Steve, The Big Short, it's a success in that it takes a complicated subject and it makes
it accessible without patronising the audience member.
That should be the end of the interview! Lets put that right on the poster. That's yeah,
that's exactly it. I think thats what our director was going for, Adam McKay was trying
to take a very dense complicated subject and break it down without dumbing it down.
and there's an amazing cast. How many of the guys did you know already in the film? Did
you need to know those guys were involved or when the director comes to you is it very
much, he just talks to you and you kind of have a one-on-one dialogue?
He sent me the script and I've know Adam since, 1990, so we go way way back and he, I was
really flatter that he would think of me for this part too because I, you don't necessarily
think Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling. So I was really happy and
honored to of been invited in but, no he just sent me the script and said I have this part
in mind for you. And I read it and thought it was great. And then he started telling
me about the other people he was interested in, in getting to do it.
but the terminology when you're dealing with this financial world is so hard to grasp,
when you see it, the visuals help. On a page it must be like, this isn't fun.
It's daunting, it is like learning a different language because you're reading colateralised
debt obligation and synthetic CDO's and you're trying to gain a sense of what you're talking
about. Because you don't want to learn in phonetically, you want to have at least a
vague idea of what you're saying, so it rings true. And we had people, you know financial
guru's on set and helping us out in the process and trying to guide us through. Because it
is a different world, I don't know anybody from this world, I didn't grow up with it.
So, there was a learning curve involved for sure.
Was there ever a fear that you might end up vilifying or demonizing people who have these
jobs. Because in America there is a lot of people who do these jobs and you don't want
to be too earnest or too high and mighty because movies are often kind of accused of perhaps
you know quite, sort of, nailing people to the wall without having all the facts?
Well, one of the things I liked about this movie is it's funny and it's actually funnier
than I thought it would be. you read it, you look at the script and as you said, it's all
this verbiage and you think how is this going to play? How are people going to respond to
this, how's this going to be accessible. Adam had a way of breaking it down, deceminating
it so you could enjoy it. you could get a grasp of what's going on and that's actually
all you know. You don't need to understand it every term all along the way. But in terms
of demonising people I think I liked it because there's this grey area as to who these guys
are. They aren't hero's or villains, they're very human and it felt very real to me in
that way.
We did a Q&A in LA a few weeks ago after people had screened the movie and someone in the
back stood up and in a rather snarky way said, come on are we supposed to think these guys
are hero's after the economy collapses and they end up making all this money, are we
supposed to feel sorry for them? For making them for making that choice? And Adam had
a great response because it was exactly what you want it to be. No, they are conflicted,
there's a lot going on. They might've seen themselves as hero's to a certain extent and
they were hero's in the sense that they were uncovering the truth of the matter. But at
the same time, yeah, they stood to make a lot of money off the failure and collapse
of the economy.
And as you say, there's that side of things but it is funny and smart and clever and out
of all the guys there Ryan and Christian and Brad, did you spend most of your time off
set trying to make them laugh?
I never met Christian because all of his stuff was shot separately. I couldn't believe
I was in a movie with Christian Bale. Honestly it was pretty exciting. Brad I saw one day,
our groups sort of meet in passing and so I spent most of my time with Ryan. And I know
him from Crazy, Stupid Love. So we kinda go back and are Friends and most of the time
was spent with him.
Well it's a really brilliant movie, I'll see you in another year!
I hope I have something good to show you!
Fox catcher two?
Haha fox catcher two. Let's hope there's no Big Short two as that will be bad for all
of us.