[on Minority Report (2002)] That came out of the blue. And I met Steven [Steven Spielberg] the day that I went to shoot. As with the Coen's all you want to do is please this person and give him exactly what he wants. Steven had seen O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and just gave me this role. The day I met him was the day I showed up. What was difficult about that role, and delightfully challenging at the same time, was that I had these long monologues to 'Tom Cruise')qv). That's pretty much the sum total of what the part is about. And I worked and worked and worked to memorize them so that they were word perfect. Because, again, like a Coen Brothers script it was clear rhythmically that the way this guy spoke was something that Steven wanted to be very specific and to be achieved with little deviation. Steven wanted Tom Cruise to be burrowing through this world populated by a lot of weird eccentric characters and I was to be one of those and the rhythm of the dialogue was quite specific so I learned it and took great pains to do so. Then I arrived on set and was summoned to Tom Cruise's trailer. To Tom Cruise's bus, which was more like a shopping mall. It was just enormous, so I went in and made my way past the Foot Locker and the Body Shop and found Steven and Tom in the food court, and they both had these yellow legal pads and I quickly realized that they were going through the speech and changing words and phrases here and there in almost every sentence. I suddenly felt like I was on this cliff and I was going to plummet into the abyss of disappointing Steven Spielberg. So I got all these changes and I went back and started desperately trying to learn them. Then I got back on set with Steven. And he wasn't happy with what I was doing and it wasn't that I hadn't fully memorized this script. He just said, "I want an extreme character here." And I thought, "Well, my God, how extreme should I go?" Then he said, "Do a Boston accent." It seemed so arbitrary but it was really a brilliant piece of direction because everything suddenly started to click. Not only did it click in terms of pushing me to an extreme that he would appreciate and would work for his movie but every single change they made suddenly made sense rhythmically. Then we went off and started shooting. The other remarkable thing about Steven is that he can do pretty much everyone's job on a movie set. He doesn't want to, and he doesn't try to, but he can do it. That man could literally operate the camera, set dolly tracks, flag lights, sew costumes, design costumes, work the soundboard. He can put a lav mic on an actor. I wouldn't be surprised if he could do my makeup. He knows every single facet of a movie set. It's utterly remarkable and therefore it's no accident that he accomplishes what he does.
Show less «