Transcript from the GMTV interview
Feb 14, 2002
(Starts with a clip from the beginning of the trailer)
Kate: It's a fantastic film, what drew you to the character.
Russell: Well, what I wait for is, when I start subconsciously playing the character - when I
start making decisions on behalf of the character, and that's what I call the 'goose bump factor', and the script had in it some devices that I thought would be fantastic cinema if they could actually be pulled off the way they were on the page.
Kate: Because I think the last time I interviewed you when I spoke to you, it was for promoting 'Proof of Life'
Russell: Uh ah
Kate:.......and you couldn't get more different, could you - action hero to socially dysfunctional, physically awkward....
Russell: Yeah, it's much closer to who I am as a person, this one. (He says this completely straight faced - and she seemed to fall for it !)
Kate: (animated) Now you see Ron Howard said that! That's what he told me! Now why do you think you're like him -- is it that kinda self belief ?
Russell: (grinning ) No...... urrm
Kate: (laughing) it it because you're good at math?
Russell: No!....I think I was making a joke, but now that Ron's said something, I'm going to have to defend myself - I don't know.
Kate: He said it in a lovely way.
Russell: (grinning) Well he says everything in a lovely way, that's the trick he has -- he's managed to convince the world that he's no threat.
Kate: (laughing) When in actual fact it's all very scary - it's that Ritchie 'Happy Days' thing.
(running a clip of Russell & Ron watching the playback on set)
Russell: yeah, every three or four days, I'd get a really concerned look on my face and I'd say 'yeah mate, can we talk about something -- just the two of us', and he'd say 'yeah Russell, Ok' so we'd go off into the corner and I'd say ' Now that episode when you were doing lip ups on the side of the pinball machine, what did Fonzy actually mean ?' He didn't appreciate it very much but...
(Both laugh)
CLIP of Nash's first meeting with Parcher.
Kate: It's a fantastic cast that you've got there, Ed Harris as well, a great actor. Is it a true story, that you started filming the day after the Oscars, when you'd kind of beaten him to Best Actor -- was there a bit of fun on the set ?
Russell: Well, I actually didn't even think about that, you know . . ..but HE was thinking about it, but we just got on with the job. I mean I was on a plane at probably half past six, landed in New York and 6:30 the next morning I'm being a schizophrenic mathematician. I really had no time
to enjoy it, you know, or celebrate it - which I'm famous for.
