RS:
Arthur’s an iconic character and much of your challenge has been about how you bring depth and richness to him without overloading the whole thing.
MF:
Exactly, exactly. Yes, it’s very important to me because it mattered to my family and because it was a memory for me and because it’s become part of our popular culture over the last twenty-five years. It would have really angered me if it had been ruined, especially if it had been ruined by America. Maybe if I had been a mad fan maybe I couldn’t play Arthur. You’ve got a team of people, all of us doing our job. If everyone was a mad
Hitchhiker’s
fan, you’d have a terrible film because actually those people aren’t practitioners of what we’re doing. I really like food but I can’t cook it. So I hope people are going to trust us with it. It seems the more I hear the more they are kind of willing to . . .
RS:
They are, and I think the trust started with the script. What did you think of that when you first saw it?
MF:
I liked it, I liked it, and it works. Given that most of the films I’m asked to read I don’t go to the meetings for, there must have been something in it. And as I said before, when I met the boys, I liked them and they seemed to really care about it without being weird—care about bringing it to life as a movie rather than just living in their own little
Hitchhiker’s
world. And they just looked like people who could do it. Then when I saw their work I just thought how visually it was amazing and I wanted to be a part of it. And fortunately it has worked really well because Garth’s able to communicate with actors and not just his director of photography. Some people are not able to communicate with actors about what your character is doing but Garth is. A lot of people just look through their monitor and wish actors weren’t there. But Garth loves human beings as well as toys and puppets and all of that stuff. He’s aware that if you don’t believe in Arthur and Trillian and Ford and Zaphod their adventures don’t matter and nothing else in the film matters. It just becomes academic. Oh, it’s good effects or whatever, but who gives a damn because there’s nothing carrying you on.
RS:
And have you enjoyed working here?
MF:
Yes, I really have, I’ve had a fantastic time, it’s been the biggest most sustained thing I’ve done on the camera and obviously it could have gone any way, I could have had a terrible time or I could have had a great time, and fortunately I’ve had a great time.
Interview with Sam Rockwell—Zaphod Beeblebrox
Credits include
Matchstick Men, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,
The Green Mile
and
Galaxy Quest.
Robbie Stamp:
So how do you create a character as wild as Zaphod for the screen?
Sam Rockwell:
I started to do a Bill Clinton impersonation but that didn’t really work. It was a little too passive. Zaphod has to be more aggressive and so we went rock star, Freddie Mercury, Elvis, a little Brad Pitt.
RS:
But there’s still politician in there, isn’t there?
SR:
Definitely. It’s as if a rock star has become president of the Galaxy. I tend to get these parts where you really have to be somewhat theatrical and it’s a job requirement for Zaphod to be a bit big, a bit theatrical. He’s got to be iconic, I guess, and have a certain kind of charm and magnitude. The descriptions of Zaphod in the book really gave me everything. We stayed away from the TV series. We stayed with the book as the source.
RS:
What about Zaphod and sex? I remember the original Zaphod, Mark Wing-Davey, talking about that.
SR:
Zaphod is very sexy, I mean that’s the reason for the Freddie Mercury feel and the nail polish and the eyeliner. He has to be like Tim Curry in
Rocky Horror Picture Show
a little bit. He has to have that effect on people. You don’t know which way he goes; he might bend a little, sexually.
RS:
There’s a lot of species out there.
SR:
There’s a lot of species out there! Male or female, he’s kind of wild, he’s David Bowie, he’s Freddie Mercury, he’s Keith Richards, he’s rock and roll, he doesn’t care. He’s not linear, you know he colours outside of the lines with the crayons . . .
RS:
You’ve worked really hard on a lot of the physical attributes, things like the costume and the gun.
SR:
Yes, that’s right, that’s right. We’ve worked on the blond hair, the gun, the nail polish, the chain mail and the gold shirt.
RS:
That’s your idea?
SR:
Well, I liked it because I wanted a shiny spandex shirt and I said silver at first and then Sammy came up with the colour which made sense,
Heart of Gold:
gold! It’s given me a lot, that shirt.
RS:
How so?
SR:
Well, often, wardrobe, clothes will give you a character. The boots before we started were a lot heavier, like big cowboy boots, and I said, “No, listen, I need them streamlined. I need them to be light on his feet.”
RS:
So you could do the dances!
SR:
Yes, because I always seem to incorporate a little dancing in each character I do. With Zaphod, he had to be swift, he had to be dextrous. He’s a rock star, he’s got to move.
RS:
He does indeed move! Tell me about the gun. You practised really hard with the gun.
SR:
We had to make a smaller gun because the first gun didn’t have a trigger guard and you can’t spin without a trigger guard. So they put a trigger guard on, made it really streamlined, painted it a beautiful red and white, and they made this amazing holster, which is magnetic. That’s something that I’ve got to take back home. I need that gun!
