good to bring attention to a movie I'm so happy with. That's what awards and festivals can do for a movie that can't afford big print ads.
Q: The music in the movie is getting almost as much attention as you are.
A: The acting and the singing are the same thing, they go hand in hand as far as I'm concerned. I've always been looking for a movie that has to do with music, but after The Fabulous Baker Boys, that set the standard really high. And this one, they didn't have any music when the script first came to me. There was no music, no songs, some lyrics maybe, but no CD that came with it and no one at the helm of the music, and that was an integral part missing, so I said no thanks. About a year later, I crossed paths with T-Bone [Burnett], and he said, "You know that script Crazy Heart? You going to do it?" It came down to both of us saying, "If you do it, I'll do it." That was the missing piece, and then it was "Oh, God, let's go!" It fit perfectly.
Q: How did T-Bone and Stephen Bruton [who co-wrote the music] help you conceive where your character Bad Blake fit in the country music pantheon?
A: We all go back to Heaven's Gate, 30 years ago, and that movie had a role model for Bad in Kris Kristofferson, because he brought all his musician friends to that party, and every night after work, we'd be jamming. That's kind of the birth of this movie. I like to tell people Bad would have been the fifth member of the Highwaymen -- after Kris, Willie [Nelson], Waylon [Jennings], and Johnny Cash. Those guys were certainly all role models, along with Hank Williams.
T-Bone gave me a timeline of the music that Bad might have listened to growing up: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, lots of guys who are not thought of as classical country guys. Blues, because country is just a white man's blues. And Stephen, he was the whole thing. His life so closely paralleled Bad's -- he was the guy driving from gig to gig, hauling his own gear, and he had the problems with booze and other substances. Any time he had an impulse of what it would be like for him in that situation, I'd say, "Bring it on, Stephen," and that's all there on the screen.
Q: Then what makes Bad bad? What's behind all the booze?
A: Well, it's like Fabulous Baker Boys, they both get caught up in this myth that a lot of artists do, about suffering being the source of their talent, and they keep that going, even if it's unconscious. One of the things that's so wonderful about country music is that it's the window to what's going on, what's painful in his life. And Bad probably thought, "I used to be famous and I'm not anymore."
Q: How do you get into that mindset?
A: The boozing side, the unhealthy side, gaining that much weight, part of the preparation was removing the governor. You want that extra pint of ice cream? Sure! You want that extra drink? Go ahead, man! You don't want to drink while you're working, but being a little big hungover, that might work for you. But part of the role was just to make it real and interesting, and to have compassion for him. He despises parts of himself, the irresponsible drunk side, and he's longing for someone to know him for who he really is underneath that.
Q: Will any of this prep work help you when you start up the remake of True Grit with the Coen brothers in March -- in a role for which, I might add, won John Wayne his Oscar?
A: Oh, god, taking the governor off again! They're both alcoholics! Damn it, I got to play a healthy, skinny guy sometime soon. [Laughs]
Check out what actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Christopher Plummer, Jeremy Renner, and Carey Mulligan have to say about Awards Season 2010.
