YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?
Film quotes pose as questions. Film stars try to cope.
You talkin’ to me?
Yes. Yes I am. Well, I’m the only one here. So I’m talking to you. My people spoke to your people and here we are, doing an interview.
Do you have an off switch?
Yeah, I think I struggle to find my on switch! I can fall into extreme bouts of laziness, which can very difficult to get out of! Everyone starts a new year with resolutions… I’m the opposite. I start really sluggishly.
So what are you afraid of?
I’m only really afraid of spiders. Cripplingly afraid. I mean, petrified. If I see one, I freeze. We get black widows and all sorts [where I live]. Everything in Florida wants to kill you. It’s a bit like Australia! I mean, we went canoeing at the back end of last year, and the river was really high… we hit a tree and spiders fell into the boat! I was pathetic!
You talk the talk. Do you walk the walk?
I think I do. I do have a big mouth, which often writes cheques my body can’t cash. But I do like to think that I stick to my word. If I say I’m going to do something, I will follow it through and do it. I made a choice to surprise my parents for Christmas. They’ve been shielding the whole year, since all this started, and they’re in their old age. They’ve barely even left the house. And we formulated this plan back in summer that we’d try and pop over [from America] and see them. We managed to make it work. We followed through. We made their Christmas and New Year. My mum screamed so loud, I thought she was gonna bring the house down.
What do you call a blind dinosaur?
Well, I mean, Doyouthinkhesaurus! This is such a cliché, but they don’t make ’em like that any more. I really struggle with CGI, which is a bit rich coming from someone who’s in Harry Potter. But I find the animatronics and effects in Jurassic Park more immersive and exciting. Once I see CGI, I tend to switch off.
Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?
My wife. Definitely. Going back to what I said earlier about being lazy, if not for her, I don’t think I’d ever find that on switch. She’s the one that makes me try and be the better version of myself. Again, more cliché, but it’s true, it’s really true. If she wasn’t there inspiring me and getting me up for stuff then I probably wouldn’t be doing it.
What would you do if you knew you had less than one minute to live?
Not that I have a death wish, but I don’t think I’d be too devastated about it. I think I’m at peace with existence. And I would obviously tell people like my family, my wife, that I love them. I’d make sure if I could that my affairs were in order. Just send some texts really quickly! You get the car, that kind of thing. And then I would grab my dogs and I would sit on the bed and try and drink as much champagne as I could.
Can you fly this plane and land it?
No, I can’t. It was actually a dream of mine when I was younger. I was in the Air Cadets when I was 14. And because of my contract with Warner Bros, I was not insured to be able to fly an aircraft. So while all my friends were getting their wings, I did not, and so I cannot fly a plane. It’s something I’ve thought about maybe at some point in the future, but here’s the rub. I don’t like flying! I figure the more I learn about it, the more control I have, the less afraid I’ll be.
What’s your favourite scary movie?
The Conjuring. It’s such a wellconstructed horror film that even after having seen it multiple times it still kills me. My wife and I started to watch it in bed, actually – because we’re mental – a couple of weeks ago and I forgot about the first scene with Annabelle. It was too much for my wife. We had to turn it off!
They didn’t die in vain. But you will – because you’re wrong!
I haven’t seen those films since they came out! That moment was difficult because we filmed the reverse about six months after we shot the first half of the scene. So we shot in June, all the Death Eaters, so there was Ralph [Fiennes], Jason [Isaacs] and Helena [Bonham Carter]. And then six months later, in January, when it was freezing cold and everyone’s shivering, we shot the reverse. And that’s when I did my stuff [alone]. It was immensely difficult. JM
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‘THIS IS SUCH A CLICHÉ, BUT THEY DON’T MAKE ’EM LIKE JURASSIC PARK ANY MORE’