SuicideGirls favorite Peter Sarsgaard does it again. Even in Flightplan, a straight up genre piece alongside Jodie Foster, Sarsgaard shows that he will become one of the worlds greatest actors.
In Flightplan Sarsgaard plays an Air Marshall who is trying to control Jodie Fosters character as she desperately tries to find her missing daughter on a cross Atlantic flight.
Check out the official site for Flightplan
Daniel Robert Epstein: What made you want to be in Flightplan?
Peter Sarsgaard: I'd worked with [Flightplan co-screenwriter] Billy Ray before on Shattered Glass and I got a call from Billy and he told me about it. I think that they might have been interested in me before then but whoever has the connection with the actor usually ends up talking to them usually.
DRE: Was that after Jodie Foster was attached?
PS: Yeah, I was scheduled to do something else and then I met [director] Robert [Schwentke] and I thought that he was so cool. I watched his movie Tattoo and really enjoyed it. Jodie is fantastic too so it was kind of a no-brainer.
DRE: Did you feel Billy Rays touch on this script?
PS: To me Billy's thing is piecing together information.. So doing both Shattered Glass and Flightplan was actually weirdly similar. It's just keeping track of information and that becomes a large part of your job on a movie like this. It's about what is known and what is not known because the plan through the movie is very intricate and I think its not totally decipherable even on a first viewing. I think that as an actor I have to be on top of that.
DRE: Did you talk to real Air Marshalls?
PS: I talked to one Air Marshal. In this movie certain stuff is not so significant. An Air Marshal normally sits in first class for example but in the movie I'm not sitting in first class. The main thing about being an Air Marshal is being a good shot. YI happen to be an okay shot because I've played a lot of people with weapons. I think that in the real world the whole movie would stop about 40 minutes in because she would be handcuffed to her seat.
DRE: Do you like working in the thriller genre?
PS: It's the thriller in a small space genre, all in one little room. A lot of working on this movie was working with the camera basically so for an actor it's a more technical movie. I'm doing a dance not just with the other actors, but also with the camera that's attached to the ceiling and zooming down from a crane. So there's a timing to that and you can't just Marlon Brando that. I like movies that have a really stylistic camera element. So I consider it part of my job to not dig my heels in when I'm approached by someone who wants to shoot a movie in a way that I'm going to be participating with the camera.
DRE: You always seem to play suck serious characters.
PS: I feel like that is the only way that I am typecast but I have done slapstick on stage. In films I get to play a variety of different roles, but within the fact that I don't get to pull off faces for the audiences. It's really about communing directly to the audience is what you're talking about. If I'm trying to make another character laugh in a movie, which I do in this movie with some bad jokes just to get a conversation started, I would be trying to make them laugh through the camera in the audience.
DRE: Were you disappointed that Kinsey never found an audience in the theatre?
PS: Yeah, I think that what Kinsey needed was to play in states where people would loathe it because hating a movie never hurt it. Michael Moore's movie wound up in states where it could stimulate debate. Frank Rich wrote this piece about how the Christian Right stymied Kinsey but I wish they had seen it. So the debate never got going about it. It played in states where people agreed with it and that doesn't help a movie and I feel like it needed to play in some of the red states in order to become successful. It was like everyone walked out and was like, Right. Well, isn't that amazing. Instead of That man is the devil and then No he's not He invented homosexuality. No. He didn't! [Laughs]
DRE: Were you surprised that Kinsey didnt get nominated for more Oscars?
PS: No, because the Oscars are clearly not just based on merit. I think that it's also based on the response to the movie. If the movie doesn't start a debate then it's not considered as relevant. To me the acting awards should be at least based on the degree of difficulty. If you did a great job in a shitty movie you should get an extra .5 added on. If you did a great job in a great movie that's already being nominated for other awards you should get .5 taken off because it's much easier to do a good job in a good movie.
DRE: You must be excited about Jarhead.
PS: I am. I just saw it and it's really one of the best movies I've ever been in. It's really top shelf. I think that it's fantastic.
DRE: Whats your character?
PS: My character is in the novel, but only in a little bit of it. Jake [Gyllenhaal] and I play a team of spotter and shooter in the Marines. They shoot the M40A1 Sniper Rifle which is the long distance rifle. I'm a little older than everyone else in our squad so I'm the squad leader. Jamie Foxx is our sergeant. We get trained to kill in an orderly efficient way. We go to Iraq and we sit on our asses but they want to be able to do their jobs, but their job is to kill people. So it's very complicated. It's really part Catch 22 and part MASH.
