Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we ask actors for memories about roles that defined their careers. The catch: They don't know beforehand what roles we'll ask them to talk about.
The actor: Adam Goldberg, co-star of the new relationship drama 2 Days In Paris, possibly best-known for his roles in Dazed And Confused, Saving Private Ryan, and as the star of The Hebrew Hammer. Goldberg has also written and directed his own films, Scotch And Milk and I Love Your Work.
2 Days In Paris (2007) — "Jack"
Adam Goldberg: Weeping with my pants down around my ankles and my penis hanging out. I'm just free-associating here. I'm just doing this as though I was in Freudian psychotherapy.
The A.V. Club: What was Julie Delpy like as a director?
AG: I really do think that memory kind of encapsulates it.
Dazed And Confused (1993)—"Mike Newhouse"
AG: Weeping, though not with my pants down around my ankles, after being hit in the beer-bust scene.
AVC: We can get a little more expansive with these. It doesn't have to be just a single image.
AG: Damn, I really would've preferred it that way. A single memory? Probably that night. That night was, at the time, the most cathartic I've had as an actor up to that point, I think. At least, you know, on film.
AVC: Why was it cathartic?
AG: It was one of those what-you-would-always-do-in-that-situation-but-never-actually-do, but-you-can-do-it-on-film sort of things. Not dissimilar to many of the things I say in 2 Days In Paris. It was like getting to do something that you fantasize about doing, but you're not ballsy enough to do in real life.
The Hebrew Hammer (2003)—"Mordechai Jefferson Carver"
AG: Sticking a banana in my Speedo. Actually, putting a condom on the banana in the Speedo to give it more of a head shape. The guy's supposed to be really well-endowed and had to be in a Speedo, so I just grabbed a banana from craft services. For some reason—there is actually some logical production explanation for this, but I'm not sure what it is—the sound woman had some condoms on her, so we put the condom over the banana. I think it was actually to keep it from oozing, but it ended up making it more realistic-appearing.
AVC: Was somebody in charge of banana-size continuity?
AG: It was a low-budget film. Normally there'd be several people on banana-wrangling, but in this case, we didn't even have trailers.
Zodiac (2006)—"Duffy Jennings"
AG: Zodiac. Wow. Lots of takes. Lots of takes. Lots and lots and lots of takes. I worked very briefly on it, so the only recollection I really have is doing whatever it is you see me doing in that movie, hundreds of times. Working with the ghost of Stanley Kubrick, basically.
The Salton Sea (2002)—"Kujo"
AG: Doing research by going to a very sketchy Narcotics Anonymous meeting, I believe, in Long Beach. Which I was ambivalent about, because I didn't… These guys have real, serious narcotics problems in a fairly confessional setting. These meetings are open, so anybody could go. Of course, I didn't speak. But I was afraid that my cover would be revealed, and that I would get the shit kicked out of me in the parking lot. But informative nonetheless. That was one of those things where I didn't do that much in the film, but I got really interested in the research element. I became obsessed with this famous documentary about this kid from Portland or Seattle. Streetwise.
AVC: Do you normally do a lot of research for your roles?
AG: It depends. I'll do work, but it all depends on how much actual clinical, encyclopedic research I need to do. I didn't know much about that world, that sort of speed-freak world. So I felt like it necessitated that.
Scotch And Milk (1998)—"Jim"
AG: That's just one long, protracted three-year memory. It's hard to come up with one memory; it was all very exciting. I remember feeling like I was an island—though we were principally shooting for four weeks, it felt like months and months and months, like the whole world must have just stopped while I was doing this. And once it was done, I think I suffered a little post-traumatic stress re-entering the real world. It felt a little uneasy to me. [Laughs.] I was doing everything I had always wanted to be doing, and to be doing that for that brief period of time was, although incredibly stressful, also incredibly euphoric. I was directing an ex-girlfriend at the time, so it was a very personal piece. It's interesting that so many years later, I'm being directed by an ex-girlfriend [Delpy], which seems to be a recurring theme in my oeuvre.
AVC: What was it like directing yourself?
AG: Fairly intuitive. I don't want to do it any more, just because I don't see… At the time, acting just felt like an extension of that, of the filmmaking process. It was a matter of convenience, in a sense. It was easier to direct myself than find somebody to play a thinly veiled version of myself. It was one less role—and a major role—to direct. On a practical level, it made sense to me, but I have no interest in doing that in the future. The world seems very separate in making movies: the directing and the acting in them have almost nothing to do with each other.
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