AVC: With that in mind, you recently told The Guardian that you'd made 10 good films—
JC: I didn't say that, actually.
AVC: What exactly did you say?
JC: I said I'd made 10 or 15 good films, and some of them are okay, but that's still a pretty good batting average. My point was that it's hard to make good films, but I'm not under any illusion that you do all the time. What I was saying also was that there were some that really don't work, and I just black them out. [Laughs.] It's like an old yearbook photo. You try to pretend like it doesn't exist. There's parts that are good in some films, but it's just hard to make something work. It's not a given that any time you show up it's gonna be fantastic, you know? You work your ass off, but sometimes you stink. I didn't say there are just 10, and I didn't say there wasn't any value in any others. That guy extrapolated that. I said 10 or 15 good films, and out of 45, 50 in 20 years, that's pretty good. That'd be like a major-leaguer hitting over .300. That's not bad.
AVC: Do you think those "10 or 15 good" films are roughly the same ones everyone would name, or are there films on your personal list that would surprise people?
JC: I don't know. I would say a movie like Max, which didn't get shown, but I think when it did get shown, people liked it a lot. I'd put that on the good list. Eight Men Out, I think is a good film. Just films that work as a whole.
AVC: As opposed to films that have good scenes, or good roles?
JC: Yeah, there's parts where the first hour's good, but then the rest doesn't work.
AVC: Do you personally find that those films go wrong in production, or do you actually go in thinking, "Maybe I'm not going to be so proud of this one, but it'll get my name out there?"
JC: I think there's a combination of both of those, and some denial is involved too. You always convince yourself that it's good, but then a lot of times, there's a problem in the script that doesn't get addressed, or a problem in casting, or a director who kind of loses his mind, or a studio that decides they want to cut a movie for the test-market screenings. Those were originally designed to figure out how to market a film, but now, they're literally cutting to try to satisfy as many markets as they can all at once. That kind of editing by definition destroys some people's vision of a film, because how can you be all things to all different demographics? You can't. Why should you? So a lot of times, you make it and the studios just hack it up. And by the way, sometimes the studios are right and the directors fuck it up.
AVC: Do you have an example of that? I've never heard an actor say that before.
JC: Well, they're full of shit.
AVC: Is there a film like that which you could actually speak out on?
JC: A bunch. Directors or filmmakers or actors, people who say "This has got to be in the movie," and it's not right for the movie, or it slows it down.
AVC: But nothing you could name names on?
JC: Well I could, except then I'd be naming people who fucked up. And then they would be like "Why did you say that about me in the paper?" But, I mean, I've done it.
AVC: How so?
JC: I've tried to keep in things that were not right, or acted out of vanity instead of seeing the forest for the trees. I've lost my way. People lose their way. They get snowblind.
AVC: Are you talking about stuff you've produced? Written? Acted in? Is there an example?
JC: Yeah, let me think… Yeah. But I won't talk about it.
AVC: How much does the process of making a film—whether you enjoy actually being involved in the production process—affect whether you end up looking at it and saying "That's one of the good ones?"
JC: Sometimes you think there is a much better film in there than the cut presented. People come up against themselves in the process, so whatever a director's got, or whatever you're afraid of, or whatever your issue is as you try to work on the film, you'll come up against it. You've gotta transcend that issue to make it good, because some directors want to make a movie about emotion because they're afraid of emotion. And then when they cut the movie, they actually will cut away from… They don't understand that you actually have to go to that place. They won't go there. You can see it, you can feel it in their movies. The aesthetics are frightened of where they need to go. And as actors, you can do "I don't want to go all the way here, I'm too afraid to go into that door. I don't want to go in there." And you think, and you try, and sometimes you just chicken out.
AVC: Do you find that happens less often on films where the director isn't the editor, or films where the producers take a really strong role?
