Edward Burns "Confidence" 2003 - Bobbie Wygant Archive

oh yeah I just you know I just couldn't contain myself on the air and I said this is wrong I mean I'm happy for the people who won but this how water they think and and it's like this year giving it to Roman Polanski I mean we're in this war and we're rewarding The Fugitive yeah I mean come on yeah what are they thinking I know it's funny I didn't even think about that oh it was the first thing I taught up oh yeah I mean what a signal that sends to the rest of the world and um you know and especially now at this particular time [Music] [Laughter] it's like no you know what I think I have a what feels like a seed from lunch MIT oh no I'm fine that is the worst feeling isn't it to have seen yeah and I eat a lot of fruits so I okay okay and the hall door is closed is it yes okay thanks all right I never know whether I should properly call you Ed or Edward which do you prefer uh preferred but uh professionally I need enough for interviews but um for films I need to be called Edward because uh do you remember the actor Ed Cookie burns from the television show uh in the actors union he has Ed Burns so I have to be Edward Burns so is there's no confusion with residual checks and things like that so even though he spelled even though it's spelled yeah differently now oh okay well anyway Ed thank you for coming to Dallas I have to tell you that I didn't know what to expect when I went to see confidence and uh I was just carried along and transported from scene to scene to scene yeah yeah it's really it's interesting in that it's a con movie um and I I don't know people who are fans of sort of the Khan or high genre really uh latch on to that part of it but other people the the Khan is incidental because the characters are so interesting you're more interested in the dynamic of watching these people double cross one another or connect or lie or do whatever it is they're doing on the way to the com so I understand that the producer and the director uh when they were getting this together and your character the con man one of the con men they thought we need Ed Burns I wonder somebody and the first con man we thought of was you I don't know how I feel about that yeah um I hadn't heard that uh but yeah I don't know why I don't know why they thought that because it's funny this is the first part I've played where I think um uh you know I brought no part of my personality to this guy I mean I think every everything I've done in the past I've almost played A variation on myself even in Saving Private Ryan it was a big part of my personality in that character's personality uh this is a part where you know I have no connection to this guy um and which was a lot of fun as an actor to be able to slip into that skin and to play you know Jake Vig for 35 days was you know cool and confident and always says the right thing was a lot of fun but so far from who I am so you've never conned anybody no I've been conned um when I was 14 years old me and a bunch of my friends went into the train into Manhattan to try and get fake ID and uh we're each cond out of about fifty dollars on 42nd Street so but it's a long convoluted story but I learned my lesson at 14. art critics and writers and reporters who are saying that this is your best performance ever do you feel that it is I think hands down um easily and I think the re I think there's a couple of different reasons I think one is you know when you work with Tom Hanks and then a Robert De Niro if you're smart you're going to watch those guys talk to those guys and learn from those guys and I equate acting sometimes to Athletics that a lot of times you'll play up to the level of the competition you're playing against but also the better the guys you play against the better you're going to become um so I think that you know I've done I think this is like my 10th movie or something like that I can just I can feel I'm getting better with each film uh the other thing is since this is the first film um we're on the lead I decided going into uh production that I wasn't going to be writing a screenplay at the same time usually I'm when there's a break I'm in my trailer working on a script this time I said you know I want to I want to approach this with the same single-minded Focus I have when I'm writing and directing and uh when I see the film I can see that that kind of focus and a different level of hard work paid off so let's hope I keep it up though let's talk about Dustin Hoffman because when we first see him on the screen and I have to be honest with you I thought what a smarmy character not only should we hose him down we should disinfect him that was my reaction and I know Dustin for many years and I know from other actors and directors that he just uh asks a million questions and goes over and over and over and sometimes for people it becomes teachers to work with him now what was your experience working with Dustin uh it's funny you know I mean I I love Dustin and not only is he the greatest story time I've ever met but he has more passion and enthusiasm for acting than anyone I've ever met and you know I had heard some of those stories too um but for us it was a very different experience I mean um it was all about trying to um to make each scene as as good as it can be and Dustin's character originally was written for a 300 pound New York mafioso uh and when this when the story was changed from New York to Los Angeles for budgetary reasons um they started to think of going in a different way so when Dustin signed on he had to basically take that part which was written for a big physically imposing character and now make it work for him so that creepy thing you're talking about and that sort of his physicality with me was all Dustin's work during rehearsals and other hearses were filled with a lot of improv and you know just slowly