Set
Visit
Interviews: Melissa
George / Andrew
Douglas / Ryan Reynolds
“But
I mean, how many people get to drink the feces of a rock star?”
-- Ryan Reynolds on the Dave Matthews Band incident
There’s no doubt that Ryan Reynolds is one funny-ass dude.
And I’m not even sure if it’s a natural gift or the fact
that he’s a Canuck. Whatever
the case, the movers and shakers in Hollywood need to do whatever
the hell they need to do to get this man in FLETCH with Kevin Smith
directing. But before that
happens (if it happens), Ryan will work in no less than four movies
to be released in 2004. The
dude sat around and shot the shit with us in between set-ups to talk
about his role of George Lutz in THE
AMITYVILLE HORROR, his lady friend Alanis (come on,
you oughta know) and spout off ANCHORMAN.
I am in a glass case of
emotion!
Ryan
Reynolds
Are
you trying to stray to serious roles now?
No, not at all. This
year’s been amazing, I’ve covered it all. I have an action/thriller sci-fi with BLADE and did a straight
up comedy in WAITING... and now this great, unbelievable genre film
right here, and do a romantic comedy right after this…
And
[Harold & Kumar Go To] White Castle…
Yeah, I always forget I’m in that. People are like, “We loved you in White Castle,” and I’m
like, “….Oh yeah, I did a day on that movie, that was fun.”
What’s
it like working on a horror film?
You know, I don’t think it’s any more difficult than
working on a comedy. There’s
that Shakespearean adage where comedy’s hard and dying’s easy.
I don’t think that’s true at all. (laughs) Drama’s really hard, you know, it’s tense each day.
Would
you do horror more in the future?
I still don’t feel like I’m doing a horror movie. I never
at any point in this movie felt this was a horror movie; it’s not
what I pictured. Coming
in I was like, “Wow are we going to have those days where I leave
a little embarrassed for what we shot?”
And I haven’t had that once.
And I can’t tell you how grateful I am, like I’ve done a
one-eighty since I showed up here because at first, it was the usual
agency push saying, “It would be great if you do something
completely different than what you’ve done before.
This year’s been a banner year for you,” I’ve been
doing BLADE and all this other stuff which led to this so I thought,
Yeah, I’ll come in and try my hand at something a little bit
different and having very little expectations to what I’d find.
And I’ve just been so thrilled, like everyday its blown
expectations out of the water, I mean I haven’t left once
thinking, Wow, I made some really false moves, or I faked it, or I
phoned it in. These
guys are great, Andrew Douglas is so gentle, for lack of a better
term, just so gentle with every moment, and you can talk to him
about every beat for hours. He’ll
just stop filming to talk about it.
Until we get there, until we find it, we haven’t left any
scene until we got it, so it’s been great.
But yeah, I’d love to do more horror if they’re like this
but I don’t think they are. Typically
they’re just chasing people around.
And
this is more an adult, serious type…
Yeah, it has a psychological aspect that I don’t think
I’ve seen in a genre movie since THE OTHERS.
Definitely not trying to ape that either but that’s been
the most interesting aspect for me. The
dark shadow. We always call
it “the shadow” in this movie because he [George Lutz] has these
Jungian aspects; he’s acting out his shadow in the house.
He walks in as this guy-basically his downfall is Hubris,
pride takes him down-he walks into this house saying, “I can do
this,” but he can’t afford the house, and these are step-kids
and he’s trying to do right by this woman he’s fallen in love
with. Well, he’s infatuated
with her, he’s not even begun the healing and loving her at all,
so he’s totally done in by his shadow halfway through the movie. Like his shadow is this other guy, who’s obviously completely and
utterly mentally unhinged. So
it’s been cool to explore that.
But
your heart’s really in comedy?
Yeah, I mean I’ll never go away from it because it’s so
much fun.
But playing in the new BLADE film was great because its
playing Indiana Jones, who gets to play Indiana Jones when they’re
27? You know, I love that
line in the script and I was like, I can’t believe [BLADE
screenwriter] David Goyer captured this in a guy that’s young.
Those are the kinds of parts usually thrown out to Harrison
Ford.
Do
you think the events surrounding The Amityville Horror are true?
Well, six people were shot there I know that much. (confers with publicist) Is it six?
Yes,
six.
Yeah, so-I’m always so scared that I’m saying the wrong
thing. Like, “Manson was f*cking
crazy we all know that! F*cking
uppity parole board ain’t letting him out.”
But six yeah, we know that happened.
And I believe that George Lutz went in there and had a
psychological breakdown. Whether
the supernatural elements are involved, I don’t know but again the
great thing about my job in this movie is I don’t have to worry
about that. The moment you
have to play anything supernatural, you can’t, I don’t know how
you can, like I don’t know how you can say, “Oh, in this moment
he’s possessed by a demon. Sound
speed, we’re rolling?” What?
Like how can I relate to that in any way.
We shot some footage backwards that was really f*cking creepy though. I
mean, unbelievable. Just
like, slightly backwards. Just
in moments where George is looking at somebody and you roll the film
backwards, it just adds this whacked thing, I don’t know what it
was. It’s something that [Director] Andrew Douglas thought up
and it was just a really peculiar way to tell a story, I loved it,
it just looks so bizarre. There’s
a couple of frames in the movie-we’ll see if people can find
it-with George Lutz where the film is just being rolled backwards,
and his head movement and everything is just a little bit off.
It’s really cool.
In
VAN WILDER,
was it
creepy making out with
Tara Reid?
(laughs) Yeah, I got a sunburn making out with her.
I don’t know why, it was very strange.
No, during that era, man, she probably got the contact high
from me. Yeah, Tara Reid,
wow. You know it's funny, you
work with some of these people in this business and you see that
some of them are just basically personalities and she seems like
she’s on her way to becoming one of those iconic personalities.
What’s
it like working with Melissa George?
She’s fantastic. She’s
so great, I don’t have an incredible amount of experience working
on dramatic films so it’s just a different animal and she’s so
present and so there. It’s
funny because all we do is talk about comedies we like on the set
and when you’re on a comedy set, all you do is talk about great
dramatic films you’ve seen. So
we’re just quoting ANCHORMAN all day, or OLD SCHOOL.
Is
there anyone you really want to work with?
(pause) Oh, man. There’s
so many great comedians that are dead. John Candy and Chris Farley -- I would love to have done
something with Chevy Chase ten years ago.
That’d be great. I
just read a really interesting article and I found myself exuding a
shitload of empathy for him and really kind of getting behind him
again and wanting to see him come back and kick ass.
And I’m a huge Bill Murray fan, you know, I just feel like
he’d just be fun to watch. I
don’t even know if I’d want to work with him, I’d just like to
maybe be a grip on that film. I
think he’d just be a lot of fun to check out.
(publicist interrupts)
I’m
sorry, we’re out of time…
No you’re not.
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