Jeffrey Dean Morgan Unlimited

JOHN MILLAR speaks to Watchmen’s leading actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who is on the road to stardom.

JEFFREY Dean Morgan says that playing such a dark character as The Comedian in the epic adventure Watchmen (to open in Malaysia on March 6) took its toll on him — mentally and physically.

The Comedian is a key figure in the development of the plot of this big screen mystery, because it’s his murder that sets Rorschach on a quest to discover who is trying to get rid of all the superheroes.

And there would be no shortage of suspects because The Comedian has made his share of enemies. He’s a ruthless character who committed atrocities in the Vietnam War and is even guilty of attempted rape on another superhero character.

So it’s easy to understand why Jeffrey found getting under the skin of such a sadist to be such a taxing experience.
The big, gentle actor — best known for his recurring role as heart patient Denny Duquette on the hit TV series Grey’s Anatomy and whose films include PS I Love You and Ang Lee’s upcoming Talking Woodstock — admits that filming the attempted rape sequence (in Watchmen) was one of the toughest of his career.

“It was much beyond an attempted rape, it was absolutely vicious,” says Jeffrey. “That scene in particular was much harder than anything else that I have ever filmed in my life.

“And I made a big mistake in the course of filming that scene, which took the better part of three days to do. I went back to sit behind director Zack Snyder (300) and watched play-back. What I saw still makes me catch my breath.

“The beating that I give her is so vicious and so real that I had to walk away for a week. I went up to the mountains of Vancouver and thought… did I make a good choice here in this?

“It is make-believe, we are making a movie here, but still to do stuff like that! I never thought in a million years it could possibly bother me, but — for whatever reason — it did.”

Apart from dealing with the emotional side of delving into the heart of darkness, Jeffrey also had to cope with the physical demands of being transformed into the muscular, cigar-chomping character that is The Comedian.

“My costume was also the biggest pain,” says the 42-year-old Seattle native.

“I would come in at 2am to start shooting at 10am and then work 16-, 17-, 18-hour days and then afterwards have to sit for two hours while this stuff got pulled off me. So, by the time I started shooting, I would be in a crappy mood.

“The saving grace was that I was working with Zack Snyder and these other actors who are just a lovely group; you are not going to find a more enthusiastic and happy bunch. Zack in particular is like that; I don’t know where he gets his energy.

“After working a 20-hour day he was still running around in a T-shirt in zero degree weather, saying… ‘That was awesome!’ It was great because had you been with a director that got swallowed up in the darkness of some of this stuff, then it would have been hell shooting this film.”

One of Jeffrey’s favourite moments in the making of Watchmen was the filming of the Keene Riots — which happen after the controversial superheroes are officially banned by the government.

“That was when the scale of what we were doing hit me. Walking out into the New York Streets that these guys built was amazing. They were huge,” he says.

“It was awesome having Archie, Nite Owl’s Owl Ship, floating above my head and 500 extras running for their lives as explosions were happening all around, and me jumping out of the Owl Ship and taking pot shots at people with my shotgun.”

From the moment he was cast Jeffrey was aware that there would be intensive fight training before the cameras rolled, but he reveals that his call up to get into shape still caught him by surprise.

“We weren’t supposed to be starting the movie for another four months and I was going to go to Hawaii to celebrate (being cast). Then I got a call to say we were starting.

“So I went to an airport hangar in Los Angeles and there was a three-tonne tractor tyre in the middle of the building and they asked me to move it from one side of the building to the other … without rolling it! I asked if they were insane!

“This was my introduction to the new workout theory! Where’s the gym? It was very crazy, a lot of insane techniques to get in shape. I did that every day in LA for a month and a half. I couldn’t walk and I hated it.

“Then I went up to Vancouver and the fight training started and that’s when I started having fun. Somehow in the previous month and a half I had gotten into shape and I was able to move a little bit.”

He continues: “Fight training was a month of throwing proper punches, really. Punches are much more different in film than they are in the real world. So there was a lot of strictly learning how to fight for the camera. I worked very closely with the stunt double and we did lots of boxing and I did knife training and then I went on to the shooting range and fired guns. I also did a little bit of taekwondo.

