John Cusack

"Saying Everything..."

John Cusack is an actor who has been one of the few actors lucky enough to mostly be the sole living, breathing special effect of his films, from Say Anything to Grosse Pointe Blank, Being John Malkovich, and High Fidelity. Now, the 43 year-old Cusack will have to compete with explosions, natural disaster, and destruction a la the power of special effects in the film 2012.

The film is directed by German filmmaker Roland Emmerich, famous for special effects extravaganzas like Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow. John first shared with us his reaction to the script.

"When I read it, I was sort of a little bit stunned because if you're on page 20 or 30 and it says, 'And Rome fell and Paris falls,' you think, how are you going to shoot that?" he recalls, "And you have no clue. The scope and the size of it was something that I knew had never been tried before. But I thought it was atypical from these scripts or the ones I had been offered anyway, as the geography got shorter and shorter where the characters could be safe and the time ran out, that the characters really started to find the need to reconcile their relationships with each other."

"Usually, when the action starts halfway through, the screenwriters just say, 'OK,' and they just keep the explosions rolling," Cusack adds, "But the characters kept developing and stuff and it was actually kind of surprising and a little bit elegantly written that way. So I liked the script and it was a page-turner and it was great and I was happy to get offered it, so it was really nice."

Cusack said he also felt there were elements of his character, divorcee Jackson Curtis, that he could relate to in the script.

"In the script, I liked a lot how he was, I could probably relate to how he was somebody who gets television when he's working, when

John Cusack

"Saying Everything..."

you start to make a film or you're writing something, I can get that way a lot," he notes, "He was a guy whose family life suffered a little bit because he was too obsessed with his work."

"So I liked the idea that television sort of saved him because he would focus on the next hour, like let's get out of L.A., find a way out of California, so you sort of get another ten yards down the road," John adds, "So I related to that part of the character."

As praised as Emmerich's films have been for their memorable action spectacle sequences like the destruction of the entire White House by an alien spaceship in Independence Day, they have often been criticized for severely lacking quality in casting, character development, and dialogue. Contrary to this, Cusack says Emmerich has a great reputation with the actors he works with.

"He's great," John says, "He's got a great reputation with actors. Because if you do one of these movies, too, you check that out and you're thinking, life may be a little too short, especially with the guys you hear about. But he's great and he hires actors and he's very collaborative and works with them and has a great set. I think he sort of learned. He said to me, 'Look, my special effects are only going to be as good as the actors I'm cutting to.'"

"So he spent as much time on every character and he never did not have enough time for actors," he continues, "He would always say let's talk through and follow an actor's instincts and very rare for an action film director. I think there's only four or five people on the planet right now and can master special the effects, but also have total control over a film, write it, and work with the actors, and give them as much time as they need. Just maybe [Steven] Spielberg and a couple

John Cusack

"Saying Everything..."

of other people who can do both those things."

Cusack also notes that Emmerich was prepared with what he wanted his special effects to look like from the very beginning.

"He's incredibly prepared," he notes, "So any sequence that we were in, if we were in the plane or in the car, he would have a video, kind of a bad video game from the seventies or eighties, but kind of a representation of what would happen and what would we be seeing."

John says 2012's timing is not only perfect because of its escapism in a world currently in a malaise of economic doldrums, but because of the political uncertainties that still exist in the world as well.

"I think, probably, in today's society, this film gives voice to a lot of collective fears and paranoia and also, it should probably entertain and distract from some of the woes that people are experiencing," Cusack believes, "I think it should be escapist entertainment with a little bit of a social conscience that hopefully gets people to react to global warming and some of those things. I think, today, right now, people want to have a good time at the movies because there's so many troubles in the world right now."

However, Cusack doesn't believe that the film gives credence to the Mayan legend that the film's plot is based on.

"No, I think if the world ends, it will be manmade," he says, "And if that may happen, it'll probably take more than two years. I think the global warming thing is definitely a real deal and obviously loose nukes, nuclear weapons, those types of things."

John says though that his nomadic life as an actor keeps him personally from being afraid of natural disasters.

"I think it scares the hell out of people," he remarks, "But I don't have a fear of natural disasters and I don't know why. I've been in bumpy, turbulent plane rides. I have fears of other things,

John Cusack

"Saying Everything..."

but not that and I've also been very lucky because I live in Chicago and L.A. and I have a gypsy life as an actor because I'm always on the road."

"So I always see the L.A. earthquakes and stuff on TV because I'm never there, so I'm never there when they hit," Cusack continues, "I've been there for like a tremor, but I've never been there for an actual earthquake. If I did live through it, I probably wouldn't be so cavalier about it."

When asked about how he managed to deliver great performances to a green screen, Cusack's reaction was humble.

"I don't know," he says, "It's sort of like any other film that has a thing when you're getting a phone call and you find out news that someone is passed away and you got a camera in your face, I don't know. That's just sort of acting. I don't know what you do. You just sort of imagine. And then, on bigger movies, you have to just wait."

"You understand that it's like a marathon and a lot of different times, you have to do a lot of covers to cover themselves and you sort of have to have a sense of, oh, well, this is the angle it's going to have to play in, so you sort of don't burn yourself out," John adds, "You sort of wait to do it when it counts, so that's just maybe the technique of being around movies for a while and knowing that the DP (director of photography) and the director are trying to sort out how to do things, so you don't want to give everything when it doesn't count."

One thing John says he's not lucky to have to worry about with doing 2012 is producing it.

