Watchmen Week! The Comedian and Rorschach Interviewed

Tomorrow is W-Day. Yes, Watchmen finally hits cinemas on Friday March 6, and Watchmen Week rolls on here at Roll Credits. Today we have the pleasure of speaking to two of the toughest members of the Watchmen world; stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Comedian) and Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach)...

"There's no fucking around with Watchmen fans..." Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Twisted fire starter? Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian

We have to ask; how familiar were you with 'Watchmen' before you got involved with this project?

MORGAN My introduction to it was Warner Brothers sending me over a Xeroxed copy of the graphic novel, saying, 'You're meeting with the director of 300 tomorrow.' I got to page three and I was like, 'Well, that's great. I'm dead already. Excellent choice, agency!' I then of course read the whole thing and was like, 'Wow.' Now I could probably recite the whole damn book to you.

HALEY I wasn't familiar with the novel. I was never a comic book fan when I was growing up; I could never figure out what you did first, read the words or look at the picture. But, in reading [Watchmen], I think somewhere I crossed the line and started to geek out! Then I've kind of gone on a little Alan Moore jag since then, reading V for Vendetta. I realized that this guy isn't simply brilliant, he's a genius. I guess I thought that [comic books were] like a kid's medium and I didn't realize that it had this kind of depth and that it was just incredibly thought provoking.

Jackie, what were the challenges of performing in a mask and what happens when the mask comes off?

HALEY I really thought about it all a lot. I decided to really change nothing. I think that maybe, voice wise, it might be toned down a tad. I really was kind of looking at this guy and realized early on in the book that this guy is Rorschach. Walter [Kovacs, Rorschach’s alter-ego] no longer exists. So, to me, he's still Rorschach sans the mask.

Jackie Earle Haley as the troubled Rorschach

Rorschach and The Comedian are both very morally ambiguous. How did you approach them?

MORGAN They're vigilantes, right? The Comedian goes into this work early as a boy on the docks of New York. He had two directions he could've gone. I think this guy is amoral and nihilistic, and probably should've spent his life in prison. Instead, he donned a superhero outfit and got to beat the crap out of people under the guise of being a superhero. [But] there is a certain humanity to The Comedian that was the key for me. I felt sorry in a way for this guy. He's virtually alone. He doesn't have any friends. The similarities here with Rorschach I think are striking.

How do you make excuses for [his behaviour] as the audience or as the guy playing him? I couldn't. There was just no excuse. It was a rough way to go. I think the only thing that kind of grounds The Comedian, in particular, is his daughter. That and finding out that maybe life is not a joke.

HALEY To me there's just nothing grey about Rorschach. It's incredibly black and white, which is also what's fascinating about the guy. I think that he was an absolute victim as a child of selfishness and self-centered behavior. I think that every punch, every finger snap, every kick, every being is protecting that inner child and slashing out at the mom and or at humanity’s incredibly selfish and self-centered ways.

I think in a weird kind of way it's his only hope of survival. Like, if he didn't turn his energies this way, I think that he'd even be worse for wear, even much more of a nut bag, much more dangerous to society. He's turned on the guilty or on the guilty by association.

Did you find any inspiration from outside the Watchmen universe?

MORGAN [No, because] we had this great source material. Visually it's like having the world's greatest storyboard. It's a matter of getting in these [characters’] heads, which sometimes maybe wasn't the most comfortable place to be.

I don't remember ever seeing a script! I mean, I know there's a script. We shot it. But whenever we were on set and any of us had questions, the point of reference was always that book. There was a ragged, dog-eared copy of Watchmen sitting on top of the monitor and Zack's [Snyder, director] chair for the length of this film. That was used by all of us 800 times a day if not more.

The Comedian gets serious...

Have you seen the intense internet debates about the casting choices for Watchmen?

HALEY Yeah. I poked around in there a little bit.

MORGAN It's dangerous!

HALEY Yeah. It's like, 'Someone turn off the internet!' It was kind of cool though to really get a strong sense of the fan base and what this source material means to them.

MORGAN There's no fucking around with these people! Fans of Watchmen are so passionate. They care so much about it that it's kind of a big weight to carry around while you're shooting a movie. You know this is a serious thing you're involved in and we didn't want to screw it up. No one wanted to screw this up. Going on to the internet while we were shooting, I made that mistake. [But] we were very serious about making a movie that represented this graphic novel. Zack was our captain and I think that he did a hell of a job.

How does Watchmen fit into the category of the modern superhero movie?

MORGAN I have a hard time though of putting Watchmen in the category of a superhero movie. I just don't know if it fits that genre. It's kind of unlike anything I've ever seen.

I think it starts it's own genre. It's certainly not your average superhero movie. I think that The Dark Knight opened up a door that hadn't been opened before. It took superhero movies to a much smarter place than they'd ever gone before, a much more adult place. I think that Watchmen is going to take it to another level.

Rorschach knows what's going on...

Do you think that Watchmen’s alternate-Eighties setting is important to the story?

MORGAN What I find amazing is how relevant this film is today. It was written some twenty odd years ago and it's still so relevant now. What I love is that Zack fought for this. The studios had wanted this to be an updated story to make it the war on terror. That's ridiculous! As it stands, as it was written by Alan it's so relevant now. The doomsday clock is ticking still. Alternate reality, but scarily similar to what's happening to the world right now.

Finally, how accessible is the film to people who, like yourselves, have never had any experience of Watchmen before the movie?

HALEY I kind of feel that when you pick up the book and you read it for the first time and that's your first experience with it or if you go to see the movie and you haven't read the book, it's there. Is it the totality of the book? No. No film ever is. But I really think that Zack's captured more than just the essence of the book.

MORGAN The movie stands on its own. You don't need to be a fan of Watchmen to see this movie. It's rated R and little kids shouldn't be seeing this! It's a very intense movie. It's hardcore. Zack didn't pull any punches at all. He stayed very loyal to the novel and I think this is a movie that a fan of the graphic novel can see and enjoy. That's always what you want to do, but we’re just very keen on the fact that it had a very intense fan base and we wanted to please them for very obvious reasons. We were petrified to fail on that.

HALEY That's what I always felt, that if we really made it for the fans, that it would then be right for the people who hadn't heard of it ever.

Interviews by Sheila Roberts

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Come back tomorrow for the final day of Watchmen Week, when we talk to the men who made the whole movie possible...