Paul Giamatti walks us through his legendary career, discussing his roles in 'Past Midnight,' 'Saving Private Ryan,' 'The Truman Show,' 'Planet of the Apes,' 'Big Fat Liar,' 'American Splendor,' 'Sideways,' 'Cinderella Man,' 'John Adams,' '12 Years A Slave,' 'Straight Outta Compton,' 'Billions,' 'Lodge 49,' '30 Coins,' 'The Holdovers' and more.THE HOLDOVERS is now playing in theaters and available to watch at home. https://www.focusfeatures.com/the-holdovers/watch/Director: Juliet LopezDirector of Photography: Grant BellEditor: Evan AllanTalent: Paul GiamattiProducer: Funmi SunmonuLine Producer: Romeeka PowellAssociate Producer: Rafael VasquezProduction Manager: Andressa Pelachi and Kevin BalashAssociate Director, Video Talent: Meredith JudkinsCamera Operator: Nick MasseySound : Gabriel FragosoProduction Assistant: Brock Spitaels and Liza AntonovaPost Production Supervisor: Christian OlguinPost Production Coordinator: Jovan JamesSupervising Editor: Erica DeLeoAssistant Editor: Billy WardGraphics Supervisor: Ross Rackin
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Iconic, the blue pool scene.
00:02 That's one of those things where when you sort of read it in the script,
00:05 you don't really process exactly how long you're going to have to actually be blue.
00:09 That was like weeks, I feel like I had to be blue.
00:11 Hello, I'm Paul Giamatti, and this is the timeline of my career.
00:28 Hello, my name is Larry, and I am very happy to make your acquaintance.
00:32 Well, Larry, I'm very happy to make your acquaintance, too.
00:36 I've never seen the movie, so I have no idea.
00:40 I don't think it was the greatest movie in the world.
00:41 I don't know if you know this, it's the first script produced written by Quentin Tarantino.
00:46 I remember getting the script and thinking that has to be a fake name.
00:49 Like, that's the weirdest fake name.
00:51 I had this one scene in it, and I played the guy, a guy whose father was also his brother.
00:56 I was like a stable hand, and I was really pleased to get the part, because I got paid scale,
01:03 which at that time, I could live off of that for like two months.
01:07 So it was really great.
01:09 German fire now is concentrated to the west.
01:11 Who's that on the loudspeaker?
01:13 That's Dagny Dusseldorf, our friendly neighborhood morale officer.
01:17 There really wasn't a part.
01:18 Spielberg would come up to me and be like, "Say this and this."
01:23 And I was like, "Oh, okay, sure."
01:25 And I was having to improvise, and I'm like, "I'm a terrible improviser."
01:28 But I was like, "Okay, whatever you want."
01:30 He was kind of making it up with everybody in a way,
01:32 but really with me in that scene as we went along.
01:35 Then he had this whole idea.
01:36 He's like, "I think I want you to fall through a wall and do all this stuff."
01:40 And I was like, "Okay, man, I had no idea I was going to be doing any of this."
01:42 So it was great.
01:44 They were all really nice guys, but they had gone through sort of a boot camp together.
01:48 You know, so they were very bonded, and they would bring in all these day player guys
01:52 like me and all these people.
01:53 But it was great and everything, but I didn't...
01:55 I wasn't hanging out with them like at boot camp.
01:57 But it was weird because we had to deal with the drill instructor guy,
01:59 Dale Dye, who's a famous drill instructor.
02:02 I remember that guy just screaming at me when I first got there.
02:05 He's like, "Don't hold your fucking gun up like that.
02:07 It's going to rain in the barrel."
02:08 And I was like, "Who the fuck is this guy?"
02:10 I just was like, "Why is this dude yelling at me all the time?"
02:14 What's he doing in the basement?
02:18 He moved down there after Meryl packed up and left.
02:21 Peter Weir is an amazing director.
02:23 And the audition process was for everybody, I think.
02:27 You'd go in, and he would pretend to be like a cheesy talk show host.
02:33 And you would sit down, and he would improvise a whole audition with you.
02:37 And he wanted you to just kind of make up this sort of life as an actor.
02:40 And it was really wild.
02:42 And then he kind of would figure out, with me at least,
02:45 and I think the smaller parts, what he wanted you to do.
02:48 It came back to me that he was like, "I have an idea for a guy who runs the control room.
02:54 And I don't really know what it's going to be,
02:56 but we'll sort of make it up as we go along."
02:58 And that's what it was.
02:59 He was amazing.
03:00 They hired Ed Harris, who had like a weekend to work on the part.
03:04 And he showed up.
03:05 And he was, you know, he was intimidating, but he was a really nice guy.
03:09 It was like you had to be very on top of your shit with him.
03:13 And he was awesome.
03:15 And just getting to watch him do some...