RS:
One of the other things I want to ask you about is the walk.
SR:
I don’t do a lot of walking actually but I walk on Viltvodle VI and in the snow and I do a little walking and some running on Vogsphere. I
like
the character’s walk. [
Sam
gets up and does the
walk.
] Little bit of a strut.
RS:
But it’s friendly and confident and just “here I am.”
SR:
Yeah, he’s affable, but the bottom line is he’s a rock star.
RS:
So talk to me about the second head.
SR:
Yes, the second head is very confusing. I wanted to start doing a New York accent for the second head, like a retro thing, but it didn’t work. I wanted a real contrast and we have that now, but it’s not so much a vocal contrast or an accent, it’s more an emotional contrast between the two heads. One has just had too much sugar, basically. He’s ready to kick some ass—a lot of testosterone and just kind of angry. That’s what the second head is about. I like the stuff in Douglas Adams’s notes you gave me. He was thinking that he has a better memory than the first head, that’s great.
RS:
When Douglas wrote the book it was just a throwaway line, “we’ll just give the president of the Galaxy two heads,” and on the radio and in the book two heads is fine but on screen it’s a bit more of a challenge. I know it was one of the things that Douglas and Jay Roach talked about a great deal both from a character point of view—Douglas was keen to develop those possibilities—and also from a technical perspective. When
Men in Black 2
came out, with a character with a second head on a stalk, we thought, “Well, there’s one method we can’t use.”
SR:
It was a throwaway line having the second head?
RS:
Yes, that’s right.
SR:
Because in the book he never really has the second head talking.
RS:
No, there’s certainly no serious distinction between the two heads. That’s why those notes that I gave you at the beginning were interesting because that’s Douglas thinking, “OK, for a movie what can we do with two heads?”
SR:
Yes, for the second head it’s a big riff. It is stream-of-consciousness comedy. But I wanted everything to be rooted in the world Douglas created. So I have been referring back to the book a lot and the notes. Ad-libs are fine if they serve the story, propelling it forward, but if they’re arbitrary, if it’s just the actor playing and it doesn’t really help the movie, then don’t do them.
RS:
Within that world you had a lot of fun with dingoes!
SR:
That was fun, and the twelve seasons I got from you, I loved that one. I hope that makes it into the final cut there with the Japanese Groupie on Viltvodle; they were cute.
RS:
That was just a reference to Douglas’s favourite hotel in LA, the Four Seasons, where we did a lot of talking about the movie on our various trips there to try and move things on. How about Zaphod the politician?
SR:
If there’s a sequel I’d like to get deeper into some of the political aspects. We touched upon some Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and it is really funny, I think.
RS:
I would imagine people would enjoy the line that “You can’t be a president with a whole brain.” I can see that getting a real response in the current political climate.
SR:
You can’t be a president with a whole brain, that’s right, I actually say that. Yes, I didn’t even think of that.
RS:
Can you tell me how you came to be involved in the movie?
SR:
I met with Garth and Nick three times, twice before I got the part, and then after they offered it to me. I asked to meet with them the third time because I had no idea why they had cast me as Zaphod. Originally they were talking to me about Ford! First time, I met with them in New York before even reading the script. But I did quickly get hold of the DVD of the TV series and watched that. I remembered it from my childhood. I’d seen a little bit of it along with
Doctor Who,
so I just wanted a reminder of who Ford Prefect was and I went, “Oh, that’s Ford Prefect, OK, I know what to do,” and actually I liked him. I went in and I had an idea and it wasn’t quite right. What they needed was a much more streamlined leading man and I think that’s why Mos is so perfect. They talked about Ford as a researcher for the
Guide
being one of these camera guys who go into Iraq and I thought that was very interesting. At the second meeting, I wasn’t supposed to read. One of the fortunate things is, you get to a certain point in your career and you don’t have to read that much. But sometimes what I do, which is maybe kind of stupid, is volunteer to read, which they love of course because they’re probably getting all these guys who won’t even meet them, but I thought, “Let’s read this out loud and see how it feels.” They said, “Why don’t we read a little Ford,” and I said, “But listen, I haven’t prepared this, guys, this is cold,” and that was true, it was cold and so I read Ford and I did a kind of Southern accent thing and it was OK. They started laughing and I kissed Garth on the cheek or something and after I’d done, I said, “What about this Zaphod guy? He’s interesting so why don’t we read through some of that?” And I read some of Zaphod and it didn’t go well at all, the Ford reading was much better, actually.
RS:
What didn’t go well in the Zaphod reading?
