Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the first of 5 one on one interviews I did with the cast and crew of SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, which is exactly one month away from owning all you guys. I did these interviews at Comic-Con this year and thanks to some special people I was the ONLY print media allowed one-on-ones with these guys. All the other interviews you'll see will be in essence the same exact interview repeated since they all come from the same roundtable. The powers that be decided to give you guys, the AICN readers, a unique Q&A, so much thanks to Paramount and especially Lisa Stone, geek goddess and puppet-master to the stars!
Anyway, first up in the SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW interviews is Giovanni Ribisi, who plays DEX in the film, a character I predict will be a favorite especially among the geeks. Without any further ado, let's get on with it, shall we?
QUINT: I think you're going to win over all the geek's hearts with your role in SKY CAPTAIN!
GIOVANNI RIBISI: Oh, good! (laughs) "All the geeks." (laughs)
QUINT: What'd you think about the role when you first read the script?
GIOVANNI RIBISI: For me, it was not necessarily about the role as much as it was about the people I was working with and about being involved in a film that has this sort of alternative aspiration economically. It was also sort of a new process of making movies that I think really has a strong future in the industry because of the economics. I think that for directors and studios to embrace that is, I think, sort of inevitable.
It was also just the idea of, like, being involved in a movie that's basically blue screen. It's just a bare stage, in a sense, that's my take on it. Some people hate doing blue screen, but for me it was like an empty playground. As long as you have your anchor points of, like, "OK, what's that?" to have something to look at, then you're fine.
QUINT: I know there wasn't much for you to play with or react off of, but I'm curious as to what your favorite sequences were to shoot.
GIOVANNI RIBISI: That's the thing... There was this sort of homogeny there. Everything is blue! But for me, I think it was probably the stuff with Jude and Gwenyth in the office where there was a sort of human interaction there. Where it's more about relationships.
QUINT: Did you do any research at all for your role? Did you go look at the old Flash Gordon serials or anything?
GIOVANNI RIBISI: For me, no, because I came in to the film... It was basically, like, "Hey, can you do this? 3 days in England acting..." So, there wasn't a whole lot of time to do that, but I sort of already have an arsenal of... um... I don't want to sound pretentious, or whatever, but at least attempting to be cinephilic and all of the old noir films and the films in the days of yore... that have such a fervor and an insipient passion of making something that's really about style and another world.
I was just watching, for instance, ALL ABOUT EVE, not that that necessarily has... I don't think its content has anything to do with this, but it was just... The dialogue is just consummate... Every aspect. The wardrobe, the acting, the cinematography is mind-blowing. For this film, I think because everything... The little that I do know about Computer Graphic Imaging, the potential, you sort of have a bare slate up until you're sitting there on the computer. As far as the look and the style of it. The performances need to be there and they're established, obviously... In the beginning with the animatics, you know, and then in the production process. But you can go back and say, "Let's make this sunset pink instead of yellow..."
QUINT: Have you gotten to see the final product yet?
GIOVANNI RIBISI: No, I haven't seen anything of the film, actually.
QUINT: They screened it the other night...
GIOVANNI RIBISI: Yeah, that's what I heard.
QUINT: The audience went nuts for it.
GIOVANNI RIBISI: Oh, good! That's exciting!
QUINT: Do you think the mainstream audiences are going to buy into the fantasy?
GIOVANNI RIBISI: Honestly, it's hard for me to evaluate that because there's so little... I mean, on a film where you go to a location and you shoot there's all the atmosphere and all the people there involved, like LORD OF THE RINGS or whatever. I'm sure a lot of that was CGI as well, but the whole thing wasn't done on a blue soundstage or whatever.
As an actor, for me, when I do films it's always really hard for me to objective because you're so involved in things and you're looking at it from the inside out. But with this, I think it's one of the first times I can actually go see a film as an audience member and be surprised and awed by things.
QUINT: So, what's coming up next for you?
GIOVANNI RIBISI: I was just on this... it wasn't a sojourn... But I was in Africa for 5 months doing a movie called FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX and right on the heels of that I went and did this other thing in Alaska with Robin Williams and Holly Hunter and this great cast.
There you have it, squirts. Pretty short, but a fun read nonetheless. I got more where this came from... Look for an interview a day until I run through them all! 'Til then, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu!
-Quint
