In light of my recent research and post about Peter Sarsgaard interviews, I thought that in the interest of variety, I should read interviews of other actors and see what they have to say in comparison to the things that I read that Peter has said in interviews. Some actors that came to mind were Johnny Depp and Dane DeHaan.
I read this Rolling Stone interview of Johnny Depp; my impression of him from this interview is not too strongly positive. I think he comes across as sort of weird and somewhat unstable in this interview (not even considering the fact that he's a wife beater). Although there are some things that he mentions that remind me of Andy Warhol - Johnny Depp keeps a journal and also keeps lots of old stuff like Andy did. This is one of the passages that made me think that he's kind of weird and unstable/volatile: "He smokes less than he used to, going through maybe six cigarettes over the course of three and a half hours today, but it's obviously a fraught issue: With every one of his tobacco packets, he takes the trouble to grab a Sharpie and X out the grotesque you'll-get-cancer picture and warning box.
"They show some guy with three and a half teeth and some sort of red, dangly bit in his mouth," he says. "So that's for the smoker to look at. OK, fine. He sets it down on the fucking table and eight kids see it. That's cool? Jesus. There's worse shit out there. I mean, what's wrong with these people? We all know it's not fucking good for you. Life's not good for you! It kills ya! Do you know what I mean? God damn! These are the same people who are so adamant about not smoking and being around smokers. No, you can't smoke on the Sunset Strip when you're eating outside – however, you are welcome to all the diesel fumes and every bit of dirt and filth and dust and disease and everything that gets rifled up in the streets." (emphasis mine)
In this interview he also mentions that he drank a lot in the past (for weeks at a time, apparently) "to calm the circus... the festivities in the brain," which... um, okay. I'm not really sure what to say about that, you know?? Although he drank a lot, he "never considered himself an alcoholic." I guess this is open to interpretation depending on what your own personal definition of an alcoholic is. Maybe by your standards, he was an alcoholic, but by his, he didn't think so.
I guess that's about it for my take on this interview. On to the next one.
Here is an interesting little interview with Dane DeHaan. It's actually fairly short compared to some, but fairly informative for its length. For ease of comparison, I'm trying to find interviews of more or less similar length and style so that the main variation is the what the actors have to say. Upon reading this interview, I noticed that the Johnny Depp interview didn't have so much by way of artsy visual/physical description, whereas this one (and a few of Peter Sarsgaard) does: "DeHaan, who was dressed in dark jeans and a woolly crewneck sweater, is so boyish (although he’s 31, he looks closer to 20) and has such clear light-blue liquid eyes, that everything he says has a dreamy quality." In this interview, Dane seems to have a lighthearted, playful nature. In the beginning of the interview he talks about a play he was in as a child at summer camp. Later in the interview, it mentions that he becomes distracted by some dogs that are playing in the room where the interview is taking place. He talks about looking young and having to bring ID when he goes drinking. That was a nice little amusing part: "I ordered a nice bottle of wine in a restaurant, and they asked to see my ID! I’m happy to report that it has been about a year since I was carded at an R-rated movie. Things are looking better."
I tried to think of some other actors whose interviews I could look up and use in this post, and James McAvoy came to mind. I'm trying to think of actors who I don't have strong opinions on so that my thoughts on their interviews can be less biased (in the case of actors that I know I like/dislike). There are two Guardian interviews with him that are fairly long and seemed suitable. My impression of him isn't changed from these interviews - he strikes me as somewhat less... buttoned up as other actors. But still decently articulate, I think, and not weird/unstable in the manner of Johnny Depp. The interviewer describes him as such: "His sweary Scottish charm from those early days still shines through, and when it comes to work, he has apparently very little filter. " which I think is accurate from reading the rest of the interview. There seems to be a decent amount of good interviews with him: here is another one I found. Speaking of Scottish actors, maybe I should look up an interview of David Tennant.
It took me a long while to decide on which interview (of the many that I compiled for a previous post) of Peter's that I should use in comparison to the other actors' here. I finally chose this one because it seemed to be the only one in a similar style and a decent length. In this interview there are some nice descriptive parts: "He is 42 now, and – if he didn't hide behind the facial fuzz so often – quite handsome. At 5ft 11in and neither muscle-bound nor fragile-framed, it's surprising he's not had more leading-man roles. " and "Sarsgaard's voice – one so mellifluous it wraps you in cotton wool then rocks you to sleep." As far as quotes go, this interview isn't my favorite but I do like this quote from a different interview: "It doesn't sound like a normal person's voice, whatever that is. I wouldn't be chosen to sell cereal on TV." And this quote (also from a different interview): (about being offered roles of unsavory characters) "I was just skulking around the house, going from room to room, sulking, thinking about it, going 'Why do people offer me these parts? I'm not like this. I'm such a good person!'" It does make me wonder what other actors out there are sort of known for playing creepy/unsavory characters.
With that, I think I've just about had it for the effort I'm willing to exert on this post. I'd like for it to be done now. In the process of writing this post, I got thinking about different styles of interviews, so I looked that up. At first I got results about job interviews, which wasn't what I meant, but I added "journalism" to the search query and found this article, which was interesting although it's more about broadcast journalism rather than print. I also found this, which I'm pretty much just linking here for my personal reference - I doubt that other people particularly care about the particulars of interviewing. But for me it could potentially be useful.
Of course, in closing I would like to mention (again) that one interview of George Clooney that I just happened to read in a grocery store years ago which caused me to dislike him as a person. And I would like to apologize for the mess/variety of font styles in this post. Also, I think I have outdone myself in terms of number of posts over the span of a month. At this rate I've been cracking out over a post a day.
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