finding the character and for me as a young actor to watch that process it was amazing but also see like you know you're talking about all the questions he asks and you know and how tenacious he is it was great to see an actor with that kind of tenacity that is it is that important to really figure out who your character is and was it his idea to do the makeup the way it is I mean didn't he stain his teeth or something I mean they looked like they were stained I don't know and the chewing of the gum the chewing of the gum was was all him the hair being spiked and the the Wardrobe um you know you could we rehearsed probably a couple of weekends before we started to shoot so each day you'd see him you'd see he's added another layer to this character um and there's a there's all these little moments in our scenes that came from moments of conversation we had about other things and he would tell you a story about something that happened on the set of Midnight Cowboy and somehow that would trigger a thought about something he can do in the scene and then he would try that in a rehearsal and then you know it ends up in the finished film so you know it's like when he's working everything he's doing even if he's talking about something else is about the work so well he's extraordinary and I I love him I I don't know I've never worked with him so but the stories I've heard uh let's see um okay uh can you tell us a little bit about this next film that you're going to do sound of thunder yeah Sound of Thunder we shot that uh last uh fall um in Prague it's a big science fiction film based on uh Raymond bradberry's short story um and uh it's set in the year 2040 and involves time travel back to the uh prehistoric dinosaur age and um I mean it's a crazy big science fiction time travel film so I spent four months standing in front of a blue screen reacting to nothing and um in the film it won't be I wouldn't be able to see any of it for another I think 10 months so I have no idea what this film looks like and you couldn't go see the dallies and see uh you know what it looked like who is the director a guy named Peter Himes directed it oh yeah Ben Kingsley is in the cast um and you know so it was another opportunity to me for me to work with another Legend another guy that I can sit there for a couple of weeks and you know pick his brain and then try and learn as much as I can and then when we when will we see the next Edward Burns written and directed by I think um I may do one this summer I'm finishing up the script now so if I finish it in time it has to be shot in the summer of this particular film so really depends if I get the script done then I'll probably go into pre-production shortly if I'm not happy with the script I may take an acting job and wait till directed until next spring and your script is at action or little no it's sort of it's kind of my world in a way but it's you know I've done five now for a combined budget of 11 million dollars and quite honestly I can't do it again I need to work with a substantial budget so this story is is the most mainstream thing I've written to date well we look forward to that and Edward Ed thank you again for coming to Dallas and good luck with confidence because it's a picture that uh I I think it's good escapism and the acting is wonderful all the characters I think are just top top drawer yeah and uh I I as I told you it just kept me going and right at the end I'm going what what good ending that's great thank you okay now he's going to have to go around so I said uh uh well would you work with him again and he said not anytime soon he said it on camera wow he had any time someone another journalist mentioned to me the fact that he and Sidney Pollock were really butting heads on that film yeah yeah and uh and there again see Sydney was playing a role as well as directing and and they got way behind budget uh well the first uh first I guess from the first week they were way behind budget way behind time had so much trouble with the makeup and then Dustin got to the place where his face was breaking out and the doctor said uh every I think it was every third day he has to go without makeup so we can medicate him okay and and get his his skin back in shape and um such a good movie though oh yeah oh yeah and I thought he pulled it off fantastically yeah does he remind you of Dustin Hoffman and Tootsie start to answer and I'll just yeah okay so many critics are saying that this is your best performance ever do you think it is uh I agree with all those critics I really think um yeah this is the this is uh the film that's fine okay you're not going to use any of my smart no we've already no we've already done it's just to get their head moving forward and as you well know okay um best performance uh okay I'm told that the producer and the director when they were wanting to cast this role said we need a Charming con man and oh Ed Burns that's who we need now what was your reaction to that uh you know I had never I didn't hear that story before so I don't uh I don't really know okay very good um you okay Mike okay so you've never conned anybody when no I personally haven't but when I was 14 I was once the victim of a comment okay all right the stories are legends about Dustin Hoffman about he can be very difficult to work with asking a thousand questions before each shot did you find him to be that way I know I absolutely just love Dustin um all right um what can you tell us about your next film sound of thunder is based on a Ray Bradbury pretty famous short story okay when will we see another film written and directed by Edward Burns uh hopefully this summer I'll get to work on one is this going to be an action story big story little story what I'll be more sort of the the world that I'm usually writing about but my most mainstream film to date okay I think that'll get it they're wonderful