What do a child molester, a basketball loving hippie, a psychopathic detective and a hacker with a knack for information acquisition have in common? Besides all showing up to my last family reunion, they're also roles played by the great Jackie Earle Haley, a reemerging talent who just wrapped production on the new A Nightmare on Elm Street and appeared behind bars in Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island.
Generally I'd be scared of people who cite frontal lombotomy as a source of inspiration for their work, but in this case, it was all too applicable.
Matt Patches: Have you seen Shutter Island yet?
Jackie Earle Haley: I haven't! I've been too busy!
MP: Are you planning on seeing it? I know some people don't like watching their own work,
seeing how they did.
JEH: To tell
you the truth, it's not so much about me wanting to see myself as it is, I just
gotta see this movie. It's
directed by Martin Scorsese and the cast is awesome. I'm really curious about the movie as a moviegoer.
MP: Is this the first time you worked with Marty?
JEH: Yeah, it was an awesome experience. It was an awesome experience; the guy's
such a legend. He's a gifted
director.
MP: How is he different then some of the other directors
you've worked with?
JEH: Marty has such an incredible knowledge of film, it's
fascinating. I remember sitting
there on set with him as he was shooting Leo [DiCaprio] coming down the hall
and reacting the sounds off screen, and Marty leans over to me and says, "the
first guy to do this was so and so in 1920." Then the guy gave me the litany over the years of the
various people who've taken the concept and expanded it.
MP: So Martin Scorsese is a pretty big nerd, in a good way.
JEH: [laughter] I don't know if I'd put it that way.
MP: Did he show you any specific films to prepare?
JEH: Nope.
MP: Wow, so he just said, "Go. Do. Act."
JEH: Yup.
MP: Was there anything you drew from?
JEH: I read the book and focused on the accent. I did poke around and find some
interesting stuff. I watched the
documentary on the guy who did that procedure...the ice pick through the eye...the
frontal lobotomy! The guy was
going around in something called the lobotomobile [that man was Walter
Freeman], and was doing them in living rooms.
MP: He's the Vera Drake of frontal lobotomies.
JEH: That informed me.
MP: I'm a big Human Target fan. Were you a fan of
the comic book?
JEH: My character wasn't even in it!
But when they were writing the pilot, my character was just in
that. But then they were looking
at this Guerrero character and thought, "Hey, let's make him a regular!" And then they somehow thought of
me. I read the pilot, loved it,
thought it was popcorn action movie-of-the-week, and man, they've exceeded my expectations.
MP: Are you hoping for Guerrero to head in a particular
direction, see him take on specific challenge?
JEH: I'm really interested in where these three guys came
from. What is it that made Chance
decide to switch sides, to be this guy who takes risks. What happened in their past, and how is
Guerrero involved?
MP: Along with Human Target you also have the Nightmare on Elm Street remake in the can, did you watch all the old flicks
in preperation?
JEH: I didn't want to pour all over the films, but I did
rewatch the first one, and bits and pieces of the others. I'm not a horror fan, per say, but I
remember as a kid seeing the commercials for the first one on TV, and it seemed
different. It's an interesting
character, so I saw that in the theater.
Of that ilk, I remember really digging Alien and Sam Raimi's stuff. That sh*t was off the hook.
MP: I hope you saw Drag Me to Hell.
JEH: Aw man, everyone tells me I have to. I will!
MP: Did you feel any particular ties to the original
character when creating your own Freddy?
JEH: No, it was about bringing a freshness to it while keeping
a foot in the classic Nightmare. It was important to Sam [Bayer] to keep
the big things like the sweater, the hat, the gloves...but I still tried to own
it.
MP: Was it difficult to perform through the prosthetic
make-up you had to wear?
JEH: The make-up is completely torturous. It was surprising for me to discover
that the only guy getting tortured all these years was Robert Englund, how
ironic [laughter]. So I was
basically strapped in from my chest up to my eyelids, and down my back. The stuff is so pliable, it's like an
extension of your face. It's not
like Rorschach.
MP: OK, here's speculation for you: because of some regime
change there's been a lot of talk recently about a possible sequel to Watchmen. If
they went forward, and went ahead with a Watchmen 2, would it be something you'd tackle?
JEH: Oh man, I didn't even hear about that. I just don't know, man.
MP: Well, we'd like to see you back, that is if we they do it. That is, if we want them to do it.
JEH: It's amazing they've never attempted to do one
before. I guess it's because it is
such a marvelous piece of work, so complete, and such a fan base that would rip
your eyes out if you wrote another one...
MP: I don't know, we're pretty big fanboys, we'll probably
buy it anyway.
JEH: Exactly!