"When I saw this, all I thought was I'm glad I'm not responsible for this because it was like watching the circus come to town everyday with huge moving parts,"

John Cusack

"Saying Everything..."

he notes, "I thought it was the biggest thing I ever seen and I just had to come do my part, which was a lot of work. But the stuff around you, it was a massive production. It has to be one of the biggest films ever made."

"They had everything," Cusack continues, "They had an entire city block, port concrete, white picket fences, facades of buildings, and then they had the whole thing on these gimbals, so the whole place would buckle. It was pretty crazy. If there was an earthquake, you were walking on an earthquake, it was pretty hard to stay upright."

John also shared what he thought was the best special effects sequence in the film.

"I thought the stuff with the water was pretty extraordinary because it's just so hard to do that," Cusack says, "Because just the CGI special effects of water is, I know how difficult to do and that was pretty amazing. The underwater stuff I thought was kind of claustrophobic at the end when everybody was drowning. That seemed to work pretty well. But I'm looking at it like, oh, I could have done better, I'm probably not the best person to say."

We asked Cusack how he enjoyed working with co-star Amanda Peet, who he's worked with previously on the films Identity and Martian Child.

"Really fun, really loving. She's great fun to work with," he says.

We asked the actor to comment on Peet's remark that she feels Oscars will becoming his way soon.

"Well, maybe it'll be easier to get one now, they'll be giving them out like hot dogs, like here you go, here you go," John jokingly replies.

However, he says he has no regrets about not getting to work with his famous sister Joan.

"Look, I was happy I got to do another one with Amanda, so I didn't want to push my luck," Cusack remarks.

As someone who is noted for his political activism, we asked Cusack if

John Cusack

"Saying Everything..."

he feels 2012 stands with the many environmental documentaries released in recent years like An Inconvenient Truth.

"I think this will add to, it's part of the zeitgeist of the fear of all that stuff," John says, "Roland made the movie Carbon Neutral and he did the movie The Day After Tomorrow. So I think he wanted it to be part of that larger kind of conversation. But, as I said, it doesn't have much of an outward political message, except for a feeling of international unity towards facing a common problem. And so, it offers you feel which you then hope it would be expressed, but it's mostly supposed to be a pretty fun popcorn movie."

John also explained that it's this simple message why this particular disaster film will appeal to people.

"The feeling of the movie is be grateful for what you have and reconcile with people you want to reconcile with and enjoy your life and live it to its fullest right now, because you never know," Cusack believes, "Then, probably, on a secondary level, it's to address global warming and make sure people do the right thing that way. But mostly, I think it's hopefully that feeling that you're entertained and if you got a problem with your brother, work it out. The movie's optimistic and at the end of the day, the boat is going to open its doors up to more than the rich and the powerful."

"Also, that sense of when real disasters strike, the illusion that there's any differences between countries and ethnicities and religions, all that just stripped away and people are just people," he adds, "So I think that's why these stories have a hold on the imagination to us. People like that feeling when people get to that place where there's no more China, U.S., Russia, Christians, Jews, Muslims, there's none of that stuff and everybody's in it together. I think people, of course, want that unity

John Cusack

"Saying Everything..."

because people aren't really barbarians and horrible people at their core. So I think the movie offers a way to get there without going through a real disaster or it gives you that feeling of better angels of people's natures."

We wondered if Cusack believed if that message has inspired him in his own life.

"It makes it easier to do, but somehow, when you get back to Hollywood, it's harder, but yes," John replies.

However, John says the only thing that doing the film has not inspired him to do is participate in the TV series rumored to be in the pipeline as a follow-up to the film.

"No, not me, no, I wouldn't want to do a TV show," Cusack insists, "It's hard enough to do movies when you're just working with a couple of people. I think TV shows are kind of committee decision-making and I don't know if that would be the best thing for me for my personality."

However, Cusack did say that the final cut of the film did leave him riveted.

"I knew going in that Roland wasn't go back and do anything like this," John says, "Do you remember ten or fifteen years ago when Terminator 2 came out and everybody said that special effects made a huge leap?"

"I knew he wanted to do the same thing here," he adds, "He wanted to try to take special effects to a new level and I think he's sort of done that. So I had a sense of that, too, but then, you can see with some of the things he did with water which they say is the most difficult thing you can do."

John says his next project will be The Hot Tub Time Machine, which he will co-star in with Chevy Chase

"Yeah, it was something I produced, very, very ridiculous silly movie, but it's the most important hot tub film ever made," Cusack claims.

Cusack says that, at the end of the day,

John Cusack

"Saying Everything..."

when it comes to his career, he feels fortunate just to have the opportunity to do films that will allow him to express the full range of his talent as an actor.

"I'm probably not the best person to say," he believes, "You sometimes get cast in stuff that you really want to do and sometimes, you get cast in things that are too plain and you try to put your own spin on it and sometimes you get great, great roles."

"So I guess it's a little bit of a crapshoot where you try to just find things that in the piece that you want to express, something that touches you, that is part of you," John continues, "And when you can find that and the director and the studio and you don't screw it up and you get lucky and it works, which is rare, then it's a good performance, so I don't really know."

One film he still feels particularly proud of as it approaches its 20th anniversary this year is his iconic breakthrough in the teen drama Say Anything.

"I have a great fondness for it," Cusack says, "It was a great collaboration with Cameron Crowe and I was really proud of the movie, so it's really nice people are still remembering it so many years later. I'm always kind of delighted that people still like it."