Matt Dillon and Thandie Newton "Crash" Victims

She was an elegant schemer in The Chronicles of Riddick and went into action along with Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2. He was an obsessed P.I. in the wacky There's Something About Mary and appears in Herbie: Fully Loaded with Lindsay Lohan. In the new culture clash drama set in Los Angeles, Crash, she is a socialite and he is the bullying cop who takes advantage of her.

Beautiful Thandie Newton and handsome Matt Dillon joined us at Beverly Hills' Four Season's hotel recently to talk openly about their difficult roles as adversaries in the powerful new film; two representatives of cultures and races that co-exist but don't acknowledge each other.

TeenHollywood: When you read a script, and you have to get down to those intense scenes, do you two as actors talk about that a lot?

Matt: No, we talked about mutual friends that we had, and the admiration I felt for her as an actress, and that's really important, because we develop a relationship of trust, because we have to do these scenes together. We don't need to get into method acting. I don't have to really become a racist to play it.

Thandie: We didn't talk about it a lot. But, I think that you've got to feel like you know each other a little before you do something like this, because that's the only way you can really feel comfortable. I think if we'd spent a lot of time talking about the scene, it probably would have made us more uncomfortable, because we would have been focusing on two people who really don't like each other, but we needed to focus on what we had in common.

TeenHollywood: Matt, you're from the East Coast, and Thandie from the UK. How do you perceive LA?

Thandie: Like any city, you have a Hollywood, Beverly Hills, or you can have Watts. Wherever you are it's extremely different, and I suppose that reflects a more segregated city. I think to live in a place like London or New York, you're much more jammed together, so as a result there is this need to wrestle with problems, the resolution of which get people to come together, which is why Crash is so interesting, because it's kind of forcing those disparate groups to come together in ways that they don't normally do.

Matt: I live in the greatest melting pot in the world, in New York and there's a lot of diversity in Los Angeles, but I think New York is arguably the most integrated city in the world in many respects, and that's not to say they don't have racial problems there. I think the sign of a great city is where people are forced to interact with each other. Whether you're Jackie Onassis or some poor guy living in the South Bronx, in some way we're all forced to deal with the same problems. Nobody is free of suffering and pain and disappointment, it doesn't matter where you are. So in that way I think New York is different, very different than Los Angeles, because Los Angeles in a way is very segregated, very spread out, people live in isolated communities, pockets.

Thandie: They're completely unaware of each other.

TeenHollywood: Have either of you had any encounters with the LAPD?

Thandie: I haven't.

Matt: (grinning) I have. From my experience, these guys are really hard-nosed. I've had several encounters, the first one when I was arrested for something minor like jay-walking, and they were really tough with me, so I've had this built in prejudice and fear. If I'm at this stoplight in L.A. and this police cruiser pulls up next to me, I'm like, 'Oh no, they're going to pull me over.' I have this free-floating anxiety. As I was doing research on the film, I discovered, like so many of the characters in the film, that my attitudes were wrong for the most part, that most of these guys were just working for a very small wage, doing a very difficult job, having to commute from long distances, because it's too expensive to live in the areas their precincts are.

TeenHollywood: So you did a lot of research with the local cops?

Matt: Yeah. They were also very forthcoming with information about the type of cop that I was playing. I said, 'I'm playing a racist cop with a chip on his shoulder. He's bitter, and he's aggressive.' And they said, 'Well, we've got guys like that.' And I said, 'Can you tell me a little bit about their behavior?' and they were able to really shed some light on that, so it was just very interesting. A mixed bag. I was surprised that they were as open with us as they were, but they realized that they've had problems, they didn't try to force our hand into sugarcoating it.

TeenHollywood: Thandie, your character is a very sophisticated woman who just lets her mouth get her in trouble. Have you done that?

Thandie: I think there are always times, there are always moments, when you're aware that you could make a situation really volatile, and it's just your own good judgment that stops that from happening. And with this, the cap was off. Christine [Thandie's character] and her husband had been out to a party, she's had a couple of drinks. I think the reason that Christine was able to react the way she did, and get so angry, was because that's not what she thought was ever going to happen.

Matt: In a funny way, when two people are doing something wrong at the exact same time, things are exponentially worse. This guy's racist, and she's provoked the wrong cop. People said, 'Oh it must be tough to play that kind of role.' No, in a way, I enjoyed the challenge of it. It was difficult to gage how far to go, I really couldn't identify with that character.

TeenHollywood: What about the fact that your racist cop character was very caring with his father? Was it fun to realize the character had two completely different sides?

Matt: You know, I always realize that when I'm playing a character in a film. The trouble is, that's not always what we see in the film. You don't always see the other side of it. I think that's what drew me to the role. Not just that he was this bitter cop, this racist cop, to me we know all that. But that this film explores the more personal nature of his life with his relationship with his father. We get a sense of where this hatred, deep-seated bitterness, comes from. It puts a human face on it but it didn't give him the right to have these toxic attitudes. So I think it's interesting, nothing's black and white.

TeenHollywood: At the end of the movie will your character remain a racist cop or will he change?

Matt: These things are open, and I feel like spiritual growth doesn't happen by lightning striking or something. I have a tendency to think that something's happened to this guy, but maybe it's not going to sink in with him right away. I'd like to think there's a sense of hope.

Thandie: He's been in denial. That's partly what it is.

TeenHollywood Has being in this film changed any of the assumptions that you might have had about people? Did it hit home with you?

Thandie: Maybe earlier in my life, I've felt I was on the receiving end of a lot of that stuff [racism] like a victim. But I'd like to think that I'm much more enlightened, and so reading the script I just felt like it was a confirmation of what I feel very strongly about anyway

TeenHollywood: In your youth, you felt more like a victim?

Thandie: Yeah. Interestingly, I don't think Christine viewed herself as a victim in any way, I think quite the opposite. She's struggled hard to not be seen as a victim but she's the victim of her husband's lack of courage.

TeenHollywood: Matt, don't you think that audience members will all see themselves in some character in the film?

Matt: Yeah. It's really easy, isn't it, to make broad, sweeping, generalizations, racially, socially, whatever, or even personally about people you know, and I think we're all guilty of it on some level. And the film turns the mirror on society in a way. We don't always vocalize, but we've all made snap judgments in our anger, or frustrations, and hopefully we didn't make a jackass out of ourselves by vocalizing, because I've had it happen to me.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.