JC: I find that usually when there's a lack of producers, actually. It's a really healthy thing, because there's a lot of directors and writers who want total autonomy, and their vision isn't really… They've gotten it to a certain place, and I know all directors think they're auteurs, that it's an auteur's business. But it's not. It's really a collaborative business between three or four different people to make a movie. Financiers, creative financiers, writers, the actors, the director. And the producer can be a good check and balance of all that. So there have been a lot of directors who've had great producers, or had a strong, creative film company behind them, and they made them make the film better. And then the film is very successful, and they went on and did more, and then they had their auteur vision, and their movies sucked, because all they do is listen to everybody tell them how great they are. There's nobody who says, "That's not a very good idea." Everybody isn't Federico Fellini or Tim Burton, but everybody pretends they are.
AVC: Did you feel a need to go into producing at all because of that?
JC: I wanted to just be a filmmaker, and I thought I wanted to do all the aspects, and it seemed like as a producer was the best way to do it, because I could have… You never have control on a movie, but you have as much control as you can. You can push it through, and you can hire the right people, you know? I hired the directors on all the movies. Not Grace Is Gone, because the script came with the writer-director and another production entity, Plum Pictures. So you get to set up the way you like to work.
AVC: What about roles? Do you produce in order to get the roles you want?
JC: Yeah. Or to get some role that I want to do done.
AVC: You've complained in the past that you get typecast a little. What kind of materials are you looking for these days?
JC: I don't know. Something good.
AVC: How did the role in Being John Malkovich come about? That's not exactly your signature role. It's a really quirky film.
JC: That's more like Grace Is Gone, or Max. It's much more character-oriented.
AVC: With roles like that, do the filmmakers come to you, or do you seek out projects deliberately?
JC: That one, I'll have to give myself credit. I was pretty smart about it, because I went to William Morris and said, "Give me the craziest, most unproducable script you can find." And they said, "Well…" And I said, "No, come on, give me something that is just the most bizarre thing you've ever read, and I want to read that." And they went, "Oh, well, there's Charlie Kaufman, but he's great. I could give you that." I read it and I said, "All right, I want to do this. Track this. If anyone else does this, and I'm not the first in the door, I'm leaving you guys." And they delivered. They tracked it. So yes, if a piece of material jumps out at me like that… I mean, he was this obviously huge talent.
AVC: A lot of your signature roles are kind of boyish, arrested-development types, but with Grace Is Gone, you're playing a father, an older man, a conservative—a lot of the particulars in the role seem new and different for you. Are you specifically looking for new and different roles?
JC: I don't know if it's different; it's just a good role, you know? [Laughs.] So I've gotten a good one. I mean, I thought that the stuff I've been able to produce, whether they succeed or not, they've always been pretty good roles. And some of the stuff I've been lucky enough to be in—Being John Malkovich and the other ones—they're just good roles. I think it's more about having that stuff rather than that typical romantic comedy, where they want you to be a romantic person, or action movies. They want you to do those stock movies, so I guess complaining would be an annoying thing. I was probably just pointing out that the studios don't offer you the most adventurous stuff, which is kind of an obvious statement.
AVC: Yeah, but not necessarily one that everybody would make.
JC: They basically say, "Do what you did before."
AVC: Have you reached a point—
JC: No. [Laughs, pauses.] What were you going to ask?
AVC: Do you miss the boy roles? Eventually, everybody gets too old to play romantic-comedy leads. Will you miss that, or are you going to be happy to not have the studio coming to you saying "Do what you did that time?"
JC: I don't know. Hopefully I'll just find a better opportunity for it. I have this mixture of enthusiasm and blackness, which is kind of interesting, so hopefully I'll just find a better venue for it. I mean, I would never put myself anywhere near the rarified air of Paul Newman, but he was boyish in his 40s and 50s. That's part of what makes him alive. So I don't really know what it means. But no, I don't really like romantic comedies, so I don't really care. I never go see 'em.
AVC: You never see the ones you're in?
JC: I've seen a couple of those.
AVC: It doesn't change your mind?
JC: I liked some. If there's a really good one, I'll like it, but I don't like most genre movies.
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