Watchmen Week! Stars Billy Crudup and Matthew Goode Interviewed!

With just three days to go until the release of Watchmen on Friday March 6th, Watchmen Week continues in force here at Roll Credits. Today we get the naked truth from stars Billy Crudup (Dr Manhattan) and Matthew Goode (Ozymandias)....

Billy Crudup gets the blues as Dr Manhattan

Were either of you familiar with Watchmen before this project?

BILLY CRUDUP I’m not sure what I'm doing here! I remember the cover of the book because my younger brother was a fan, but that was the extent of my association with it.

GOODE I remember thinking, when I first read it, that it's so rich and yet there's so much I don't know about my character. I don't think I'm the only one; there's a lot of grey areas for all of them.

Billy, you had to wear a motion capture suit for most of your performance as Dr Manhattan. How did you find that?

CRUDUP It's very distracting but, the fact of the matter is, you discover that it's just a more elaborate version of dress up. Every single thing that I've worked on, I'm wearing somebody else's clothes, pretending to be somebody else. It's all kind of the same thing but what I discovered is that, typically, you're given at least some of the artifacts of your character whether it's a wallet or a watch. In this, I had quite the opposite of everything that he possessed. So, I had to use my imagination a lot and I had to shut out the other actors who insisted on laughing at me!

Had they shown you any images of what your character was finally going to look like, so you could visualize him while shooting?

CRUDUP I had a reference, basically a headshot of what the face was going to look like that I had to spend a lot of time looking at before. [I had to try] to trick my imagination, because you don't feel like that character at all when you're in the get-up.

The most difficult thing was to try to play a character that knows what's going to happen at every instance because, as an actor, one of the things that you do all the time is trick yourself into discovering something in front of the camera. So, playing a scene where you were meant to be surprised and your character knows the outcome was a tricky road to walk.

Matthew Goode as the morally ambiguous Adrian Veidt

And Matthew, how did you approach such a morally complex character?

GOODE My problem was [Ozymandias] is the most deeply morally ambiguous asshole of all of them because he is trying to save the world and the world will end but how the fuck do you play him? You don't want to give the game away too early that he's the villain… although I don't think he is the villain. That's one of the reasons we went toward this duality with him, and we gave him a public and a private persona.

We also liked the idea of using a [German] accent because actually, by the end you're creating a really interesting moral argument. You kind of slap yourself into thinking 'Ah, it's a German thing so we immediately think he's bad’. It’s that argument that, in a war situation, all Germans are guilty of what happened to the Jews because they were following orders from their government. But no American sees himself as guilty for the one and a half [million] that died in Japan. Considering that [Ozymandias] is someone wrapped up in the American Dream, as an immigrant, his public face is quite American. I tried to give him that accent. [The character] is all wrapped up in that and I just hoped it worked.

Dr Manhattan is perhaps the most interesting superhero, as he is totally uninterested in the end of the world. Did that appeal to you?

CRUDUP The interesting thing about Dr. Manhattan is he really doesn't care. I think that's part of the conceit that [graphic novelist] Alan Moore was interested in, is what if you give someone all the power in the world and they have lost their humanity?

Dr Manhattan is much more interested in the way that particles interact. He was a dutiful American in the sort of '50's style, in that ‘My government asked me to do something. Sure, I'll go win the Vietnam war for you'. But it wasn't out of some sort of moral fortitude or some idea that the American Dream must be taken care of at all costs. He's lazy, morally, and that was an interesting character to play.

Jon Osterman becomes Dr Manhattan. Who said science isn't fun.

But isn’t he a sad character, despite his immense superpowers?

CRUDUP Yeah, he's totally lost when it comes to connecting to people and nobody can really talk to him. But actually that is the time, at the end of the movie, when he becomes the most animated is when he's [talking] with Adrian (Veidt, Ozymandias’s alter-ego] what exactly has happened and what's going to happen. Because, beyond that, everything is already known to him. He's seen it all happen and there are no surprises and, at the same time, the complexity of human interaction baffles him in a way that makes him feel alone.

Were these the hardest characters you’ve ever had to play?

CRUDUP There are all kinds of different levels of difficulty. I've worked on things that were physically much more demanding. I've worked on things where the process is really hard because of the hours you work and the kind of material you do. And I've worked on things that are emotionally much more demanding.

But this was demanding, creatively, in a way that I hadn't experienced in some time because of having to use the force of my imagination to deny everything that was happening around me. I didn't have anything to latch onto except for that photo of what I might look like. Typically, you count on the people around you endowing you with the attributes of the character and it was a few weeks before I was getting any help from the other actors endowing me with the mastery of all matter.

Goode in full Ozymandias mode

Watchmen is undoubtedly the most celebrated graphic novel of all time. So, any pressure…?

GOODE I've never had such an outpouring of hate [from fans] towards being cast. I'm always as surprised as anyone that they've cast me in something! But from the word go there was quite a bit of animosity and I suspect I've got my fair share that's coming to me when the film comes out. So that was kind of tough but you'd be an idiot not to want to be involved in it.

CRUDUP I was thrilled to get the job! I've never had an opportunity to do anything like this and I think the rest of the actors and Zack provided a great experience for me to get to work with people. It was a great environment for me and I felt really lucky to do it. I didn't really start to feel the pressure until that question!

How is Zack to work with as a director?

GOODE He’s full of beans. I think he felt obligated to take it on because he's such a fan. He'd read a lot of the other scripts and thought, ‘This isn't being faithful enough to the novel' and [he was under] the pressure that comes with that, and the pressure that comes with ‘What am I going to do next after 300’ and the pressure of a 120 million dollars!

But he takes the pressure off you in some senses because he's so relaxed and fun. You just never felt that he was anything other than a 100 percent in control, and it comes together in front of you. You're standing on a set and you're like, ‘Well, I've got a big pyramid behind me and there's a sphinx over there and I'm dressed a bit like David Bowie but I really look great! I feel good about it.' It was amazing.

Interviews by Judy Sloane

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Remember to check back tomorrow for more fantastic Watchmen cast interviews!