DRE: How was shooting it?
PS: Exhausting and not very much fun. We did it in Mexico. There are a lot of scenes where we are in full chemical gear and it's really hot and there's a charcoal on the inside. Then you have your uniform with your packs, your rifle and your helmet and after a while you're walking around with an extra 60 to 70 pounds on your body while running. We didn't stop for lunch because we were shooting French hours and we wanted to get all of the daylight out of it. After a while I felt like an old man because I'm 34 and most of the other guys on the movie who were doing the stuff that I was doing are in their early 20s so I was lagging man.
DRE: Do more people come up to you about Shattered Glass now that its on DVD and on cable?
PS: Oh yeah. What's wild is that people will say that they saw it in their journalism class or something like that. I'm like, What's happened to journalism classes now that you're watching movies about journalism in journalism class? But I feel like the movie is very relevant today and it's a very simple message, its easier for us to believe in news that fits our agenda. The articles that Stephen Glass wrote fit the agenda of the magazine and so people in the magazine believed him. I think that is still true. You have viewers that prefer CNN, FOX, McNeil and Lehrer, BBC World News viewers and they all watch the news that fits their agendas. Then when those agendas clash on Crossfire it's like a sporting event and we're just psyched to have our team win. You can even hear the crowd root. It stifles discussion. It ruins democracy. Information is one of the most important things in a democracy, solid information, no matter how boring it is to learn that information. To soup it up it and make it exciting is to distort it and make it untrue and I think that's what happened to Stephen Glass. You see Jon Stewart get on Crossfire and I go, Hell yeah.
DRE: Where do you get your news information?
PS: I get it from a variety of sources in that way. I try to read The Wall Street Journal which is a little right but not the most right. I do watch Fox News if I'm watching the election results or even Hurricane Katrina. I will switch back and forth to see the different information that people are getting and the way that they perceive reality because that can become the reality.
DRE: Were you pleased with the success of Garden State?
PS: I am. But actually the highest grossing movie that I've ever been so far is Skeleton Key especially compared to what it cost.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
In Flightplan Sarsgaard plays an Air Marshall who is trying to control Jodie Fosters character as she desperately tries to find her missing daughter on a cross Atlantic flight.
Check out the official site for Flightplan
Daniel Robert Epstein: What made you want to be in Flightplan?
Peter Sarsgaard: I'd worked with [Flightplan co-screenwriter] Billy Ray before on Shattered Glass and I got a call from Billy and he told me about it. I think that they might have been interested in me before then but whoever has the connection with the actor usually ends up talking to them usually.
DRE: Was that after Jodie Foster was attached?
PS: Yeah, I was scheduled to do something else and then I met [director] Robert [Schwentke] and I thought that he was so cool. I watched his movie Tattoo and really enjoyed it. Jodie is fantastic too so it was kind of a no-brainer.
DRE: Did you feel Billy Rays touch on this script?
PS: To me Billy's thing is piecing together information.. So doing both Shattered Glass and Flightplan was actually weirdly similar. It's just keeping track of information and that becomes a large part of your job on a movie like this. It's about what is known and what is not known because the plan through the movie is very intricate and I think its not totally decipherable even on a first viewing. I think that as an actor I have to be on top of that.
DRE: Did you talk to real Air Marshalls?
PS: I talked to one Air Marshal. In this movie certain stuff is not so significant. An Air Marshal normally sits in first class for example but in the movie I'm not sitting in first class. The main thing about being an Air Marshal is being a good shot. YI happen to be an okay shot because I've played a lot of people with weapons. I think that in the real world the whole movie would stop about 40 minutes in because she would be handcuffed to her seat.
DRE: Do you like working in the thriller genre?
PS: It's the thriller in a small space genre, all in one little room. A lot of working on this movie was working with the camera basically so for an actor it's a more technical movie. I'm doing a dance not just with the other actors, but also with the camera that's attached to the ceiling and zooming down from a crane. So there's a timing to that and you can't just Marlon Brando that. I like movies that have a really stylistic camera element. So I consider it part of my job to not dig my heels in when I'm approached by someone who wants to shoot a movie in a way that I'm going to be participating with the camera.
