Inside The Actors’ Studio

HAWKINS: Yeah. Although she's got this constant state of bubble and positivity, there's a lot going on underneath. It didn't feel like a monotone. I kept trying to bring up the darkness: "Yeah, she could do this!" Mike kept pushing me to a slightly sprite-like character, coupled with compassion.

Speaking of character, some of you actually stayed in character during your movies. Frank, you asked everyone on set to refer to you as Mr. President.
HATHAWAY: Interesting.

LANGELLA: I'd never done it before. I like to sit around and eat doughnuts, and Kevin Bacon and I like to tell dirty stories. But the minute I opened the door, I told Ron Howard I should stay in character. Because the tension around me will be greater, and if I break character at all and start shooting the s–––, I won't feel that intimidation people feel around a president. So I did for 32 days. It was very lonely and very right for the character. I just stayed the president.

Do you still make people do that?
LANGELLA: Just in bed. What about you, Brad? Were you in character when you were 6 months old in "Benjamin Button"?

PITT: That was not me.

Brad, when you play Button as a young old man, internally, do you think of him as old, or as a young man in an old body?
PITT: Old body, young person. But I think Frank gets the degree-of-difficulty award. Because he's taken on someone that's such a caricature. How do you avoid slipping into caricature, and at the same time you gave the man humanity? I thought it was quite an achievement, and it's still a bit of a mystery to me.

LANGELLA: There's a great deal of talk about what's the difference between American actors and British actors. British actors come at it from the outside. We all come at it from the inside.

PITT: I would've said circumcision.

You all seemed to have things to help you become your characters. Sally, Poppy wears the colorful clothes. Frank, you're wearing a wig. Robert, were you worried about the blackface in "Tropic Thunder"?
DOWNEY: It was weird enough to have Ben Stiller call you: "I have this comedy. It's like 'White Chicks' but in reverse." And I thought, this son of a bitch. And then I got tickled. I remember my dad did this movie in 1968 called "Putney Swope," about a black guy who takes over an ad agency. It was a revolutionary movie about advertising and life and what happens when you get power. He looped the entire movie, so it was actually his voice with this black actor. It's kind of weird—sometimes the roles you get have a circular thing on the path of your life. I decided to do it; two weeks later I'm in Hawaii. We're doing these makeup tests, and it's the thing: if you see fear, head for it. I thought I might as well dominate and be off-putting and weird and say strange things in character. Because it was perceived as a racist thing to do, I was coming down on Ben real hard with the Jew thing.

The joke with the character is that he's always in character. Did you actually stay in character?
DOWNEY: It's funny, because the whole point of the movie is that that's ridiculous. And yet it's so real, like you said about Nixon, staying in there. I usually can't be bothered to. I usually recoil as though from a hot flame at the actor-prep moment. You either know what you're doing or you don't. Ben really shot the heck out of it. It was one of the things where the human comedy is so ridiculous, I was loopy and just entertaining myself. There was one scene—the "full retard" scene is something that I studied. And the rest of the stuff, I'd vaguely look at the lines and try to come up with better ones. I just kept thinking, what can I do to get the boom operator to laugh his ass off? He hasn't cracked a smile yet.

HAWKINS: You could see that.

DOWNEY: But the crying and all that stuff, Ben was a pain in the ass that day. But imagine this. He's directing a movie with his arms tied behind his back, which for him—his mildly controlling nature—was the metaphor of the century.

Mickey, your performance in "The Wrestler" doesn't feel like you're acting.
ROURKE: It was painful. I was actually replaced early on when they couldn't raise the money, and I was relieved. Talking about directors earlier and trust, for me I've got to have respect as well as trust. A lot of guys can talk a good game, and then get on the floor and fold to s–––. Darren [Aronofsky] did his homework. He was smart; he knew how to get the most of me by challenging me.

PITT: You shot straight through, right? You had a horrendous schedule.

ROURKE: We had a bad schedule. It was seven months of putting the weight on, it was four months of wrestling practice—and I can't pay you. You're going to do everything I tell you, and you're never going to disrespect me in front of the crew. I'm thinking, he's real smart and he's got balls. We had a very low budget. When we did the wrestling scenes, they were actually having real wrestling events and we'd run in real quick with the cameras. I had to know my s–––, my partner had to know my choreography. We had maybe three takes before the next live bout was going to come on. And then there was all the pressure of having to pull it off in front of 3,000 crazy wrestling fanatics.

Did you get lots of bruises?
ROURKE: Yeah. That's part of the reason why I was happy when I got replaced. It's been way over 10 years since I gave everything to anybody. It was a good feeling at the end of the day. I'd forgotten what it felt like. All these guys, the old-school wrestlers from the '80s, Ric Flair, Brutus Beefcake, they all came to the premiere. We were nervous because we wanted their approval. And Roddy Piper started crying and we were like, OK, we did our job.

HATHAWAY: I had his action figure when I was a kid.

ROURKE: He's a cool guy.

DOWNEY: The best directors are the ones you can have the heated, f–––ed-up, gear-grinding moments with. Because that way it's not passive-aggressive, you're not nurturing a resentment. Guy Ritchie [who is directing Downey in "Sherlock Holmes"] was like, "Mate, I gotta tell you it's so toxic, you're such a c––t, everyone feels it." I was like, "Really? And you're like Rain Man, you dumb motherf–––er." And we had it out. Then my wife was there, and she's like, things are getting really edgy. But then you let it blow off, and the next day you go, that was yesterday, and here we are. My whole thing is kind of twisted. I want to get so close with my director. I want us to have this impermeable thing. That's the sick part. I want this holy communion, but it's not on them. If they don't want to go there, I've got to take care of myself. But when they want to go there, it's quantum. And sometimes it's a status thing. You work with Oliver Stone, I sit at the bottom of his chair and I'd reach up and grab his hand. And I'd talk, and he'd say, "You looked like a Gila monster when I saw you at the bar last night, mate."

HAWKINS: With Mike, you think you'll be doing this great scene. This is a long improvisation! And he'll be asleep in the back of the car. Or not there.

DOWNEY: He's directing from a car?

HAWKINS: Sorry. In the improvisation, we did real-time driving lessons, going out in the streets of London. You do days, and Mike is lying in the back seat.

Are those improvisations recorded?
HAWKINS: No. He invites a script supervisor who has an amazing ability at shorthand. And you go back to rehearsal and distill it and tone it and hone it.

Do you plan on working in the United States now?
HAWKINS: I'd love to. This is the second time I've been to L.A.

LANGELLA: Our condolences.