Character actor Paul Giamatti usually has a small role in his movies. He's been part of the ensembles of Saving Private Ryan, Planet of the Apes and Confidence. You may remember him as Pig Vomit in Private Parts or the little blue man in Big Fat Liar, but you rarely see him as a lead.In American Splendor, Giamatti stars in the biography of Harvey Pekar. Comic book writer of the comic book "American Splendor," the unusual Pekar becomes the subject of a movie detailing his humble beginnings at a dead end office job and eventual cult fame. Pekar appears as himself in some scenes. The film begins its platformed release this weekend.
Is it weird to have made this movie years ago, then do Sundance, then a junket for it? Yeah, it was, because I kind of forgot about it in a way. It was such a quick process anyway, I kind of forgot about it. But it has been weird. It feels like it was a really long time ago and then the process from Sundance to this seems like it's been a really long time too. So, it just seems to keep going on and on and on forever.
It's not any different from a junket? No, not really. I mean, I suppose you could go out of your way to make it different. The setting is different and you're sort of walking around running into all of your other people, colleagues and stuff promoting other movies but it's sort of like a junket but it's a nicer setting.
In the film, why was it important to have both you and the real Harvey in different scenes? The [directors] keep saying it was something that they knew from the beginnings that they wanted him in it. I guess his comics are so much about his own identity and his own anxiety about his own identity and his own anxiety about what he's doing with his life and things like that, that he's created such a persona for himself in the comic books and it's so much a thing about documenting his own life. I guess it was really necessary in order to retain the flavor of the comics to actually have him in it. The nice thing about it is it somehow makes my performance at least seem better, I think. I don't know if my performance would be anywhere near as interesting if he wasn't in the movie. I'm not quite sure why it does that, but I feel like it makes it more interesting.
Because we see who you're playing? I don't know what it is. I guess so, but that could have not worked at all. That could have completely destroyed everybody's performance but for some reason it doesn't. It seems to kind of enhance it. I don't exactly know why. I just think if they weren't in it, it would just be one of those biopics and it would be interesting, but it just wouldn't be as interesting as it is having them in it.
Was it weird to be on the same set as him? That was actually the one thing, when they said to me, "He's going to be in the movie and blah blah blah" and then they said, "We're going to want you to be in a sequence just being you," that actually made me more nervous than many acting things I've ever had to do. I really was uncomfortable doing it. We shot some stuff where we were actually talking, but I was so uncomfortable doing it that eventually they were like, "Don't worry about it, just sit down. We'll let Toby and Harvey talk." It wasn't him or anything, it was just that I didn't know what to do. I really felt trapped.
Someone said this is the role you were born to play. Boy, that's really kind of sad.
Do you specialize in the curmudgeon? Yeah, I guess I do sort of, which was interesting. I either do the curmudgeon or for a long time, I played the real kind of simpleton sort of innocent guys. Not so much in movies, but I did do that kind of thing a long time too, but I yeah, I guess I do often tend to play more kind of angry guys.
Did you gain weight for Harvey? No. In fact, the one thing that was too bad about the small amount of time we had is I was actually too heavy to play Harvey. He's actually not an overweight guy. He's actually a weirdly fit guy. He didn't own a car for years, so he walked everywhere. I think he's one of these guys who genetically, actually was always a very kind of trim guy, so I was actually a little too heavy to play him. I would have liked to have lost weight.
You've got 'Paycheck' coming up. What as it like working with John Woo? Great. I mean, that was one of the things. I liked the story but the director was really interesting to me because I really like the Hong Kong movies of his and I like 'Face/Off' a lot. So he was great. He's an amazing guy.
Is it more like his Hong Kong movies? No, I'd say this is more like 'Face/Off'.
Are you in any action scenes? A little bit. I wish I'd been in more because that was another thing that interests me and I like doing. The times I've gotten to do that kind of stuff, I loved doing it. Blowing shit up. There's a sequence where he and I are running through a train station and these guys are shooting and we're diving behind stuff. That was the only one I got to do.
And you're doing a voice in 'Robots'? Yeah. I'm a small character. Right after Sundance, they called up and they were like, "We really liked 'American Splendor'. We pretty much have all the voices that we have for this movie. We have one voice we haven't been able to find somebody for. Would you do it?" And I was like, "Sure." I'd never done something like that before, so I did do one finally.
How was the voice experience? It was hard actually. I found it really hard because the whole voiceover thing, I really haven't done very much. The idea that they can't see your face or body, it's hard for me to get my head around that. It's a real skill that people can develop, or else you just naturally have a knack for it or your voice is so distinctive that it comes across easily, but I had a hard time getting through my head that all you're getting is my voice.
Are you doing a John Waters movie? I'm not doing the John Waters movie. I was going to do the John Waters movie. I'm going to do this Alexander Payne movie instead. It's called 'Sideways' and that's going to start in September. It's about two friends, one of whom's an out of work actor and one is kind of a failed writer and the actor's getting married in a week. So the other guy takes him on this kind of like bachelor week into Sonoma, the wine country. They're both alcoholic wrecks and it just sort of charts their dissolution. I'm playing the writer. I play the guy who takes the other guy on the trip.
What are you looking forward to about that? Well, that guy, I really like 'Election' a lot. I like 'Citizen Ruth'. I never saw 'About Schmidt', but it's really nice just to read a script, as this was, to work on a script written by the director. And it's a really carefully written script. It's a great character. And he just seems like a really interesting guy and I think 'Election''s a really good satire, and this is more of a comedy than a satire. But it's a really good part.
Do you have any dream roles? No, not really. I don't know that I'm really interested in playing something until it pops up in front of my face. So I don't think there's anything that I'm dying to play until somebody actually asks me to do it. Then I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's an interesting part."
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