DRE: You always seem to play suck serious characters.
PS: I feel like that is the only way that I am typecast but I have done slapstick on stage. In films I get to play a variety of different roles, but within the fact that I don't get to pull off faces for the audiences. It's really about communing directly to the audience is what you're talking about. If I'm trying to make another character laugh in a movie, which I do in this movie with some bad jokes just to get a conversation started, I would be trying to make them laugh through the camera in the audience.
DRE: Were you disappointed that Kinsey never found an audience in the theatre?
PS: Yeah, I think that what Kinsey needed was to play in states where people would loathe it because hating a movie never hurt it. Michael Moore's movie wound up in states where it could stimulate debate. Frank Rich wrote this piece about how the Christian Right stymied Kinsey but I wish they had seen it. So the debate never got going about it. It played in states where people agreed with it and that doesn't help a movie and I feel like it needed to play in some of the red states in order to become successful. It was like everyone walked out and was like, Right. Well, isn't that amazing. Instead of That man is the devil and then No he's not He invented homosexuality. No. He didn't! [Laughs]
DRE: Were you surprised that Kinsey didnt get nominated for more Oscars?
PS: No, because the Oscars are clearly not just based on merit. I think that it's also based on the response to the movie. If the movie doesn't start a debate then it's not considered as relevant. To me the acting awards should be at least based on the degree of difficulty. If you did a great job in a shitty movie you should get an extra .5 added on. If you did a great job in a great movie that's already being nominated for other awards you should get .5 taken off because it's much easier to do a good job in a good movie.
DRE: You must be excited about Jarhead.
PS: I am. I just saw it and it's really one of the best movies I've ever been in. It's really top shelf. I think that it's fantastic.
DRE: Whats your character?
PS: My character is in the novel, but only in a little bit of it. Jake [Gyllenhaal] and I play a team of spotter and shooter in the Marines. They shoot the M40A1 Sniper Rifle which is the long distance rifle. I'm a little older than everyone else in our squad so I'm the squad leader. Jamie Foxx is our sergeant. We get trained to kill in an orderly efficient way. We go to Iraq and we sit on our asses but they want to be able to do their jobs, but their job is to kill people. So it's very complicated. It's really part Catch 22 and part MASH.
DRE: How was shooting it?
PS: Exhausting and not very much fun. We did it in Mexico. There are a lot of scenes where we are in full chemical gear and it's really hot and there's a charcoal on the inside. Then you have your uniform with your packs, your rifle and your helmet and after a while you're walking around with an extra 60 to 70 pounds on your body while running. We didn't stop for lunch because we were shooting French hours and we wanted to get all of the daylight out of it. After a while I felt like an old man because I'm 34 and most of the other guys on the movie who were doing the stuff that I was doing are in their early 20s so I was lagging man.
DRE: Do more people come up to you about Shattered Glass now that its on DVD and on cable?
PS: Oh yeah. What's wild is that people will say that they saw it in their journalism class or something like that. I'm like, What's happened to journalism classes now that you're watching movies about journalism in journalism class? But I feel like the movie is very relevant today and it's a very simple message, its easier for us to believe in news that fits our agenda. The articles that Stephen Glass wrote fit the agenda of the magazine and so people in the magazine believed him. I think that is still true. You have viewers that prefer CNN, FOX, McNeil and Lehrer, BBC World News viewers and they all watch the news that fits their agendas. Then when those agendas clash on Crossfire it's like a sporting event and we're just psyched to have our team win. You can even hear the crowd root. It stifles discussion. It ruins democracy. Information is one of the most important things in a democracy, solid information, no matter how boring it is to learn that information. To soup it up it and make it exciting is to distort it and make it untrue and I think that's what happened to Stephen Glass. You see Jon Stewart get on Crossfire and I go, Hell yeah.
DRE: Where do you get your news information?
PS: I get it from a variety of sources in that way. I try to read The Wall Street Journal which is a little right but not the most right. I do watch Fox News if I'm watching the election results or even Hurricane Katrina. I will switch back and forth to see the different information that people are getting and the way that they perceive reality because that can become the reality.
DRE: Were you pleased with the success of Garden State?
PS: I am. But actually the highest grossing movie that I've ever been so far is Skeleton Key especially compared to what it cost.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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