-We talked about it briefly backstage,
but the first film I saw you in
was a wonderful Australian crime film, "Animal Kingdom."
-Indeed, the series of the same name is based on it.
-Yeah, and you were very villainous in that role.
-Yeah, he's not a nice guy. -He's not a nice guy.
-He's not a nice guy.
His name is Pope, so I guess... -Yeah.
-Pope, King -- yeah. -Yeah, exactly.
No gray area on him. Very much --
Nobody walked out of that film being like,
"I liked him the most." -Some did.
But, you know, Australians,
they have peculiar sense of this stuff.
-Do you still get recognized from that film?
-Yeah. A bit.
I mean, but they don't tend to come up to me.
-Yeah. -So that one it's sort of like,
"Oh, yeah, they saw 'Animal Kingdom,'"
'cause they just sort of go away.
You know more if it's "Bloodline" or "Star Wars."
-And I want to -- It's very nice to see you in this role,
because you play a nice person. -Yes.
-It was really lovely to see you play a nice person.
-Thank you very much. -And you actually --
Because that was -- For people that don't know,
that was Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill.
Unrecognizable. -That is Gary Oldman.
-You look a fair amount like King George here.
That's not bad. -Yeah. I think, uh...
I think, you know, Joe -- You know, Joe --
That's why he gave me the job. -Yeah.
-You look like him. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah, he was like, look,
"I'm wasting my entire makeup budget on Gary."
-Yep. -I need some --
Everybody else has to look
exactly like who they're playing.
-Yep. That's it.
-Famously, obviously, this is --
You're playing someone who had a lisp.
You had to use a dialect coach. -Yep.
-How was that? Was that intense?
-Yeah, yeah, it's pretty full on.
Yeah, I mean, the --
It starts to happen. [ Laughter ]
-Even thinking -- Even saying dialect coach now...
-And once you start to get close to them,
they start to invade you at various times.
But, yeah. It was a lot of work.
"The King's Speech" is the same character a little earlier on.
A little bit of a worse, you know, stutter.
-Wow. So you had to go back.
You had to step back from even that.
-I had to go forward from that, yes, to step back from that.
-Okay, gotcha. -Yeah.
-One of the great things about the new "Star Wars" films,
so many people were fans and happy to see them back.
I'm always happy to hear that the actors who are lucky enough
to be in those films were fans.
You were a fan of "Star Wars"? -Oh, yeah.
No, I mean, the first one comes out,
I'm in the cinema, I'm 8 years old,
and then, "BVVVV!" the ship comes overhead, I'm in.
-That's great. -Yeah.
-And so was there a moment on set that you realized,
"Oh, I'm in a 'Star Wars' movie right now"?
-Yeah, once --
So you do the rehearsals, and this and that,
and you know you're gonna be in it,
but, you know --
For those of you that don't know,
I kind of built the Death Star. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ] -And, um, so...
-And that's great, because, really, when you think,
King George didn't do anything close to that.
-Oh, well, you know. -[ Laughing ]
I mean, yeah.
Different, but when you have those stormtroopers there,
yeah, you know you're in a "Star Wars" movie.
-That's really great, and you had a lot of --
You had just teams of stormtroopers
behind you in that film.
-I did. I did, indeed.
-Yeah, congratulations on that. -Thank you very much.
-First time you saw Darth Vader, how was that?
-It was -- You know, it was personal, I guess.
[ Laughter ]
-Did you keep -- No, I genuinely want to ask this.
Did you keep your cool the first time you saw Darth Vader on set?
-No. No, not at all.
[ Laughter ] I mean, not at all.
For a start, he's enormous. -Yeah.
-He's got a really bad breathing problem.
I mean, like -- [ Laughter ]
You think George has got problems speaking?
I mean, it's hard for Darth. -Yeah.
-But, you know, I mean you stay there,
you listen, and, in fact, there kind of are
similarities between King George and Darth in that way.
-And does Darth show up for rehearsal and everything?
-No, no, never. No, no, no.
Darth, I mean --
There's a stand-in guy that does Darth's stuff.
-Okay, gotcha.
-And then you'd be waiting around, and it'd be like,
"Okay, Darth's gonna be here soon."
It's like, "Darth's going to be here soon,"
and then you hear -- [ Breathing loudly ]
-Is he ever apologetic about keeping everyone waiting?
-Never apologizes. Never explains.
That seems to be one of his things.
-I don't know. It's just a shame.
-He's that kind of guy, but, look...
-It's a shame he doesn't try harder.
the work is wonderful though, so, you know, whatever.
-I have heard -- We share something else.
We are both comic-book fans. -Oh, yeah.
-Is that something you were a fan of your whole life?
-Yeah. Yes and no.
I mean, I'm a mild comic-book fan.
I wouldn't want to go toe-to-toe with a serious one.
-Yeah.
-I'm talking about the Kirby kind of "X-Men" years.
I'm talking McFarlane's -- -Seth McFarlane, yeah.
"Spider-Man" stuff? -Exactly, and later, "Spawn."
-Okay, great. -Yeah.
-There we go. We match up very well on that.
-There you go. -And you mentioned --
You mentioned "Bloodline,"
getting recognized more for "Bloodline."
Do you find the TV work you do
you get recognized more for than your --
-Yeah. -Okay.
-Because people spend more time with you on TV.
I'm in the lounge room, as it were.
-Yeah. -You know, whereas
they don't expect to see someone from "Star Wars"
walking down the street. You know what I mean?
-That's true. -There's a bit of a disconnect.
-Yeah, because when you think --
You look more like your character in "Bloodline"
in real life than you do in your "Star Wars" character.
-Thank you. -I think?
-I think, yeah. -Yeah.
I never thought of it that way, that you'd be very surprised
to see someone, and you're like,
"When was last time I saw that guy?"
You'd be like, "Oh, the Death Star."
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-It would definitely take you a minute.
-Yeah, it does. It takes them a minute, yeah.
-Well, congratulations on the film.
-Thank you.
-And in general, just such a delight to meet you.
Thanks so much for being here.