“Then once I started to do the choreography, that was when all the fun really started. It was like a dance but it was a violent dance.”

Inevitably with all the action that was involved, during training Jeffrey took a few accidental hits and suffered some bruises.

“I was punched in the eye like every 30 seconds and it was always my fault for bobbing when I should have been weaving,” he says.

He also broke a toe when he dropped a crowbar that was being used for weight training.

“That happened before we even got to Vancouver to start filming. So I thought we had better get filming this quickly or I would be just a bloody pulp. The first sequence we shot for the movie was when The Comedian is attacked in his apartment. That took eight or nine days. I worked four months for that scene, but it was cool, it was good to be able to know what I was doing.”

In the middle of filming a Vietnam sequence for Watchmen Jeffrey also had a potentially dangerous moment involving a flame thrower.

“That’s when I got hurt once — well, I didn’t really get hurt, I was set on fire doing the flame thrower stuff in Vietnam,” he says, in an almost matter-of-fact manner.

“It was actually really funny. I was in the middle of this rice paddy and there was no-one near me. Zack was way over there with the crew shouting… ‘burn longer!’ I was to point the flame thrower at a guy who was three metres away from me and I was doing a count to five in my head and thought that was plenty. But Zack said to count longer.

“So we did this so many times that the water I was standing in became saturated with gasoline from the flame thrower. Then the last time that I fired it I finally heard Zack say ‘cut’. I said, thank goodness, because I thought I was going to kill the guy for real.

“Then I looked down and saw fire coming right at me through the water. It caught on my leg and I could see Zack and his eyes were grew big. But I don’t think he was worried about me, I think he was thinking… That’s my costume that cost me a bomb to make. I was in a metre of water and I remember people shouting… ‘Don’t get your costume wet!’ Anyway I patted the fire down and I didn’t get too hurt.”

Unlike The Comedian who has a short fuse, Jeffrey seems easy-going and friendly and extremely laid-back about the prospect of Watchmen making him a star.

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Here’s 4 new video interviews with Jeffrey Dean Morgan. The first is a quick interview from the London premiere, talking about Supernatural.

No embedding code, sorry:( No spoilers here.

Interview #1:
link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid13955421001/bctid13998947001

Here’s a longer interview with Jeffrey discussing Watchmen, including the Comedian and being an action figure! I like that he’s spent so much time considering the Comedian’s psyche and why he does what he does. There are spoilers here.

Interview #2: See this interview here

Interview #3
And here’s a print interview with Malin Ackerman and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Interview #4: This one has lots of spoilers.

Interview #5:

JDM scattered throughout the video:

And thanks to the wonderful katysam for letting me post this interview from the Australian Sunday Herald News.

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Here are some great pictures of Jeffrey Dean Morgan at the London premiere of Watchmen:

World Watchmen Premiere in London – short article

See the rest of the pictures here:)

JOHN MILLAR speaks to Watchmen’s leading actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who is on the road to stardom.

JEFFREY Dean Morgan says that playing such a dark character as The Comedian in the epic adventure Watchmen (to open in Malaysia on March 6) took its toll on him — mentally and physically.

The Comedian is a key figure in the development of the plot of this big screen mystery, because it’s his murder that sets Rorschach on a quest to discover who is trying to get rid of all the superheroes.

And there would be no shortage of suspects because The Comedian has made his share of enemies. He’s a ruthless character who committed atrocities in the Vietnam War and is even guilty of attempted rape on another superhero character.

So it’s easy to understand why Jeffrey found getting under the skin of such a sadist to be such a taxing experience.
The big, gentle actor — best known for his recurring role as heart patient Denny Duquette on the hit TV series Grey’s Anatomy and whose films include PS I Love You and Ang Lee’s upcoming Talking Woodstock — admits that filming the attempted rape sequence (in Watchmen) was one of the toughest of his career.

“It was much beyond an attempted rape, it was absolutely vicious,” says Jeffrey. “That scene in particular was much harder than anything else that I have ever filmed in my life.

“And I made a big mistake in the course of filming that scene, which took the better part of three days to do. I went back to sit behind director Zack Snyder (300) and watched play-back. What I saw still makes me catch my breath.