03:17 He did a whole sort of breakdown thing at one point.
03:21 It was just amazing to watch.
03:22 I promised my niece a pen for her birthday.
03:24 Excellent!
03:27 Oh, the little ones make wonderful pets.
03:30 But be sure you get rid of it by puberty.
03:34 The one thing you don't want in your house is a human teenager.
03:38 Planet of the Apes was, yeah, not, I guess, very well received.
03:41 But I loved playing the ape and doing all the...
03:45 I mean, I worshipped the Planet of the Apes movies as a kid.
03:47 So doing it was great.
03:49 And Tim Burton, it was a big, huge movie, but it didn't feel like that.
03:52 He made it feel like it was a little indie movie.
03:54 He was so engaged with everybody and all this weird shit that we were doing.
03:58 So it felt like just this fun, weird little movie we were making.
04:01 It was this giant thing that I guess nobody really cared for.
04:04 But I thought it was great.
04:06 And it was really, really fun to work.
04:07 The physicality, the costumes, all that was amazing.
04:11 [MUSIC]
04:18 Oh my God!
04:22 John Levy was a friend of mine in college.
04:24 So he really wanted to do it with me.
04:26 It was basically me and him just making each other laugh.
04:30 And the guy who wrote it, John Hamburg, I'd worked with before, too.
04:33 So it was just us trying to push the envelope of how much we could get away with
04:37 in a kids movie.
04:38 Like how much of an asshole I could actually be.
04:40 It was really fun.
04:41 It was great.
04:42 The kids were great.
04:43 And it was just stupid.
04:44 I never had that much to do.
04:46 He gave me total carte blanche to do any dumb thing we could think of.
04:50 And it was great.
04:52 It was totally fun.
04:53 Iconic, the blue pool scene.
04:55 Yes, indeed.
04:56 That's one of those things where when you sort of read it in the script,
04:59 you don't really process exactly how long you're gonna have to actually be blue.
05:03 That was like weeks, I feel like I had to be blue.
05:06 I only was blue my entire body once, but the rest of it was my hands and face.
05:10 Like every day.
05:11 It didn't come off my feet for like three months.
05:13 My feet were blue for months afterwards.
05:15 "Hey, Toe, tell me something.
05:18 Can you eat lentils during Lent?"
05:22 I really wanted to play that part.
05:25 And it was a blast.
05:26 It was only about two and a half weeks we shot that whole movie.
05:29 Just shot out of a Canon.
05:30 And we did it really fast.
05:31 There was stuff in that, I mean, I have a whole big monologue in that
05:34 where I talk about my name and they had no idea what they were going to do.
05:38 So they put me in a thing like this and they just kind of messed me around.
05:42 They made me walk around.
05:43 They put me on a turntable.
05:44 They just did stuff.
05:44 They didn't know what they were going to do with it.
05:46 And then they handed it to an animator.
05:48 And these guys were amazing.
05:49 This guy, Gary Lieb, who's amazing.
05:51 And he just came up with all this brilliant stuff.
05:54 So that happened a lot with it.
05:55 We didn't know what we were going to do with it.
05:57 They didn't know.
05:58 And they'd film it and then just hand it to that guy.
06:00 And he did all kinds of amazing things with it.
06:02 Do not sabotage me.
06:04 If you want to be fucking lightweight, then that's your call.
06:06 But do not sabotage me.
06:08 Oh, aye, aye, Captain.
06:09 You got it.
06:10 And if they want to drink Merlot, we're drinking Merlot.
06:12 No, if anybody orders Merlot, I'm leaving.
06:14 I am not drinking any fucking Merlot!
06:16 I never thought I would work with Alexander.
06:18 I'd always hoped I would work with him.
06:19 He's amazing.
06:20 You know, he's incredibly at ease.
06:22 He's incredibly open.
06:23 You rehearse.
06:24 You have a good time.
06:25 You don't shoot long days.
06:27 He knows what he's doing.
06:27 He stands by the camera.
06:28 There's no monitor.
06:29 It's like really congenial and like a family.
06:33 And Tom is amazing.
06:35 He's even kind of more bizarre and funny off camera than he is on.
06:40 I mean, he's hilarious, but he has no guardrails off camera.
06:44 And so he's amazing.
06:45 When we said that line, I remembered thinking, I have no idea.
06:48 Why Merlot?
06:50 I know nothing about wine.
06:51 I still know nothing about wine.
06:52 And I actually said to Alexander, why Merlot?
06:54 And I think he said it was the one that sounded the funniest in the line.
06:57 We tried other things, but Merlot was the funniest.
07:00 Keep him in front of you.
07:00 Cut him off.
07:02 All right?
07:02 And let go of the punches.
07:03 Hit him.
07:04 He ain't gonna like it.
07:05 I guarantee you, the more you hit this bastard, the slower he's gonna get.
