E-Mail This Article to a Friend Crash course (continued)

Q: I was really struck by how there’s no character in the film who’s completely likable, and no character who’s completely unlikable. And that’s such a rare thing in movies.

PH: Sort of like us. Unlike a lot of Hollywood films, where you say, here’s the hero and there’s the villain. I’ve never met anyone who thinks of himself as a villain, and I doubt you have. But I’ve met some really villainous people who’ve done horrible things, and they don’t think of themselves that way.

Q: There’s so much tension in the film. Was there tension shooting it?

PH: Between Matt and I, yeah. Fistfights, constantly. No, it was a very quick shoot. Thirty-five days, and the logistics were stunning. We’d have to race across town many times. We’d go to one location, shoot with one set of actors, come back the next week to the exact same location and shoot with other actors. So it was very inefficient.

Q: How do you each see this movie fitting into your larger body of work?

PH: I don’t have a larger body of work.

MD: I don’t know. I see it as a film I’m proud of. I really like it. Let me just say this: it’s something I want to be a part of my body of work. There are things that you kind of wish you could cull off of it. This is one of the ones I’m really proud of. I’m an actor, I’ve always been much more comfortable with that role than trying to fit into some kind of image as a certain type of star or celebrity. Or even just somebody who just does action movies, or just does comedy. The actors I admire, those are the people I look to as sources of inspiration. They do lots of different types of work. You know, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, [Al] Pacino. They’re leading men, but they do character work, too. It was great to be surrounded by all this other talent, too. It’s a really, really great ensemble. And everyone’s represented, too. It’s very well-balanced.

Q: And you say you don’t have a body of work?

PH: Well, my first two films are Million Dollar Baby and this.

MD: That’s a pretty good way to start!

PH: I’ve done a lot of television, and I think the best of my television are the ones I really failed brilliantly at, things like EZ Streets, which only lasted for a very short period. But things that really asked questions about who we are as people, and who we are as Americans. I love posing questions that I have no answers for. And I like doing films that people can walk outside and argue about afterwards, and discuss. I think there’s nothing more boring than a film which you go through and you walk out and go, "That was nice. That was good." And then never think of it again. We were talking about Mulholland Drive, films that you go outside and go, "Yeah, what was that about?" Those are the films I love, things that hang with you for a long time, and trouble you.

Q: Speaking of how people walk out of a film, what do you hope people feel during the film, and then what do you hope they take away with them afterwards?

PH: It’s such an individual experience. You just hope it’s thought-provoking. And not just a cerebral experience; you want them to have a visceral experience, so they are maybe troubled, maybe they’re questioning some things. This is not a polemic, this is not a documentary, it’s a piece of entertainment. So as long as they come and pay their eight dollars, I’m very happy.

MD: Eight dollars?

PH: Nine dollars, 10 dollars? Hopefully it’ll be a positive experience. It’s a great piece of entertainment, it’s really worth the ride, and yet there’s something to think about.

MD: I agree: films, their primary obligation, first and foremost, is to be entertaining. And I think hopefully they’re entertained and they enjoy the film. But after that, hopefully they’ll also be able to, while they’re watching the film, be enlightened somehow.

PH: I think laughing appropriately is a good thing to go for. Letting people laugh at themselves and others —

MD: But also to be able to maybe examine their own lives in some way. I don’t mean in a heavy way, but their own beliefs, their own belief systems. Nobody wants to admit it — and I think that’s why it’s hard to talk about this film — nobody wants to admit that they’ve ever had a prejudice or they’ve ever had a prejudiced thought, and I think everybody has. It becomes very easy for us to just say, "Koreans are this way, blacks are this way, Pakistanis are this way." It’s happened to me. I’ve been frustrated or I’ve had a bad experience with somebody, and I assume that "those people are this way." And of course you always find that that’s not true.

Q: What are you working on now?

MD: I’ve got a couple of other films coming out over the next year. And then I’m working on a rewrite of something that I really can’t talk about now. Too early.

PH: I’ll tell you about it later.

MD: After Crash, I did a film called Factotum, which is a Charles Bukowski novel, with Bent Hamer, a Norwegian filmmaker. Very interesting. With Marisa Tomei and Lili Taylor. We did that for under a million. And it’s Bukowski, and it’s kind of hedonistic and raunchy and funny. So anyway, I did that film and I enjoyed that, and then immediately after that I did this movie called Herbie, which is a remake, which was fun. I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t just for the money. I did it because it was actually a fun part.

PH: I’ve got a few things going. I’ve written Clint Eastwood’s next movie, Flags of Our Fathers, that Spielberg is producing and Clint’s directing. I’ve got a couple other things going on.

MD: Paul’s dragging me along on every one of them.

PH: Absolutely.

MD: Every one. It’s in my contract.

Crash opens on May 6 at area theaters. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com