Adam Goldberg

Interview By: Steve Moreau
SteveMoreau@TheCinemaSource.com

Adam Goldberg is that guy' oh you know him, he was in that movie, Saving Private Ryan was it' No' no' he was Chandler's roommate on Friends, for a while wasn't he' C'mon he was sooo funny.

That's basically the career of Goldberg since he made his big screen debut in Richard Linklater's film, Dazed and Confused. Little do you realize the guy, who you're not really sure of, has been in lots of movies that you've probably seen. EdTV, A Beautiful Mind and How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days to name a few that you might not remember him from. Although for his directorial pseudo-debut, I Love Your Work, the roles are reversed, and no longer is he taking direction, but giving it. He talks to The Cinema Source about our culture's craze with all things celebrity, his approach to directing, and why he reads his own reviews.

Goldberg is an actor with a talent for grasping both comedic and dramatic elements of the neuroses in his characters. He is very reminiscent of a young Woody Allen because of his distinct sense of humor, but more over he can basically play anything. To tell you the truth, he already has. His new film, I Love Your Work, is being described as a dark psychological character study, a far cry from the lighter stuff he has done in the past. The film follows fictional movie star Gray Evans through the disintegration of his marriage, his gradual mental breakdown, and his increasing obsession with a young film student who reminds Gray of his own life before becoming famous. It explores the pressures of fame and the difference between getting what you want and wanting what you get.

This is isn't his first film. He made what he describes as an "IFC Quasi documentary" as his first piece of work, but it has all been but forgotten. Goldberg actually has always wanted to be a filmmaker, "It was just more accessible to make a living acting than to make it into the world of moviemaking by directing." Indeed, making guest appearances on sitcoms like Friends and Will and Grace paid the bills, while he quietly was planning his first foray into directing. "It's just difficult to make a movie period." He has been making little movies and short films since he was a kid, and he always used to cast himself in them as well.

Don't get him wrong, he is not some snobby actor. He is just a normal guy like all of us. He even reads his own reviews to see if someone nice said something about his work. He feels that is never really the case when he does read them despite what he had hoped. Christina Ricci and him have dated on and off in the past. Although there is a certain comfort to working with friends. "It's weird too, particulary with Giovanni [Ribbisi] who gets so immersed into the role in his roles. It's a delicate balance. On another level he was prolly a lot harder on me than most would [be with some director they weren't friends with]. Actors put all the trust in the director."

Directors with a flair for filmmaking can always grab performances out of their actors. They may make wild choices, but they obviously have a bigger picture in their head. So when he would direct his actors, he wondered if the fact that they knew him personally would hinder their performances. "It's a little like knowing your shrink. Do you really wanna know that much about that person or just give yourself unknowingly'"

Goldberg tried to confront themes meaningfully. He read so many movie scripts for whiny movie stars, and the indictment of someone who is really self absorbed. His explanation for the plot of I Love Your Work is about people's obsession with celebrity and the false reality with that entails. "It's people's inability to appreciate their own lives. It's also about what celebrity culture means to me. Society is in a horribly destructive self reflexive place. This movie is ironic because its self reflexive. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about at this point... just riffing."

Unlike most abstract directors, he knows why he put things in the movie. You can't start off improvising movie. The abstract has to come from something more concrete. "The script is much more literal. It was Giovanni's and my roadmap." The felt like after a certain point the movie would talkback to him and he liked the idea of that. "It starts to give you new ideas you never knew you had. All the pieces are there to create a solid picture of who this guy is."

If you see him in a video store, and that's if, you can bet he is renting a movie he's probably already seen. "I can't even tell you how many times I have seen my favorite films over and over. I will watch [a favorite] film over a random movie. I want to swim around that world again."

So I Love Your Work is an exploration of regret because that is how Goldberg feels in real life. He's usually shy and not the kind of actor who's as self absorbed as Gray is. Heck, he worked at Book Soup in LA on Sunset Blvd. before he ever made it semi-big, and still talks about it. When people recognize him from a film called, Hebrew Hammer you gotta admit he must have gone about acting in a different way than someone who's made it big because they are starring in some teen film of the week. He wanted to fly under the celebrity radar, and his goal has been accomplished. He also picked up an interesting and eclectic resume on the way.