“The beating that I give her is so vicious and so real that I had to walk away for a week. I went up to the mountains of Vancouver and thought… did I make a good choice here in this?

“It is make-believe, we are making a movie here, but still to do stuff like that! I never thought in a million years it could possibly bother me, but — for whatever reason — it did.”

Apart from dealing with the emotional side of delving into the heart of darkness, Jeffrey also had to cope with the physical demands of being transformed into the muscular, cigar-chomping character that is The Comedian.

“My costume was also the biggest pain,” says the 42-year-old Seattle native.

“I would come in at 2am to start shooting at 10am and then work 16-, 17-, 18-hour days and then afterwards have to sit for two hours while this stuff got pulled off me. So, by the time I started shooting, I would be in a crappy mood.

“The saving grace was that I was working with Zack Snyder and these other actors who are just a lovely group; you are not going to find a more enthusiastic and happy bunch. Zack in particular is like that; I don’t know where he gets his energy.

“After working a 20-hour day he was still running around in a T-shirt in zero degree weather, saying… ‘That was awesome!’ It was great because had you been with a director that got swallowed up in the darkness of some of this stuff, then it would have been hell shooting this film.”

One of Jeffrey’s favourite moments in the making of Watchmen was the filming of the Keene Riots — which happen after the controversial superheroes are officially banned by the government.

“That was when the scale of what we were doing hit me. Walking out into the New York Streets that these guys built was amazing. They were huge,” he says.

“It was awesome having Archie, Nite Owl’s Owl Ship, floating above my head and 500 extras running for their lives as explosions were happening all around, and me jumping out of the Owl Ship and taking pot shots at people with my shotgun.”

From the moment he was cast Jeffrey was aware that there would be intensive fight training before the cameras rolled, but he reveals that his call up to get into shape still caught him by surprise.

“We weren’t supposed to be starting the movie for another four months and I was going to go to Hawaii to celebrate (being cast). Then I got a call to say we were starting.

“So I went to an airport hangar in Los Angeles and there was a three-tonne tractor tyre in the middle of the building and they asked me to move it from one side of the building to the other … without rolling it! I asked if they were insane!

“This was my introduction to the new workout theory! Where’s the gym? It was very crazy, a lot of insane techniques to get in shape. I did that every day in LA for a month and a half. I couldn’t walk and I hated it.

“Then I went up to Vancouver and the fight training started and that’s when I started having fun. Somehow in the previous month and a half I had gotten into shape and I was able to move a little bit.”

He continues: “Fight training was a month of throwing proper punches, really. Punches are much more different in film than they are in the real world. So there was a lot of strictly learning how to fight for the camera. I worked very closely with the stunt double and wedid lots of boxing and I did knife training and then I went on to the shooting range and fired guns. I also did a little bit of taekwondo.

“Then once I started to do the choreography, that was when all the fun really started. It was like a dance but it was a violent dance.”

Inevitably with all the action that was involved, during training Jeffrey took a few accidental hits and suffered some bruises.

“I was punched in the eye like every 30 seconds and it was always my fault for bobbing when I should have been weaving,” he says.

He also broke a toe when he dropped a crowbar that was being used for weight training.

“That happened before we even got to Vancouver to start filming. So I thought we had better get filming this quickly or I would be just a bloody pulp. The first sequence we shot for the movie was when The Comedian is attacked in his apartment. That took eight or nine days. I worked four months for that scene, but it was cool, it was good to be able to know what I was doing.”

In the middle of filming a Vietnam sequence for Watchmen Jeffrey also had a potentially dangerous moment involving a flame thrower.

“That’s when I got hurt once — well, I didn’t really get hurt, I was set on fire doing the flame thrower stuff in Vietnam,” he says, in an almost matter-of-fact manner.

“It was actually really funny. I was in the middle of this rice paddy and there was no-one near me. Zack was way over there with the crew shouting… ‘burn longer!’ I was to point the flame thrower at a guy who was three metres away from me and I was doing a count to five in my head and thought that was plenty. But Zack said to count longer.

