- Some people like watching skateboarding videos
where they can do the trick,
and other people like watching them
when they fall off (laughs)
and crash.
I think I'm more of the
watching people fall and crash type of person.
And I want to be that kind of actor.
- But that's the brilliance.
That's the brilliance.
That is the best performance.
The best performance is the one
where you just ride the line.
You know what I mean?
Where it's just, whoa,
could just tip over this way or that way.
And it's just going to be a disaster.
But when you,
it looks like you're going to fall.
I think that's where the best performances are.
- The one who bombs (laughs)
or gets as close to bombing as possible.
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- From movie to movie.
Do you remember the process
or do you shed that experience
and feel like you're starting from scratch every time?
- I mean, yeah, definitely.
Every single time I start a movie
I just feel like I have no idea how to act
like it's just kind of,
it only really seems to come together.
You need the adrenaline of kind of, yeah.
I think you need to feel like a total failure.
You feel your absolute worst the day before.
- Yeah.
- You're kind of confidence falls out,
but I remember standing on the porch
of the church and there was just
this lovely breeze going past
and we were doing the scene
puttin' the bicycle
in the trunk of the car
and you just suddenly...
Like, it's weird.
It only seems to come to you,
like when it needs to.
That first morning or the first day.
And it's like, Oh,
just suddenly all the pieces suddenly come together
and you have this amazing feeling
of calm after it switched.
Your mind just totally clears.
It's lovely.
- One of my favorite scenes
is that speech that you give
where you're talking about delusions.
- Delusions.
Blaspheming the Lord in your mind
and then your heart.
- My memory of it was like, we just kept pushing it.
And I think at one point I was like, look, just go
as far as you want to go with this. (laughs)
You can't go far enough.
- I love those speeches.
I think...
I just I've always wanted to do it.
There's something about playing a preacher.
I mean, I think even around
for years before this part even came along
I'd been asking to kind of try
and find some kind of preacher role.
I just think they're really...
There's just something fascinating about them.
Playing a part where they truly believe what they're saying.
I mean,
it's always kind of fun,
especially when they're lying (laughs).
How
could I be
a daddy
when all we done is spent time with Lord?
- I remember a lot of the process of working with you,
you avoiding the dialect coach
and then showing up to set
very much in character.
There was nothing precious,
but you had really arrived at something.
And once you'd arrived at it
and felt confident in it,
you were confident to show it and to discuss it.
- I was just wandering around the city,
just kind of just sort of learning
the lines and then this,
I don't know what it is.
There's just something about some pronunciations
that just really tickle me.
And I was just kind of,
I was just wandering around
and then I'd say something
and I was just recording things on my phone.
Kind of just making myself laugh,
like just walking around sets (laughs) even.
I mean but there's only so many times you can actually,
you kind of have to be walking
with like a friend to be able
to just be like, "I just want to do this thing.
"It doesn't really make a lot of sense."
(laughs) It's coming from somewhere.
- There were takes where early takes
where you would say delusion,
and then you would just crack up. (laughs)
And go no, no, no, no, no, no.
- (laughs) I try and go into each new project
with I'll have a kind of idea
of how something would feel different
and how it...
So
you can just encourage
a physical feeling inside yourself.
Like when I first read this, you know,
there's something scary about it,
there's a few lines,
it goes back to being like a little kid in class.
And like saying like,
wanting to say like the naughty thing.
- (laughs) Right.
- It's kind of this immature little part of you.
That things like oh, that's this kind of,
there's something subversive to say.
But friends.
The poor soul
who brung in them chicken livers
on that beat-up plate.
Well let's just say I'm inspired
to preach on it for a minute before we eat.
I remember Teagarden really standing out
even though he's a pretty
amoral kind of narcissistic (laughs)
kind of monster in a lot of ways,
he's also got a lot of energy.
It really came off the page.
It was ruinin' me, man.
You can understand that can't you?
He's very is corporeal the real word?
The right word.
He's kind of...
He's very much...
He's very, very sensual
and there were little mentions in the script.
Of just he's just pouring sweat
and just eating fat and oil.
And this kind of...
Just, there was something that really appealed to me
but he's just kind of fat, and sweaty,
and there's something.
He's just consuming, consuming, consuming,
and just requires like heavy fuel to exist.
Blessed are they who hunger
and thirst for righteousness.
There's something very exciting about it.
It's one of my favorite things to watch
is like those things about
televangelists when they're kind of trying
to justify why they have to buy private jets and stuff.
I mean, it's always very entertaining to watch.
- And that aspect of him that you mentioned,
which is like key
to the character and also what separates
him from everybody else
is that he's not struggling.
