it worked he kept us free he just kept us really he kept us really free and free of of being kind of heady about it and all actors can tend to get a little bit hitty um you know uh get a little because because you become very self-aware so even for the briefest of moments you become kind of self-centered or kind of wrapped up and and it's kind of uh and then you it's nice to just have someone come up to you and say oh just let it go it's all right and it was simple as that and uh and that was kind of the tone of the set um but he's but he's certainly very specific in how he makes a film and his working environment and that because he's editing his films he would only need two he I mean it would be I I very rarely I felt like we ever got to do an entire scene as a whole except the more dramatic scenes um a couple of the more dramatic scenes we would read them all the way through but because he knew what angle he was going to be using here here and here it would just get I'll get two lines on the master and then I'll go over and I'll grab you know like you know five lines here or on the close-up and like I mean so he's just he's so specific in particular that's the reason he gets away with making these beautiful movies that cost a little money he could watch the entire movie in his head before we even got involved yeah and and he made it very clear clear to us what that movie was I mean from the script to anything he said I mean script to to screen it's it's exactly as I'd imagined it I mean it's it's almost exactly like I'd imagined it and that never happens and so for Greg to be such a brilliant Communicator to communicate that to an audience um or to us um was incredible and exciting you'd be surprised the directors to show up high highly paid directors that show up and go well what are we going to shoot today yeah and uh yeah Greg's the opposite of that and you have a it feels good acting for him because when he says good that was it you know 100 that's what he had in mind and what he has in mind what he has in his mind is perfect in in the entirety of the film and so if he likes it cool the last scene in the film I'll never forget for as long as I live I mean that was it it left a profound lasting effect on me um because uh um I I would really say it was that evening that Joe and I became very close because that could be not really as a result of of um we kind of were forced to um and uh and um I've just never felt that in touch with anything um anything previously and uh and we shot it for shows Brady is channeling some um it's it was just uh I'll just I'll just never forget that I dreamed about it for several nights afterwards it was actually this weird thing it's like it's like a song that gets stuck in your head like they want quite nightmares or anything they were just these kind of like I remember that evening I could almost smell it it was just a very specific night it meant uh because it meant so much to these characters you know it um it it meant a lot to us just in a different way and um yeah it was kind of spectacular it's kind of amazing yeah it's not nearly as exciting to talk about it as it was to do it yeah yeah well yeah I mean you know I'm I I I don't feel too sad about it now you know after this much time has passed because we still have so much going on with the film we're still kind of in the midst of it it feels like we're immersed in it but um but I I went through postpartum depression for like a month you know after it got it was finished it just because you feel like you're just leaving this kind of small family you've formed you know and it's very uh um and it's kind of corny but it's true you feel you feel very at home and um I wasn't used to not seeing Greg every day or Mary Jane um the producer every day um and everyone whom I just I just loved and um yeah making a movie is different than writing a book or pairing a picture it's there's a hundred people involved and yeah the actors and the director get a lot of the credit but if the guy holding the boom isn't into it it shows I believe that it shows I think that's why a lot of the the corporate Studio movies are so stilted and boring is because most of the people there are just earning a paycheck but everybody on our set was there because they believed in it they weren't making any money so they were doing it because they loved it exactly it's it's you know you occasionally come across um you occasionally come across big Studio films it just happens that it's people feel passionately about it and it has money but they're kind of hard to come by um they're very hard to come by um not to say that it's like ND movies are the best thing on the planet they certainly aren't there's tons of shitty Indie movies tons um uh and um that so so but but anyway but generally even the shitty in Indie movies people generally um uh still feel passionately about them they're just misguided so yeah

Channel: weirdlingwolf

Views: 8,442

Keywords: 'Slaughter High' (1986), wes craven, sam raimi, tobe hooper, george A romero, splatter horror, making of, behind-the-scenes, quentin tarantino, occult, cult horror, Giallo, dario argento, luigi cozzi, Suspiria, umberto lenzi, hammer films, Battlefield earth, hal ashby, david lynch, The Intruder 1962, William Shatner, night of the comet 1984, End of days 1999, val guest, the quatermass Xperiment, documentary, Jean rollin, French cinema, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gregg Araki

Id: ZJ09SCp1P4M

Length: 15min 17sec (917 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023