We're "Watching" Billy Crudup and Matthew Goode

While Patrick Wilson and Malin Akerman are the ultimate boyfriend/girlfriend of the Watchmen movie, Billy Crudup (Dr. Manhattan) and Matthew Goode (Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias) could be tagged the "God-like" beings of the film. All-knowing Dr. Manhattan is a former scientist turned super-being after an experiment goes horribly wrong and Ozymandias is a former Watchman with delusions of forcing his beliefs for world peace on the entire planet. And the two actors jokingly call each other "Bills" and "Goody". Go figure!

Handsome Billy had to spend almost the entire film dressed in a pajama-like motion capture suit with little lights all over it so that the magic of CGI could turn him into a hot-looking, blue, glowing guy. Co-star Malin described him as "a walking Christmas tree". Gotta be challenging for an actor so, at our interview in Beverly Hills, we asked him about it. Matthew, a cute Brit actor whom you've seen as a romantic leading man in Match Point with Scarlett Johansson and Chasing Liberty opposite Mandy Moore, is very funny in person but has to be stone cold serious in the film and we wanted to know if this was a challenge. These two guys are quite hilarious in an interview together. Read on....

TeenHollywood: Here come the Godlike beings.

Billy: And we also play that in the movie [laughter].

TeenHollywood: Were either of you familiar with the 'Watchmen' graphic novels?

Billy: I remember the cover of the book because my younger brother was a fan so I remember seeing that around but that was the extent of my association with it.

Matthew: Not at all. I didn't know anything about it until I was asked to read it. I thought it was a good idea to read it before we started. Normally I don't bother.

Billy: Often you don't have that kind of source material and that's one of the things that can be interesting about working on any script or material when you get to make the decisions on all the unanswered questions but this was really rich in its source material. It gave you a lot of answers and starting off points so it was a great asset to have that material to go to at the beginning to look at.

Matthew: And, also, I remember thinking, when I first read it, that it's so rich and yet there's so much I don't know about my character. I don't think I'm the only one. There's a lot of grey areas for all of them. But I was like 'I don't know anything about this guy at all' so that sucked. A bit of fun to wade through that.

TeenHollywood: Billy, was this the first time you've had to wear a motion capture suit?

Billy: It was.

TeenHollywood: How distracting was that when you are trying to perform as an actor?

Billy: It's very distracting but the fact of the matter is, you discover that it's kind of what you do all the time anyway. It's just a more elaborate version of dress-up. Every single thing that I've worked on, I'm wearing somebody else's clothes, pretending to be somebody else. It's all kind of the same thing but what I discovered is that, typically, you're given at least some of the artifacts of your character whether it's a wallet or a watch. In this, I had quite the opposite of everything that he possessed [Dr. Manhattan is nude or semi-nude in the film]. So, I had to use my imagination a lot and I had to shut out the other actors who insisted on laughing at me.

Matthew: Good morning giant blue man. How are you?

Billy: As you can see, it hasn't stopped [we laugh].

TeenHollywood: Had they shown you a picture of what he was finally going to look like?

Billy: Yeah. I had a reference, basically a headshot of what the face was going to look like that I had to spend a lot of time before takes looking at and trying to trick my imagination because you don't feel like that character at all when you're in the get-up that you're in.

TeenHollywood: Your eyes are shrouded a lot behind a white "film". Was it hard to act without using your eyes? We can't really see this character's soul.

Billy: Well, I used my eyes. They are little shadows that you can see behind [the white eyes]. It was one of the things that we talked about. The most difficult thing was to try to play a character who knows what's going to happen at every instance because, as an actor, one of the things that you do all the time is trick yourself into discovering something in front of the camera. So, playing a scene where you were meant to be surprised and your character knows the outcome was a tricky road to walk. I found it very challenging.

TeenHollywood: What about you, Matthew? They told you you're playing the world's smartest man.

Matthew: Yeah, My problem was he's not in it so much for the construct of the novel. There is an interview he gives that is incorporated into scenes that weren't necessarily in the graphic novel and, having read it, that I'm the most deeply morally ambiguous a**hole of all of them because he is trying to save the world but how the f**k do you play him? You don't want to give the game away too early that he's the villain although I don't think he is the villain. I found it very, very hard so I think that's one of the reasons we went toward this duality with him and we gave him a public and a private persona. We liked the idea of using an accent because actually, by the end you're creating a really interesting moral argument. He is of German heritage and by giving him that accent, we immediately think he's bad. This is someone wrapped up in the American Dream and that's what he utilizes, as an immigrant. So, when he is playing to Americans, his public face is, hopefully, quite American with the accent. I tried. So, it's all wrapped up in that and I just hope it worked.

TeenHollywood: Did you feel pressure being involved in the adaptation of the most celebrated graphic novel of all time? Did you feel a responsibility? Some of the fans weren't exactly on your side.

Matthew: I've never had such an outpouring of hate towards being cast. I can't understand it on any job. I'm always as surprised as anyone that they've cast me in something but particularly on this, from the word 'go', there was quite a bit of animosity and I suspect I've got my fair share that's coming to me still even when the film comes out so that was kind of tough but you'd be an idiot not to want to be involved in it. And, Zack, helming it, he wasn't being crowbarred into taking me on. 'You can't take Billy unless you take Goode'. [laughter] Sorry Bills.

Billy: It was the other way around. I was thrilled to get the job. I've never had an opportunity to do anything like this and I think the rest of the actors and Zack provided a great experience for me to get to work with people. I was a fan of Goodys' before. It was a great environment for me and I felt really lucky to do it. I didn't really start to feel the pressure until that question. [laughter]

TeenHollywood: So, Billy, you heard from fans too?