07:10 Russell is an amazing guy.
07:13 His acting is extraordinary.
07:16 He's like a machine.
07:17 To act with him.
07:18 And he loves acting.
07:20 And he loves actors.
07:22 And he loves interacting.
07:23 And he's just amazing to work with and watch.
07:26 You know, and it's not all about him.
07:28 He's like, he loves to have everybody in it and involved in it.
07:32 He knows full well that he's only as good as the people around him.
07:36 And he loves that.
07:38 And he worked his ass off in that movie.
07:40 It was an insane task he had.
07:41 There was these humongous sets that were really complete.
07:44 The boxing stuff was especially that way.
07:46 I was right and immersed in a group of like a couple hundred extras around me.
07:50 And then it was thousands a couple of times.
07:52 So the sense that you were always in that world was insane.
07:56 Sweaty, screaming, and all these people around you.
07:58 And it was like you were in that world completely.
08:02 And we had to improvise all that stuff too.
08:04 So it really felt weirdly like a time machine.
08:08 May I inform you as well, sir, that I am in possession of intelligence which confirms
08:12 that we are as likely to find a French army on these shores as we are on the moon.
08:17 I got the script, which was like a phone book.
08:19 And I read it and I was like, this is interesting, but this guy's kind of horrible.
08:23 Like, you're gonna make this thing about this guy?
08:25 They just offered it to me and I was like, sure, I'll do it.
08:27 I was the most challenging thing in that was actually just the sheer volume of what I had
08:31 to do.
08:32 I never shut up.
08:33 And I had to be 40, then 70, then 35, then 80.
08:38 I went through so many makeup changes.
08:40 But you were so immersed in the period.
08:43 That was super immersive.
08:44 It was almost like this method thing by default.
08:47 You had no way to get out of this world.
08:49 I was there all day long, every day.
08:51 I had one day off the whole time.
08:52 So you were just forced to be the guy.
08:55 It was really kind of cool.
08:57 You lost sight of any reality outside of the thing.
09:00 It was nuts.
09:01 The makeup guy gave me-- he found online, some historian had put together from all of
09:07 his letters to all these different people, all of his ailments and everything.
09:12 So you did learn a lot about him.
09:14 My teeth hurt.
09:15 I can't sleep.
09:16 I have diarrhea.
09:18 I feel depressed.
09:19 It was like he was constant.
09:21 So from that, you actually did learn quite a bit about what he must have been like.
09:26 What catches your fancy here?
09:27 This boy?
09:30 Yes, open your mouth.
09:31 Open.
09:31 Wider.
09:32 Look in there.
09:33 Never been sick a day in his life.
09:34 I thought the script was really amazing.
09:36 I still think it's one of the most amazing scripts I'd ever read.
09:39 I knew that writer, John Ridley.
09:41 I just thought it was kind of an amazing script, the way it was sort of depicting the subject
09:47 in a way that I don't know that had been really done before.
09:49 You know, the character was what the character was.
09:52 He's a horrible human being.
09:54 And the scenes were kind of wild to shoot.
09:56 Steve McQueen was fantastic.
09:58 I do remember him saying, "I don't want you to have a southern accent," because everybody's
10:02 got a southern accent and it's almost an easy way to kind of, he said, "I want to mix it
10:06 up so people realize it wasn't just all of those people.
10:09 It was all these guys doing this."
10:11 You got to believe in me the way that I believe in you, the way that I believe in this, because
10:17 you have a unique talent, Eric, very special.
10:21 Don't fuck around.
10:22 I'd worked with that director before, F. Gary Gray, on a movie called The Negotiator.
10:27 And so he came back around.
10:28 I don't know.
10:29 I guess he just thought of me to play that soulless person, like all the other soulless
10:33 people I played.
10:34 That was a villainous part.
10:36 That was a tricky part.
10:37 They didn't want him to just be a villain, but it was hard to not make him just the villain
10:41 in some ways.
10:42 But it was a fun part.
10:43 That was a great movie.
10:44 That was another period thing where you just felt really in it, and a lot of it because
10:48 it was improvised and those concert scenes and stuff were really fun to do.
10:52 It was mayhem, that movie.
10:54 Thank you seeing it this way.
10:55 I worried maybe you'd hold a grudge.
10:58 Grudge?
10:59 No, sir.
11:01 No.
11:01 You said yourself, none of this is personal.
11:06 There was a ton of dialogue in that show, and it was difficult dialogue.
11:10 It was not easy stuff to memorize, not because of the terminology.
11:13 Actually, the sentence structure and the weird structure of the speeches and stuff was difficult.
11:18 And so we had to spend a lot of time.
11:21 I had to spend a lot of time.
11:24 Everybody did.
11:24 It was dense stuff to memorize.
11:27 Drop your credentials at the guard's desk and get the fuck out of here!