SR:
I had not yet thought about Zaphod. All I remember was that Zaphod’s entrance was fantastic and I was picturing Jack Black doing the entrance and I thought, “Well, how would I do that entrance?” I knew just from skimming the script that Zaphod was a great part, really a great part. But I hadn’t read it thoroughly and so we let it go and I thought, “Well, I kind of blew it because I read Ford OK and I didn’t read Zaphod well at all.” So I said to them, “I was wondering if you guys could consider me for Zaphod. I may not be right, I may be more right for Ford but check out
Galaxy Quest
and check out
The Green
Mile,
just skim those two films, because I think there are elements that might lend themselves towards Zaphod, they’re much more theatrical.” I didn’t hear anything for weeks and then I heard Mos was going to get cast as Ford. I was disappointed but I actually thought, “That’s a pretty good idea. I would cast him as Ford too,” and I’m not just saying that, that’s exactly what I thought. So I figured, “All right, well, that’s that.” A long time went by and then out of nowhere, out of fucking nowhere, I’m in London, filming
Piccadilly Jim,
and I get a message from both of my agents and my manager and they all want to talk to me at the same time and when that happens I know there’s something up. I get a conference call and I know it’s good news but I don’t know what the hell it is. Usually when you get a part you know a week before the offer comes in, somebody says, “It looks good on such and such, they’re probably going to offer it to you . . .” But there was none of that. All of a sudden they offered me this really nice salary, it was just one call, “You got the job and we got a great salary,” and this is it and I was like, “Wow, what are you talking about? It’s all done? Everything? Everything’s done?” And my team said, “Yup, great, congratulations,” but I haven’t even thought about this thing for a month and I don’t know if I even read the whole thing thoroughly and they said, “Are you crazy? You’ve got to do it!” and I said, “I’m exhausted, I’m working my ass off, let me read it thoroughly and then maybe I should meet with them in a week because I can’t read it until next Thursday.” I’m doing this big dance sequence in
Piccadilly
Jim.
I was exhausted and I’m in the midst of this heavy love affair with my girlfriend and I need some time to think. So on my two days off, Thursday and Friday, I read it very thoroughly and thought, “I’ll go in and I’ll meet with these guys and I’ll see if they’re open to ideas.” I’d already met them of course but I was confused why they had cast me, I didn’t know. So Gina
13
said, “Why don’t you play it like that Elvis character you do?” I said, “No, I can’t do that, that’s silly, that’s like a sketch comedy thing,” but basically I went in with that broad idea and they went for it. There’s a tape of that meeting. Did they show it to you?
RS:
Yes.
SR:
Of us in the office?
RS:
Yep.
SR:
And we were just playing around, but I knew when Garth kept coming up with what I call these “actor ideas” that I had to do the movie. He’s a visual MTV director, who has inventive ideas that are coming from a character’s point of view, not a visual point of view. To me that was what was exciting and special about Garth and Nick. Usually directors, especially visual directors, do not cope with actor ideas. It’s very rare, it never happens really. The only time I’ve met it before was Dean Parisot on
Galaxy Quest.
He was really open to ideas. And then of course actors who direct, like George Clooney, are always good. I’d say George Clooney, Ridley Scott, Dean Parisot and Garth Jennings are the four top directors that I’ve ever worked with.
RS:
High praise indeed.
SR:
I think he’s really something. So I feel lucky to have been on the show. It’s been amazing. You’ve helped with all my stupid ad-libs and it was great working with Martin and Zooey and Mos. I feel like Mos and I came up with some stuff that wasn’t even in the original TV series or the movie script, the relationship between Ford and Zaphod. I think we created a whole new bond between those two characters that wouldn’t have existed. I mean there are so many places to go with Zaphod. Zaphod’s one of the best characters I’ve ever played.
RS:
Are there any moments where you’ve walked on the set that have stood out?
SR:
There are so many. I love Zaphod when he’s pleasing the crowd, the moment on the champagne bottle, swinging on the rope, just before he steals the
Heart of Gold.
Just before I went on I found some fudge on set and I just grabbed it and came on stage eating it while I was giving my speech and I just thought that was Zaphod, he just loves life. I think the best moments are when he is very charming and fun and Zaphod’s laugh seems to be the key to the character. I always make my characters more physical than they need to be, like that dance sequence, Garth really wanted me to do it. So we got on the Viltvodle set and he said, “This is where you’re going to do your dance, right?” And I said, “Yeah, sure, what kind of dance?” Because that wasn’t in the script at all. Garth said, “I think it would be great if you were being shot at and you did this operatic rock-concert dance.” It’s not like I was twisting his arm. He wanted me to do a dance because he knew I could dance. So they asked me what music I wanted and I went to it, several times! I felt really honoured to do it because it’s a great moment for Zaphod.