Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with my chat with the legendary director Mr. Werner Herzog. You’ve probably noticed my enthusiasm for his film BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS which began at Telluride. I would call it his new film, but the dude has another film in the can already (MY SON, MY SON WHAT HAVE YE DONE? which also showed at Telluride). Unfortunately for me and very fortunately for Mr. Herzog he did not get shot during our interview, but I think you’ll find it a compelling read nonetheless. Enjoy the chat!
Quint: Hi, how are you doing, sir?
Werner Herzog: I’m fine. Thank you.
Quint: My name is Eric and I write for a website called Ain’t It Cool News.
Werner Herzog: Yes. I know a little bit about it.
Quint: Okay good. I got to see your movie at Telluride… I saw both of your movies at Telluride actually, but I especially loved BAD LIEUTENANT, so I’m very excited to be talking to you about the movie.
Werner Herzog: Yes. Okay, let’s go ahead.
Quint: One thing that I really loved about the movie is that you guys just kind of went for broke. I’m curious about how much time did you guys spend finding that sweet spot where you have that insanity, but it’s also grounded enough to not go overboard into an unintentional comedy?
Werner Herzog: It has a lot of hilarious moments and audiences laugh a lot. You have probably witnessed it with an audience. There is a very dark form of humor in it and of course I hoped that audiences would get it and apparently they do. Of course there’s something completely demented about Nicolas Cage and of course it’s emphasized by a crazy iguana and things like that, so it actually came easily to both of us.
Quint: I heard from his Q&A in Telluride, Nicolas Cage was saying that he was very hands on with this movie and that he took it very seriously. I was wondering what that made your working relationship with him like.
Werner Herzog: The working relationship was established within 60 seconds of a phone call. In less than 60 seconds where he said to me he wanted to do the film, but only if I were on board as director and I said that I would only like to do the film if you were on as leading actor in the film, so it gave us a very very nice build of confidence in each other. We found it almost outrageous that we had never worked together.
Quint: Your chemistry fits perfectly.
Werner Herzog: Yes. It was very easy to make the film actually and, of course, there were moments where… We had certain scenes where I would tell him “Nicolas, this scene is scripted until this or that point, but it shouldn’t be over there, just turn the hog loose. Turn the pig loose!” He would do it.
Quint: You can really see that in the picture. It feels organic in a way and not just with Nicolas’s performance, that’s definitely a part of it, but you also have the shot of the alligator on the side of the road, which seems… I don’t know if you guys meticulously planned that, but it seemed almost like a happenstance that you took advantage of.
Werner Herzog: We actually brought the alligator onto the set, but of course whenever there was something we would discover on the side, we would incorporate it. The windows and the doors were open for something really creative and Nicolas always loved it and that’s the way I work.
Quint: I noticed in the credits that you were credited as shooting that scene with the alligator. Is that true?
Werner Herzog: It was with the iguanas.
Quint: Not the alligator?
Werner Herzog: I actually shot the alligator as well.
Quint: [Laughs] That seemed to be creepily close. Was that just a trick with the lenses?
Werner Herzog: No. I had to be only millimeters away from the eyes, the face, the skin of the iguana. Actually the other one which is not on the table, it’s not an iguana, but some sort of a desert lizard and it just jumped forward and caught my thumb and boy this creature is like a vice of steel and I couldn’t shake it off. (laughs) It bit so hard! Of course it was a moment the crew enjoyed most. The agony of trying to shake off this lizard! I shot it myself, because I needed… I said to Peter Zeitlinger, “This has to be different in style. This has to be completely demented and I have to do it myself.”
Quint: It’s a standout scene, too. I n no other film would we get that time spent on the different looks of the iguanas and I love that you had Nic in the background the whole time. For whatever reason, that just totally works for me. The focus is on the iguanas and you can see Nic’s, at this point, drugged out character just staring in the background.
Werner Herzog: His demented vision… Nobody else sees them. Val Kilmer says, “There ain’t no iguana.” (laughs) It’s a very hilarious moment and, you see, I keep the doors open for moments like that. Of course it was not scripted. I only asked for iguanas maybe a day or two before we shot the scene.
Quint: That just goes to show the benefits of having that kind of filmmaking style, because it’s scenes like those that really make the movie different and actually make it work. I could definitely see this movie not working if you don’t have the right tone and right approach to it, it could come off as silly or way too serious.