“So we did this so many times that the water I was standing in became saturated with gasoline from the flame thrower. Then the last time that I fired it I finally heard Zack say ‘cut’. I said, thank goodness, because I thought I was going to kill the guy for real.

“Then I looked down and saw fire coming right at me through the water. It caught on my leg and I could see Zack and his eyes were grew big. But I don’t think he was worried about me, I think he was thinking… That’s my costume that cost me a bomb to make. I was in a metre of water and I remember people shouting… ‘Don’t get your costume wet!’ Anyway I patted the fire down and I didn’t get too hurt.”

Unlike The Comedian who has a short fuse, Jeffrey seems easy-going and friendly and extremely laid-back about the prospect of Watchmen making him a star.

Source

Here’s an interview with Jeffrey Dean Morgan with moviehole.net. No spoilers for any of his movies.

He spoke to PAUL FISCHER in this exclusive interview.

Question: This is clearly the most intense character in Watchmen.. What were the particular challenges for you to play that level of emotion?

Morgan: Well, he goes on such an arc. You know, for a guy that’s filming in- you know, a third of the movie, he has an incredible arc, both in time, and what he goes through sort of emotionally. And – you know, he really just – having the source material to kind of go off of, it’s sort of there. You know, there was days that were tougher than others, and where I had to dig a little deeper. Because it was kind of unlike anything I’d ever really done before, for sure. I mean, I had to go places that I didn’t knowI would have to go. And then when I figured out I had to go there, I didn’t know if I could go there. But – so, it was good, though. I mean, as an actor, I couldn’t ask for more.

Question: When you do a comic book movie, and, your first time doing a comic book movie, do you expect the characters to be as richly drawn as they are in this piece?

Morgan: No. Uh-huh (NEG). I don’t think it’s ever been done before. I mean, you know, you saw the film. And – you know, I saw it, and I lived it. This is kind of unlike any other – you know, I have a hard time even putting it in, and saying it’s a comic book movie. I think this movie is in a genre by itself. It sort of takes what we know of this comic book medium, and kind of throws it right out the fucking window. Much like my character. It’s just such an original piece. And, I mean, you just feel that these characters are kind of so – they’re so fledged out in the novel, too. I mean, what I found most fascinating about my character in particular, and what I tried so hard to kind of convey in the movie, was – this is a guy that we shouldn’t like. You know, you just – judged on his actions, you should hate this guy. There shouldn’t be a second thought about him. I never did. And that kind of fascinated me. That – the fact that I didn’t hate this guy. Trying to find the humanity in between trying to rape people, and killing my pregnant girlfriend, the woman who’s bearing my child. And yet, finding a way to like this guy, was sort of – you know, that’s a testament to not only Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, but – you know, Zack being able to convey that, and the work we did, particularly with this role.

Question: Were you familiar with the Watchmen book before you started doing the film?

Morgan: No. I mean, I’d heard of it. I just never knew the world of comic books. I mean, I’d read comic books as a kid, and gone through my Dad and uncle’s old comic books, when I’d stay at grandma’s house, that kind of thing. But my first time reading it was the day before I met with Zack, and Warner Brothers sent me over a Xeroxed copy of the graphic novel, if you could believe it. And I remember reading it, and I decided that I didn’t know what the hell I’d just read. And I think I read it three times in one day, just so I could have some sort of knowledge of it. It’s kind of – even not in color, I knew what I was reading was – it was not like a comic book, certainly. And – or any graphic novel I’d ever heard of. It was just so complex and smart.

Question: What do you think Watchmen says about the state of humanity? I mean, what do you think it says about the state of the world today?

Morgan: Well, I think it’s incredibly amazing, sort of how relevant it is today, as when – you know, the movie takes place, or when the novel takes place, the Cold War. You know, there was all this talk, always, of this movie, trying to update it and make it a war on terror, or whatever. And Zack went in and fought this good fight and said, "Let’s remain true to the novel." But, you know, in seeing the film, and even when we were shooting it, we knew. I was like, "F–ck, this is incredibly current to what is happening right now in the world." And what that says is, to me, we live in a scary place. You know, this world of ours is in a fragile position right now. The doomsday clock is five minutes to midnight, in reality. And to me, that just scares the shit out of me.

