“You deal with something Dark Knight – or ‘Mad Max,’ or ‘Superman’ or ‘Spider-man,’ whatever – it’s like going to work in an airport and going, ‘Hi I’m over here!’ and then everybody goes ‘Oh here’s that, that’s the villain of the piece.’ Then it’s a thousand people going to Duty-Free. Like, [shouting] ‘I AM THE VILLAIN!’ and make a lot of noise. There’s a formula here, you can’t muck around with it. There’s a lot of rules, you’re restrained in many ways as an artist. But then you’re also grateful because of the huge exposure and the paycheck.
“Or the not-paycheck ‘cause they’re making you a stahhh,” he affects. “Whatever it is, you’re paying an entrance to getting higher exposure. These movies are huge vehicles to make a lot of money… and make a large audience happy. So now you’re at the very top level of trying to bring character work in a boutique way to something that is, y’know, Starbucks.