Like there's no internal conflict at play.
- You figure some way to get rid of it.
'Cause otherwise
it's going to be you.
And also he is someone who can forgive himself
incredibly easily which really makes him stand out.
No matter what he does.
He's always in the right afterwards.
That's always something fun.
I mean, I love at the end
he just does a quick little prayer.
(both laugh)
All is forgiven.
Everything just written off.
And it's, I mean...
His idea of faith really fits with
the rest of how he lives his life.
It's like you can do anything you want
and just ask forgiveness right
at the end in the last two seconds.
And you're all good.
Have you shown yourself
as the Lord made ya?
- You mean in my birthday suit?
No.
- No?
- No.
- To show yourself as the Lord made his first children
is to truly turn yourself to Him.
- The danger with bad guys is that there's this...
Sometimes there's a
the inclination to try and redeem them
and then trying to redeem them somehow verges
on justifying some of the things that they do.
To embrace the villainy of it
is where it needs to go.
- I don't need to think you have
to redeem any character.
Half the time I don't even think he needs to have
any kind of motivation or anything.
It's just, (laughs)
instead of, I mean,
I also liked bad guys.
I was watching Blue Velvet again the other day
and just kind of Frank Booth in Blue Velvet.
It's just.
The energy is what makes you
you're interesting where the character goes.
- Do you remember
the scene between you and Tom at the very end?
Which is such a kind of...
It's a very still scene.
There's not a lot of movement.
It's only two people sitting
in the small church talking to each other.
We treated it almost like it was theater.
What's your memory of that scene
if you have any memory of it at all?
- I don't think other than the delusion scene,
I'd only very briefly seen him in character.
It was the first time I'd really seen
his kind of righteous rage
and it kind of really pulled out.
I remember realizing as Tom was doing
the early parts of his sort of false confession.
- One day I got this girl in my truck
and I drove her out in the sticks and I
had my way with her.
- I was just thinking like,
this should be turning Teagarden on. (laughs)
This thing.
I hadn't really thought about it before.
And I was like,
"Oh, you should respond lasciviously."
Did she put up a fight?
It's super dark, the scene,
but I just remember
it's a fun scene.
I mean,
it's kind of very, very well balanced,
Tom's really amazing in it.
And it was great to see him work.
And it's kind of...
It's really hard part he's got as well
where you have to be sort of contained
the whole time and like somehow have
something pulsating out of you.
I really liked having the fat suit on as well.
'Cause I was just doing about 30 takes
of like (laughs) falling over the pew.
(gun shoots)
Actually it really helped out
having a fat belly (laughs).
There's a cushion.
- So you really wanted to fly over the thing.
So you were throwing yourself
over the Pew at the end of that scene.
- Yeah you just have to hurt yourself.
(laughs) I'm always like, yeah, no problem.
So that's when to look like you're really good
at doing something.
There's no problem.
- The scene itself I worked on that scene
in some capacity almost every day
eight months every day.
But we have to highlight that moment where he does that.
As a director you just like want to do justice
to the thing that the actors have done in the movie,
highlight that, but not lose
the language of the scene.
The grammar of the scene.
The thing with that scene is
it's very quiet in a way until it explodes.
It's so much of like looks
and the way that you lean
and the way that you look in at him
and the way that there's not a lot of action,
but there's a lot of like shifts.
- I remember that feeling of very,
very good dynamic between
the camera and both of us at the time.
And I kind of felt very, very tight and concentrated.
It's funny.
Like sometimes you can just feel
that the camera's in exactly the right place.
And you're just like, Oh,
I know where my frame is.
I know how to kind of perform within this thing.
Sometimes you don't exactly know
where you're performing to.
You know,
it's being created a lot in the edit.
But that day I remember feeling every little person
I could really feel, oh, that's,
you're really watching when we were doing stuff.
'Cause it kind of,
it just felt like it was very,
very concentrated
and just very satisfying.
'Cause most of the time you kind of
you just don't really feel that dynamic that much.
The relationship with the camera that much.
I definitely think as well as something
and just having fun with it.
I mean, it took me a long time to realize
that like acting...
Well, I mean, when I started acting,
it's always really fun.
And then when you start doing it professionally,
it's terrifying and so competitive.
It doesn't feel fun for a while. (laughs)
And I kind of over the last few jobs, I mean,
during jobs like this, when it is,
I mean it's really fun
when you can kind of do scenes like this
when it's kind of
you really feel like you're like flying
and stuff and that
can't really fail at that point as well.
I mean, if you've had a good time doing it, then.
That's all there is.
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