Question: Your career has really taken a dramatic upturn.

Morgan: I’ll say.

Question: Did you expect Grey’s Anatomy to be such a springboard for you as an actor?
Morgan: No. No, not at all. You know, I’m just thankful that I had a couple episodes on anything. And – you know, for me, it was paying the rent. And certainly I didn’t get to choose anything I was doing. And if I would have thought in a million years that that would lead to Watchmen-which it did. You know, I mean, I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now if it weren’t for Grey’s Anatomy. And not in a million years would I have anticipated. That story line just kind of took off all on its own. And then for Zack to be able to look at something like Grey’s Anatomy and go, "There’s my Comedian," blows my mind.

Question: And yet there was a lot of criticism when Denny returned from his two-month recent spate of episodes.

Morgan: You know, yeah. That’s what I hear. I try not to pay attention to that. Mostly I’ve been kind of enveloped in my Watchmen world since they’ve been airing. But, yeah, there’s been a couple questions about that. And my feeling is, you know, trust Shonda Rhimes. You know? I think people care so much about these characters, that whenever they feel like they go off track, the fans, they flip out. And that’s a testament to the writing that Shonda has always done. Now, in saying that, I think people should trust her a little bit more than they are.

Question: Now, you’re incredibly busy. You’ve got a number of films coming out. What are you the most excited about?

Morgan: Well, Watchmen. [LAUGHTER] You know, it’s weird – I don’t remember the order, I don’t know the order of what’s coming out, and all that stuff. But, you know, all of them I did for a reason. They all had characters I thought were very interesting, and would be a new kind of a deal for me. They’re all very diverse in what they do and what they say. And so I’m excited about all of them.

Question: What was it like to work with Ang Lee?

Morgan: Well, I mean, you know, it’s Ang Lee. I mean, you know, the fact that I got a phone call saying, "Ang Lee wants you to be in his movie" – you know, I about shit my pants. So. It was awesome. It was a completely different experience than I’ve ever had before with a director. I thought for the first two weeks I worked with him he was going to fire me at any given moment, because he never said a word to me. And then when he finally did, I was so damn happy. But, you know, we all found that. He’s just a very quiet, kind of subdued director. And coming off something like Watchmen, where you’re working with Zack, who’s got more energy than all of us put together – he’s bouncing off the walls and acting off scenes and rolling around on the floor. And to work with somebody that is so kind of quiet, but – you know, focused. And – the one great thing that I can say about both of them is that they trusted their actors. But, you know, just a totally different style of working.

Question: Has Watchmen opened up any additional doors for you? Are more doors opening up for you as a result of that movie?

Morgan: Well, I mean, I’m busy. I’ll say that. I get to play another bad guy coming up, which is great.
Question: In what?

Morgan: I’m doing a movie called The Resident. It’s kind of psychological thriller. Very much Psycho meets Fatal Attraction. And it’ll be me and Hillary Swank. And I start filming that in May. And that’s a completely crazy – you know, like, literally I’m talking to psychiatrists and trying to break down a character that way, because his mental deficiencies are a-plenty.

Question: So, he’s obviously less empathetic than The Comedian.

Morgan: [LAUGHTER] Well, I don’t think anyone’s less empathetic as The Comedian.

Question: What are your other ambitions at this point? Are you looking for a variety of roles, or to do anything else besides acting?

Morgan: Absolutely. I think a variety of roles is a very good way of putting it. I mean, look. If people are going to – if people are going to hire me to do stuff – you know, I’ve been doing this – I’ve been an actor for 20-someodd years, and just now I’m getting this opportunity to kind of work. And so really, the most important thing I could do besides being humble is making these decisions. And the decisions that I make as an actor – there’s a whole array of roles – I could have probably just done romantic comedies for the rest of my life, or something to that effect, after doing Grey’s Anatomy. And, you know, the first chance I got was Watchmen. And the way I pounced on it would have made your head spin. I was like, "Absolutely." So it’s – whatever I can do to push myself, and get better, you know? I just want to get better. I enjoy what I do, and I know how fucking lucky I am. And, you know, if people are going to give me this opportunity, I want to take it.

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