"Oh Brother, Where Art Thou"?
source:Premiere magazine, France, date: May 2000

Have you ever been to Cannes' festival ?

GC : No never. I've been in "Hotel du Cap" (well-known hotel in Cannes) one time but it was in July. It must be completely different during the festival and I imagine it must be a little bit crazy. The Coen brothers warned me. But I can't wait to go because I'm going with a movie that I'm proud of and it´s really dear for the people who did it.

PR: How has the project been presented to you ?

GC: I was shooting 3 Kings in Arizona when someone told me that the Coen want to talk to me. I've never met them before but I was delighted. They've come to Phoenix and put the scenario on the table saying: "We've wrote this and we want to know if you'll agree to star in it". I accepted immediately before reading it. Of course I was a little bit afraid that it'll be their first bad movie..But when I read it I couldn't believe how lucky I was. They are incredibly brillant.

PR: What can you say about the movie?

GC: It's based on Homer's Odysee and I'm playing Ulysse. It's a comedy, a sort of musical comedy which plot takes place in Mississippi in 1935 during the Great Depression. John Turturro, Tim Nelson and me interpret three prisoners chained with each others. To convince them to escape with me I chatter them that there's a million dollars hidden somewhere, a lie of course. The reason that I want to escape is that I learned that my wife,played by Holly Hunter, is going to get remarried. And there we go for our Odysee. We meet mermaids and cyclops... John Goodman played a cyclop, member of the Ku Klux Klan with one hole in his cowl. Charles Durning plays the governor of Mississippi. It's fun from beginning to end, with danced parts, songs. There's a tribute to the Wizard of Oz by the KKK's members. It's very close to "Arizona rising". The image of Roger Deakins are really beautiful and the Coens have done a thing, that I think have never been done in cinema: they have cancelled all the colors after the shoot and recreate them with computer and obtain old colored images. The result is astonishing.

PR: How did you adapt yourself to the singing parts?

GC: At first, I didn't realise its importance. I've understood that we sing some songs but not that the music was the real frame of the movie. Joel and Ethan - especially Ethan- knew very well the country music of this period, a music that we rarely listen to these days...

PR: Did you have a specific preparation for this role?

GC: I grew up in Kentucky! I've sent the scenario to my Uncle Jack who lives there and I asked him to record a tape where he read the lines to help me to rediscover the old south accent that I listened in my grandmother's mouth when i was growing up. My uncle Jack is an unbelievable guy. He never understood what I was doing for life. He continues to think that I should do something seriously. When I was young I helped him gathering tobacco. So when I talk to him he says to me stuff like that: ´You should go back to your studies or you should come back working on the farm.´ But maybe it's gonna change now that he got his name in the credits.

PR: Looks like your character is not so far from the one you played in Out of sight...

GC: There's a big difference although. In OOS I was a good specialist in my parts handicapped by an unbelievable unluck who makes that whatever I do it's gonna fail. In OBWAT it's almost the opposite. My character is an idiot, a fool with an unshakable optimism who goes through diffuculties saying to his buddies not to worry because everything would be okay.

PR: Do you feel an particular attirance for those characters who are good in the story but not really recommended ?

GC: Yes. As an actor but also as a spectator. I like characters played by Bogart and Cagney. Some of them where much more darker than the one I've played but at the same time keeping some of the qualities. It's much more interesting to play that kind of roles than the hero always ready to save the world. I don't think that you are conscious of how hard it's to find good scripts. I 've shot OBWAT last summer. And then I've shot Perfect Storm which ended in January. Normally I should have chosen the next one in October and we are almost in May and even if I read a script per day I haven't found a good script...A lot of these films are going to get shot but I don't want to make the promotion of these films to say nice things about a film that everybody have seen a hundred times..

PR: Your timetable is free until the Ocean 11 with Steven Soderbergh?

GC: Yes. We shoot next January with Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Mark Wahlberg again.

PR: You've worked with Soderbergh, the Coen and David O. Russell. They are young directors who have an sensibility near indepedent movies and are looking for making different movies in studio structure...

GC: I just wanna make films that I'm proud of. I've got enough money. When you have enough money and you make movies that you'll dislike you're a real idiot. When you need money it's different. I know that I've made bad movies sometimes for good reasons sometimes for bad reasons *yeah..gimme some more killer tomatoes...Julie*. But now it's finished. But at the same time I've got to fight for 3K to be done at Warner. Same thing for OOS at Universal. Because these projects are more independent rather than studio's movies. Such movies are hard to do. There's a time when studios makes movies like Bonnie and Clyde, Network....Hopefully I think that they are coming back to this kind of movies and I would be happy to work in that sense. It's not so hard. I just have to give up my salary for a participation in the benefits. That's what I've done for OBWAT..It workes well for 3K because I begin to receive checks. Less for OOS but it doesn't matter...

PR: It looks like you are very motivated for projects like your live fiction that you just produced in american television (fail safe).

GC: It was necessary for the actors to have courage to do it. We did it live, black and white with period costumes twenty-four cameras....Things which makes executives nervous....But it workes very well. Now CBS asks us to do another one and we have received propositions from great actors and directors who are ready to do such projects.

PR: What's up with the project "Gates of Fire"?

GC: Michael Mann should direct it. But it's a huge 100 million dollars project and I don't know if I could make it. I'd love it because the script is wonderful but I hesitate to buy a pair of sandals and a toga...Bruce Willis really wants to make it. He calls me everytime for asking me news about the project.

PR: We're going to finish with a Cannes' touch...how many palm winner movies can you remember?

GC: I don't know....Last year was Benigni right? (wrong it was two years ago and he didn't win the palm but the Jury price). I know that Tarantino won one. I know the Coen won one. And of course Soderbergh won one. I saw the palm in his house. You know that we are associated? I know that Spike Lee was angry because he didn't win...I could just remember the American ones...I must revise..

Interview translated from French by Anne