You know, it was kind of a combination of things.
It was the audacity of the material, for one.
Theres a full levity to this thing, it doesnt take itself seriously at all.
And then you have Elijah Wood, and John Cusack, and all these people I knew and loved.
And, you know, I like playing villains!
And it fit with my schedule, which oftentimes this stuff doesnt when I get asked.
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And Id been studying…
I continue to train as an actor, I study continually, I never stopped doing that.
I kind of missed doing stuff I wanted to test out that work in the wild again.
So that was a part of it too, probably.
Do you generally keep yourself open to acting roles as an ongoing thing?
I really dont I havent, by nature, been available at all.
So it sort of woke me up to it a bit!
You mentioned the appeal of playing a villain inGrand Piano what in particular about that appeals to you?
Im not going to be the guy doing a commercial about pet food.
Theres nothing blithe about it.
And it was played one hundred per cent straight, without any winks to the audience at all.
And then with killers, its the same, youre really all in.
Do you think it plays with the audiences expectations when you play a killer like this?
I think that was more for the audience… and I think for Eugenio, definitely.
The theatre that the story takes place in is called the Anthony Michael Hall thats intentional!
Theres a meta link to 80s iconography that is one hundred per cent intentional on Eugenios part.
But I can say that as an actor, it never really crossed my mind.
But I wasnt really thinking about How would Bill S. Preston be a killer in this landscape?
My brain would be undone by that!
It isnt really, no.
But its really the opposite its one of the great misunderstandings of acting and directing.
Whereas as an actor, you have complete one hundred percent control.
It was an ideological vision to connect people together via the internet in a communal fashion.
Which had never ever been done beforehand on a global scale.
And cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was the perfect engine to fuel that.
How much do you have to change your approach for that?
Right or wrong, thats what happened, and thats the story I was interested in.
And theres different ways Im going about that.
I hired him to cut this movie, because he and I basically had to find this story together.
So thats very different!
Im literally driving to the edit right now!
Im coming to London to shoot this weekend…
I cant actually divulge who Im shooting, because some of these people are not utterly above the law!
But Im shooting, and Im cutting, and were making it!
Its awesome, actually, Im really enjoying this project.
You know, I think that… well, the first thing is just that we dont know.
And you dont know why something hits the zeitgeist or not.
Honestly, you dont.
I mean, Keanu is basically like my brother.
To this day, were just really close.
They were just very sincere, and I think thats infectious.
They are made with genuine friendship.
And I think thats infectious, when that lightning strikes.
You know what… huge, huge gratitude.
I cant even say I understand why they backed it!
They were probably horrified, that it somehow managed to sneak through the cracks, but it did!
Do you have any plans to work with Tom Stern on anything again in the future?
But maybe well revisit it as a web series… Do you know that Jason was in a commercial of mine, in London?
I hired Jason to play a German techno DJ, in a Ford commercial I did for the UK!
It was a total piss-take of those horrible German DJs, and Jason just totally kills it.
I think hes awesome, I would saySnatchis my favourite film of his?
I like that movie a lot, its very entertaining.
I think the Ford ad is probably the winning answer, to be honest!
Alex Winter, thank you very much!