Werner Herzog: Well, I never thought about this, but you probably are right. The dangers left and right were certainly lurking, but I was unaware of that.
Quint: Now what about New Orleans as a shooting location? I have to imagine that that provided a lot of inspiration and opened the door for a lot of these happy accidents just because it’s such a visually fascinating place.
Werner Herzog: However, I tried to avoid all of the clichés, like Mardi Gras and French Quarter and the post card sort of aspect of it. I never wanted to shoot in a jazz club at three in the morning or a Voodoo ceremony or all of these kinds of stupid things. No, I think New Orleans is one of the leading characters in the movie and strangely enough, the screenplay by Billy Finkelstein was written for New York. It was a very fascinating, very intelligent screenplay, but all of a sudden from all major sides, we all converged on New Orleans. The producer, Avi Lerner, called me almost apologetically, and asked me “Could we shoot in New Orleans? There are these tax incentives.” I said, “Oh yes! I want to shoot in New Orleans. That’s a much better place.” Especially after Katrina.
Quint: Suddenly your not just doing another dirty cop in the big city movie…
Werner Herzog: At the same time, Nicolas Cage wanted it very badly and I didn’t even know it, but he wanted it very badly to be in New Orleans. He has a home there and loves the city and the fluidity and the aspect of music and in a way, his performance is almost like the performance of a musician in BAD LIEUTENANT.
Quint: I can definitely see that and what’s really great about his character in the movie is that even despite the craziness, the delusions, the hallucinations, the immoral center to his character, he still has his wits about him. Do you know what I mean? He’s one of those guys who can get out of any situation, so he’s kind of a character that the audience can really route for.
Werner Herzog: It’s because he’s so bad, he solves the case.
Quint: What do you think it is about that character type? I doubt that there are a lot of people out there that would want to be exactly like his character in the movie, but I think there are a lot of people that would like to have aspects of his character.
Werner Herzog: I don’t know exactly what it is. It has a hilarious side and I think the audience is almost in a secret conspiracy in laughs about scenes in the film, because they are so debased and so vile as if they sometimes had bad boy dreams of being violent, debased, and enjoy it.
Quint: If Nic has such a crazy character, it’s really interesting to me that you have another actor like Brad Dourif who is known for doing crazy characters like that, too, but he’s very grounded and human in the movie.
Werner Herzog: I love Brad Dourif. He is one of the most outstanding actors that the film industry has. I think he has been grossly neglected as a man of such great caliber and you see anyone of the caliber of Nicolas Cage would be in no man’s land were he not imbedded in a very, very strong cast. Brad Dourif, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Xzibit, you just name it… They are very fine actors. There is not one who is not at his or her best.
Quint: One of the last questions from the audience at the Q&A at Telluride was asking about a sequel and how they wanted to see a sequel. Nic Cage joked that if people liked the movie enough, they would do a “BADDER LIEUTENANT” and have it focus on Val Kilmer’s character.
Werner Herzog: (laughs) That’s a funny answer.
Quint: But if the opportunity opened, would you do a film focusing on that character?
Werner Herzog: As usual, I have a home invasion of burglars of five, six, or seven other feature films that are pushing me, so no. I haven’t made AGUIRRE 2, 3, 4, and 5 either, so I wouldn’t completely exclude it, but at the moment I’m really headed for other things.
Quint: So what else is on your plate? What do you think is the most likely thing that you are going to be doing next?
Werner Herzog: It’s very hard to say right now. There’s one project which probably will take quite some time of preproduction, because it is fairly big in scope. There are some other smaller ones but in complicated volatile areas where I don’t know how I would get away with shooting it, so I really do not know. It doesn’t make me nervous. I have two more films to release. I’m enjoying what I am doing for sure.
Quint: I can definitely tell. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. I really appreciate it.
Werner Herzog: You are very welcome.
Quint: Have a good day.
Werner Herzog: Okay. Bye.
Quint: Bye.
Considering just how much this man has done and how insightful he is about movies as an industry as well as an art form this interview feels woefully short, but you gotta roll with what you’re given, yeah? I hope you guys enjoyed the brief chat about a crazy, fun movie. Now back to the Holiday Shopping Guide! Fingers are already cramping up and I’m only about 25% of the way through! Good stuff this year. Look for it to hit sometimes Wednesday unless I break mentally in the coming days. -Quint quint@aintitcool.com Follow Me On Twitter
