That was one of the reasons why I wanted to tell the story of Colin Price. I saw someone in this fictionalized political character that was trying to do something important for his city. He meant well, but then you see that the human flaws had really derailed his past. It seems to be happening more and more in our country. I wanted to hold a mirror up to that.
I really think it's important that my beliefs don't impinge upon what you get from the movie. It's your opinion that matters and it's far more interesting than mine.
I actually enjoy working with green screen, because I can imagine all that stuff happening, and I really cut my teeth on a movie I made called "Adaptation" where I had to imagine four-page dialogue scenes with my twin brother, who was nothing more than a tennis ball and a gas stand.
When I started experimenting with fantasy and horror films and looking for characters who had some sort of emotional or mental difficulty, I saw opportunities to express my music - dare I say art - in a way that I could get a bit surreal.
I do understand sometimes when actors say there's no one to talk to, or you can't react to, there's truth in that, but for me, I've always enjoyed green screen, and blue screen.
I love art, I love music. I can listen to Stockhausen and a very experimental, avant-garde approach, and I can listen to Beethoven and have a more classical, traditional approach. Why not be able to do that with film performance?
I went to New Orleans for the first time for Wild at Heart, and I kept going back to make more movies there. I've become very close to the city and part of me does feel like a New Orleanian.
I always wanted to find a way to apply my acting in a big mad monster movie where I was transforming into this scary entity.
If you get a chance, whenever you're traveling, do go to the local boutique comic book shop and don't buy your comics online 'cause those guys are going to go extinct, in a minute here, and we want to be able to have those experiences with our kids.
Halloween has always been fascinating to me from a very young age. I think any actor would be fascinated by Halloween because it's one of the only holidays that advocates dressing up in makeup and costumes and transforming oneself.
I just want to keep making movies that hopefully makes some kids smile.
I think that the best characters are the ones who both manage to be attractive and repulsive at the same time.
When I work, I really try to get absorbed in the character. Unless I want to do something playful with the camera, I'm not too worried about where the camera is or positions.
I do like characters that have flaws, some sort of pathos to them that they are trying to sort out.
I think a good movie is a good movie whether that falls into a genre or not.
All movies on some level can aspire to be more than just whatever the label is of the movie.
I got a little tired of movies where I had to shoot people. I got to thinking about the power of film and what that power is. The power is in fact that it really can change people's minds.
Without impending on your own personal choice, there are going to be those that wear the hat of religion and those that wear the hat of science. I still don't really understand why they can't wear both hats, because personally, I think that they go beautifully together.
I don't find the same things funny that many other people seem to find funny. I don't really respond to sex jokes and things like that, and some of my friends look at me and go, "Come on, Nic, that was my best joke. Why aren't you laughing?" I go, "I really don't know why I'm not laughing. I'm sort of out of sync with it." So I'd have to find something that was really about weird human behavior for me to laugh.
In the beginning my energy and passion for acting came from an almost punk rock need to express a lot of anger wherever that may have come from. As I got older, it became or is coming more from a place of wanting to use the craft to help others in some way, to hold a mirror up to the situations that we're going through, to actually be more cautious about the way that I use the power of film and to see if there's anything that I can do in the performances that will resonate in the public a similar string that's on people's minds and is on my mind. That way we have that relationship.
I'm always fearful of something happening to people I love. That doesn't go away.
