-Let's talk about the movie.
This is based on a dystopian novel,
written in 1953,
about firemen who burn books... -Yes.
-...to stop people from having ideas.
And is it safe to say
this is the most fire you've been around on set?
-It's a lot of fire.
I mean, I've been in a bunch of movies
where, like, things blew up.
You know, when I did "Pearl Harbor,"
they basically re-created --
-Famously. Things famously blew up.
-Yeah, a lot of stuff blew up there.
But this was interesting. We started --
My first day of shooting on this,
there's a scene where we go to Montag's home,
which is the character Michael B. Jordan plays.
And we basically, like, burn everything in his house.
We basically --
We were punishing him for breaking a rule.
So it was my first day on the set,
and they have us in these --
Our fire suits are basically these airtight wax costumes
that don't breathe at all.
And we're on a set in a studio, and we're just all day long
burning things, shooting fire out of guns,
little piles of smoldering things over there,
burning curtains.
Like 10 hours of just standing there,
wondering, "What is burning? What are we inhaling?"
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-"What is this? How are they doing this?"
And at the end of the day,
I just looked at Michael B. Jordan,
I was like, "Man, we know how to pick 'em."
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-"This is a good time." [ Laughter ]
And some of the other guys
had these little cooling systems under their suits,
all these little, like, tubes and --
that cold water would run through.
They basically worked for about five minutes,
and then it was basically like you were covered
with little containers of pee or something.
[ Laughter ]
But I never did that.
I just -- I figured my character was too tough for that.
-Oh, that's fantastic that you made that choice.
-Yeah, I just sweated it out, yeah.
-Speaking of toughness, Michael B. Jordan,
an incredibly tough guy -- obviously, "Black Panther,"
"Creed" -- not somebody you want to tango with,
but you do have a fight scene with him in the film.
How was that, going up against somebody --
-It was kind of ridiculous, but, uh...
[ Laughter ]
[ Laughing ]
I'm a scrapper, though. I mean...
[ Laughter ]
But he -- Yeah, he's an awesome physical specimen.
Something happened in my profession
that I don't quite understand, because when I started acting,
the main reason I did it is because I wasn't an athlete.
-Uh-huh. [ Laughter ]
-I wasn't into sports, and I didn't like exercising at all.
-Yeah. -And now it seems like
actors are expected to be, like, these --
I think they work out more than, like, professional bodybuilders.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-And particularly with all the superhero movies and whatnot,
you know, people -- I mean -- I'm kind of buddies
with Paul Rudd. We worked together once.
And when he got "Ant-Man," he started working out.
I'm like, "You got to work out to play Ant-Man?"
[ Laughter and applause ]
"That doesn't even make any sense."
-Yeah. -I mean, I know ants are strong.
I've seen him lift, but they're not -- they're not bulky.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-They're not ripped. -Right, there's no --
-They don't have a six-pack.
-You've never seen abs on an ant.
-Yeah, it's basically three little pods and some legs.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
If he was doing a workout to make himself look like
three parts, then you'd understand.
-Yeah, that would make sense. [ Laughter ]
Like some sort of, like, balloon-animal workout...
[ Laughter ] ...where you twist yourself.
-Get your head a little bit bigger.
-Yeah, yeah, exactly. -Super big torso.
-Yeah.
And then, these things, whatever these are, yeah.
-Almost impossible to get these at the gym.
-Yeah, yeah. -Almost no known workout.
-No, no. -You guys met --
Is it true you met Paul doing a show together on Broadway?
-I'd -- I'd known --
I'd been acquainted with Paul over the years,
we had mutual friends in common,
but we really got to know one another
doing a play on Broadway, called "Grace,"
which infamously was the scene of a vomit that --
a vomiting incident -- -From onstage?
-In the audience. -The audience, yeah.
-No, in the audience. Someone in the balcony
vomited into... [ Audience groans ]
...the orchestra.
-Oh, so they vomited all the way down a level?
-Yeah, they vomited -- [ Laughter ]
We -- I didn't know what was happening.
We were doing a scene.
There was this scene in the play where --
where Paul's character and his wife,
who, ironically, is now my wife in real life...
[ Laughter ]
-See, that's why you get into the theater.
Not to go to the gym.
-Yeah, no, to collect wives. [ Laughter ]
No. She --
Somebody had vomited. So, anyway, there's a scene
where they invite me over for dinner.
My character is, like, this deeply troubled guy
who's been in a car accident, he's been disfigured,
and he's a scientist -- a physicist --
and he's talking about --
they're asking him about his job,
and he's talking about the noises that space makes
and how we get information from space and --
And while I'm basically doing this section,
the incident happens where the vomiting takes place.
Which I don't hear that, but what you hear is
the response to the vomiting, which is distracting.
[ Laughter ]
And I gradually start to get a little irritated,
and I think, "Well, isn't this perfect?
I'm actually doing a speech about how there's noise in space
and that it interferes with --
So I start directly addressing my speech to the audience
in a very a pointed manner
and forget all about Paul and Kate.
It's basically a scene between me and the audience
where I'm talking about noisy, black voids.
[ Laughter ]
And it just -- it doesn't seem to be having any effect.
So I walk offstage, I walk past the stage manager,
I said, "What the hell's going on?"
And he said, "Oh, somebody just puked in the balcony."
And I immediately -- I felt really bad...
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-'Cause I felt like I was being very judgmental.
I don't know how I would've handled that situation, really,
if somebody vomited on me. -Yeah.
I feel bad for all parties. -Yeah.
-You feel bad for -- I feel like the guy who vomited,
that wasn't his plan. -Yeah.
Yeah, no, I think it was a foodborne illness.
-Yeah? -Yeah.
Although there was speculation
the person might have been intoxicated.
-Oh, then, that's --
-Which I'm not particularly up on people showing up drunk.
-Yeah, it seems like somebody misunderstands
the joys of alcohol if they think,
"Let's get bombed and go see a drama."
[ Laughter ]
-Well, and you got to be careful, 'cause in that play,
the stage very slowly spun around the whole time.
-Oh, that's a nightmare.
-So if you're drunk and you're trying to focus, it's --
-Well, if he puked, that's definitely what the reason was.
-Well, I guess it goes to the old phrase
"Turn around's fair play." [ Laughter ]
-Well, we'll leave it at that.
Thank you so much for being here.