Billy: Oh yeah, but I live in New York so you hear 'you suck' every day. [laughter]

TeenHollywood: What about having action figures made from your characters? Is this the first time for both of you?

Billy: Well, it's the first time that any of them have been in the store. I like to make an action figure with the face of my character to go over lines. [goofing around, both he and Matthew pretend to be holding action figures and playing with them.]

Matthew: That's the beginning of the [marketing] hustle process.

Billy: Don't screw it up please! 'Well, I'm working on the scene' [in small doll voice while holding imaginary action figure] 'Hello'. It's not a bad idea actually. You can sort of walk out your whole performance.

Matthew: He says, she says.

Billy: That would be great.

TeenHollywood: Have you seen the toys?

Billy: I haven't seen them.

Matthew: Mine was on set but they wouldn't let me have it. They wouldn't take my money. He's got a flame thrower and a lunchbox, ooooooo! [I'm laughing].

TeenHollywood: Okay, back to being serious. Billy, Dr. Manhattan, in the film, is kind of the deterrent to nuclear war. Mankind better shape up or he might wipe us all out. How did you interpret his feelings toward Mankind at that point?

Billy: Well, the interesting thing about Dr. Manhattan is he really doesn't care and I think that's part of the conceit that Alan Moore [writer/creator of the "Watchmen" graphic novels] was interested in is 'what if you give someone all the power in the world and they have lost their humanity?' He's much more interested in the way that particles interact. He was a dutiful American in the sort of '50's style. 'My government asked me to do something. Sure, I'll go win the Vietnam war for you'. But it wasn't out of some sort of moral fortitude or some idea that the American Dream must be taken care of at all costs. He's kinda lazy morally and that was an interesting character to play.

TeenHollywood: Don't you think he's sad though?

Billy: Yeah, he's totally lost when it comes to connection to people and nobody, with the exception of Adrian, can really talk to him and, unfortunately, there weren't so many scenes between us. But, that is the time, at the end of the movie, when he becomes the most animated; when he's sort of accessing with Adrian what exactly has happened, what's going to happen. Beyond that, everything is already known to him. He's seen it all happen and there are no surprises and, at the same time, the complexity of human interaction baffles him in a way that makes him feel alone.

Matthew: That's what is quite nice in some ways, Adrian liberates him from having to be part of the world. He suddenly can just go off and be worried about particles and stuff on Mars.

Billy: If you like Mars. I hadn't thought of that before because I don't tend to think of Adrian as a nice person. I'm tired of his justifications.

TeenHollywood: How is [director] Zack [Synder] to work with?

Billy: He's amazing.

Matthew: He's full of beans. Considering that this is his baby I think he felt obligated to take it on because he's such a fan. [He had] the pressure that comes with 'what am I going to do next after 300?' and the pressure of a hundred and twenty million dollars. He's like a small child. He takes the pressure off you in some senses because he's so relaxed and fun. You just never felt that he was anything other than a hundred percent in control and he made the world and it comes together in front of you. You're standing on a set and you're like 'well, I've got a big pyramid behind me and there's a sphinx over there and I'm dressed a bit like David Bowie but I really look great! I feel good about it.' It was amazing.

TeenHollywood: Billy, was it hard for you when Zack would say, 'okay now you're the big guy. Now you're a giant towering over everyone'?

Billy: It was just another stage in the humiliation. When I was the big guy I was up on a little platform probably a hundred yards away, sixty feet up standing up there in my 'pajamas'. He took a little photo standing close, forced perspective where he was like this [indicates hand with palm up] and I was all the way in the background so I looked like I was a little man standing in his hand. [we laugh]. Yeah, it was really cute.

TeenHollywood: So, where would you rank these characters as far as being tough to play?

Matthew: I found it very hard. There are so many stages to it. l You turn up in Vancouver and you're like 'Let's hope this works'. And you go through stages. I don't think you can just immediately buy into it and go 'this is going to be a great movie'. I'd met Zack [Synder, the director] and I'd seen 300 and it took seeing all the artwork and hearing him speak about what he wanted to achieve but, even then, I imagine for you [looking at Billy], you're standing in a suit and you're like 'I hope this works'. When I saw it, I was like 'I'm so glad that all that hard work came to fruition'.

Billy: Well, there's all kinds of different levels of difficulty. I've worked on things that were physically, much more demanding. I've worked on things where you're in every scene so the process is really hard just because of the hours you work and the kind of material you do. But, I've worked on things that are emotionally much more demanding but this was demanding creatively in a way that I hadn't experienced in some time. Having to use the force of my imagination to deny everything that was happening around me [was hard]. I didn't have anything to latch onto except for that photo of what I might look like. Typically, you count on the people around you endowing you with the attributes of the character and it was a few weeks before I was getting any help from the other actors [Matthew laughs], endowing me with the mastery of all matter.

TeenHollywood: What's coming up film-wise for both of you?

Matthew: I went off and did a film with Tom Ford directing [A Single Man]. He's a lovely man so it's been a month kissing Colin Firth which was thrilling.

Billy: Paradise.

Matthew: Did that and I'm just about to go off and work with Amy Adams playing an Irish bartender. I don't know if you could tell that but I'm definitely hoping that facial hair will do the job [laughter. Matthew is wearing a cute knit cap and has a beard]. [Looking at Billy] Say something...

Billy: I'm seeing it now. [pirate tone] Arrrrrrr! I pretended to be J. Edgar Hoover. That's the last thing I did [Public Enemies].

TeenHollywood: Hoover was a cross-dresser so with dress or no dress?

Billy: [chuckling] Not on camera.

Matthew: But on the action doll, yeah.