Did you find yourself flexing acting muscles that you maybe left idle with films like "Shaft" and "The 51st State"?
It's a different approach to the craft, I guess, because the character is more complex. There is a reality base that's very different from the fanciful worlds of "Shaft" and "The 51st State". I harked back to the days of theatre when I had to sit down and analyse who the character was, where he came from, and what his natural reactions to things were, historically. But I also credit Roger [Michell, the director] for how that character is sort of temperate and eked out in little bits.
Did you encounter any real-life road-rage having to shut down the streets of New York City to make this film?
We only closed down the first three exits on the FDR, and we would be there on Saturdays and Sundays. Occasionally we'd get the 'road bogeys' coming out of the tunnel from Brooklyn that didn't see the detour signs and they would run into our traffic, and they'd sit there in that traffic thinking there was an accident up ahead until somebody said "Action!". When they'd take off, we'd see them and laugh, realising those people had been sitting there for an hour.
In the film, Doyle's AA sponsor tells him he's addicted to chaos. Is the "chaotic" Doyle close to the real Sam Jackson?
In a sense, he is. He's the old Sam. But New York can do that to you. It's just that kind of place where sometimes you just have to seek refuge. And sometimes that refuge is just being oblivious to what's going on. When I first went on location out of New York, the first night, I just couldn't sleep. Something just wouldn't allow me go to sleep and when I was finally still and tried to listen to what it was, I realised it was nothing. I hadn't been in a quiet place for so long, it was disturbing.
You spent a lot of time in "oblivion", and then AA, like Doyle...
Yeah. I still hang out in bars with people, I drink tonic or I get something that looks like an alcoholic drink, because I just want to be accepted. But then you get some people who'll come up to you and say, "You hang out in a barber shop long enough, you'll get a haircut." I mean, What? Shut up!
People tell you stuff like that because they think you're going to fail. And sometimes they want you to fail, just so they can say I told you so. So I understood Doyle's angst when he deals with those AA bible thumpers. I also understood what it's like going into a bar and thinking that if I have one drink, you know, maybe I can calm this madness that's going on around me.
But Doyle has to arrive at the knowledge that he never went into a bar and had just one drink. I know I didn't. I never had a beer. If I bought a six-pack of beer, I kept drinking till all six beers were gone. You have to have that kind of understanding about yourself. I haven't had a drink now in 12 years.
What's it like headlining a movie with another actor whom you only have a handful of scenes with?
That happens in a lot of different films. It's pretty much par for the course that you never see each other when you do films, so it's not strange. It felt like we were making different films. There was a film being made about my character and there was a film being made about Ben's character, and somebody put them together in the editing room and occasionally we came together and we acted together.
What was it like when you did?
It was great. Ben and I know each other socially, so we had lots to talk about and the fact that we do like each other made it easier for us to, like, hate each other during those periods when we had to. So we could laugh about it when it was over and effectively do it.