11:32 Soulless.
11:35 He's soulless.
11:38 That guy's really soulless.
11:39 It was a tough character.
11:42 It was a kind of confining, difficult character in some ways.
11:46 So I was okay not having to be in that space with that guy all the time.
11:51 But the show was fun.
11:52 The people were great.
11:53 And it was a great job to have.
11:56 So yeah, but I made a lot of friends, which is nice.
11:59 You don't all the time on a movie or even a play because it's done and gone.
12:04 But this went on for years.
12:05 So you actually genuinely get close to people in a really nice way.
12:09 Dad, a muse provides inspiration.
12:11 The intoxicating riddle that lies at the heart of every great work.
12:15 Sex would only ruin my process.
12:17 That's why I haven't ejaculated in 10 years.
12:20 That show, the guy who wrote it, Jim Gavin, it got to me because I was producing stuff.
12:27 And I thought it was great, that pilot.
12:30 I still think it's great.
12:32 And I thought, this guy's got to--
12:33 I have to help this guy get this thing made because I just think it's so great.
12:37 And the fact that AMC did it at all and then that they did it for two seasons is amazing
12:40 because it was weird, I suppose.
12:43 I mean, I didn't think it was that weird, but I guess it was.
12:45 And I wasn't meant to be in it.
12:46 I wasn't meant to be in it at all.
12:49 But I did a voice on an audiobook.
12:51 That guy listens to these audiobooks and the thing.
12:53 And then the guy thought, well, maybe I'll actually have your character appear.
12:56 So that was fun.
12:57 There's a great character, too.
12:59 Now, that is why I have come to the conclusion that the only way to know the exact date and
13:04 time of the end of the world is to provoke it ourselves.
13:08 Well, that seemed to get your attention, didn't it?
13:13 It's by a guy named Alex de la Iglesia, who's like the big horror maven of Spain.
13:19 And I love horror things.
13:20 And so, I don't know, he was really into Billions.
13:22 So he came to me for the second season.
13:25 And I watched the first season, which I don't know if anybody's seen it.
13:28 But it's insane, that show.
13:30 It's completely insane.
13:31 And I thought, I definitely want to do this.
13:33 And I play the closest I'll ever get to a Bond villain, probably, and a complete psychopath.
13:38 And it's really great.
13:40 And it ends up in a totally insane place.
13:43 But I loved doing that.
13:45 Everybody was speaking English to me, which was-- it's more impressive what they were
13:49 doing than what I was doing, because these actors were acting in not their own language.
13:52 And they were pretty incredible.
13:55 And it was tricky with him, because the director doesn't speak much English.
13:59 But he can convey things.
14:00 He's very like, ah, great, great, like that.
14:02 So you're like, OK, all right, that worked.
14:05 And we go like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, like that.
14:08 And that's about what he would do for me as a director.
14:10 But I got it.
14:12 I knew what he wanted to do.
14:13 So it's really fun.
14:14 [WHISTLING]
14:18 Sir, I don't understand.
14:19 That's glaringly apparent.
14:20 I can't fail this class.
14:22 Oh, don't sell yourself short, Mr. Coates.
14:24 I truly believe that you can.
14:25 I went to a school like that.
14:26 I didn't board there.
14:27 So I didn't have that experience.
14:29 But there was a very specific teacher I had that I almost kind of had to keep trying to
14:35 put out of my mind, because I didn't want to be too wrapped up in trying to impersonate him.
14:39 But he was very much in that character.
14:42 It was weird, because it felt not--
14:44 I kept thinking, I'm not actually--
14:46 I'm not working hard enough.
14:47 I was like, well, I'm not doing any work.
14:49 I need to be working harder, because I just kept drawing on memories.
14:52 And I felt like, I can't possibly be doing a good job, because I'm just--
14:57 I'm not doing anything.
14:58 And then I watch it, and I'm like, oh, I'm doing plenty.
15:00 I'm doing plenty.
15:01 But you know, it was weird.
15:03 I'd never actually had that experience.
15:05 I think part of the reason he wanted me to do it was I think he thought it was going
15:09 to spark my imagination effortlessly, which it did.
15:12 I think when I was younger, I was more like, oh, I got to play that part.
15:18 And I got to play this crazy thing.
15:20 And I have to do something like that.
15:21 That's gotten less and less true.
15:23 And now it's much more about, if I just keep reading the script, and I'm interested in
15:26 the story, and different kinds of stories, and different sorts of movies, that's actually
15:30 more interesting to me.
15:31 The movie is what's going to last, not my performances.
15:34 It's going to be the movie.
15:35 I mean, performances will help, but it's the movie.
15:37 Thank you for having me, Vanity Fair.
15:39 I hope you all enjoyed this timeline of my career so far.
15:43 [MUSIC PLAYING]
15:46 (upbeat music)
15:49 you