Paul Giamatti

THE BILLIONS STAR ON HIS ITALIAN JOB.

What was your initial interest in Jungle Cruise?

There’s a lot of things about the script… not even stuff that I do in it. But I just thought it was a really way more interesting script than I thought it was going to be. It goes [in] really unexpected, interesting directions. So I was very impressed that they took this ride and turned it into the thing that they’re making.

Your character Nilo is the boss of the town. Were you inspired by anyone you’d met?

There were lots of things that were in my head. I’m Italian, the character’s Italian, there’s people in my life that I’ve known that were sort of like this. I’m sort of a bad guy. But I’m not like a really menacing bad guy. I’m a bit of a goofball bad guy.

Is he larger than life?

Yes. And a particular kind of Italian man. There’s a word in Italian and Neapolitan, which is ‘guapo’, which is not such a nice word. But it means a kind of slick dude and I know somebody in my life that was like that, growing up, so there was a bit of that. He’s no longer around. So I’m free to do whatever I want to him!

Your character has a (real) cockatoo. Does it scratch you?

No, no, no. It’s a nice bird. But I had to work with the bird a little bit to get the bird comfortable with me, because they’re very sensitive. I’ve worked with other birds, but not a bird like this ever before. They don’t need a whole lot of handling. The birds I’d worked with before needed more handling. So I had to figure that out. But I didn’t have to do so much with this bird. She’s really sweet.