Of all the days I could land an interview with Matthew Goode…the day it happened couldn’t have been more perfect. The reason was…the day I interviewed him was the first time I could write about my set visit for “Watchmen,” and it was also the day a description leaked about the first trailer for the film. In fact, I got an email about the trailer right as I walked into the interview room, so we talked about it.

But before we go any further…the reason I got to interview Matthew was the movie “Brideshead Revisited.” If you aren’t familiar with the movie, click here. In the article you can read a synopsis and watch a trailer and some movie clips. Also, in the next day or two I’ll be posting another interview with Matthew Goode and it’ll just be on “Brideshead.” During that interview (which was done in roundtable form) we talked all about his career decisions, making “Brideshead” and a lot more.

However, with Matthew playing Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias in Zack Snyder’s upcoming “Watchmen” movie, I also managed to land a separate one on one interview and since we had already talked so much about “Brideshead,” I asked him if he wouldn’t mind talking “Watchmen” and he couldn’t have been more excited to oblige my request.

So…posted below is a great interview on his work just in “Watchmen.” We talked about how he got the part, how he didn’t know the comic and hadn’t read it before arriving in Vancouver, wearing the costume, how he gave Adrian Veidt a very interesting accent…and a lot more. Seriously…it’s a great interview. But you can judge that for yourself….

Finally, I’m not going to give any intro on what “Watchmen” is about…this interview is for people who know the graphic novel and cannot wait for the movies release.

As always, you can either read the transcript below or listen/download the MP3 by clicking here.

Collider: I was going to say I’d like to actually focus a little bit on what we call the Zack Snyder onslaught of March 2009.

Matthew Goode: Let’s do it.

Collider: So here’s what’s funny.  Of all the days to interview you, today we were allowed to write our preview pieces of the Watchmen set visit today.

Matthew Goode: Oh wow.

Collider: As in I posted it last night at midnight, which was the first time I could write a word telling my audience that I’d been to the set.

Matthew Goode: Oh fuck, that’s bizarre.

Collider: Because they don’t want to build up too much buzz.

Matthew Goode: Oh okay.  Fair enough.

Collider: So today is the day we’re allowed to write about it.

Matthew: I thought you posted it a midnight…the moment you could.

Every online site that was there.  So let’s talk…I can’t run what I interviewed you until later and you’ll be at Comic-Con…so looking back now, it’s been a number of months, what was the experience like making this movie and what was it compared to what you went in?  Can you talk just a little bit about it?

Matthew: Of course.  For me, actually, it came at a really tough time as in fact I’d been away from home for almost 3 months filming “Brideshead” and I found that an exhausting process.  Not oh poor me, but as in 6 day weeks, 17 hours a day.  Just really tough mentally to go from doing that and being really in it and then suddenly 2 days later after finishing in Morocco, I’m in Vancouver.  I don’t even know which will sound really sacrilegious but I’m sure people will get it, if you haven’t read Watchmen, and it is the Citizen Kane of the graphic novel world.  There’s no question about it.  So my ignorance was enormous and I suppose it really helped because by being a fan I would have fucked the audition up.  I wouldn’t …because its’ such an amazing….it’s the one you want to do.  If you want to be in a graphic novel, that’s the one you want to do.

Let me interrupt you for one second.  When you went into the audition, had you read the comic?

Matthew: No, all I knew about it was the fact that the other actors were involved and that was a pressure, but I had one scene at the end where it was like saying I killed millions of people and then one tiny scene at the beginning where I’ve got a big cat.  So I’m like this is such an odd character and it was only when I got to Vancouver, and obviously I’d spoken to Zack on the phone. He was a real part of the convincer because post audition he was like…my fears were and this might sound awful…that it was going to be a kind of Fantastic 4 thing and he was like “let me fucking tell you, if my movie ends up being anything like that then I’ve not done my job properly.”  And I don’t mean that to be totally against that film but as in just for me he really put my mind at rest and he got on and he told me what his vision was going to be for it and I was like, wow.  And I don’t want to be doing something that’s going to piss people off because he told me how beloved it was and I was like oh God.  That’s a real pressure.  He got what director it deserves.

Oh I believe.

Matthew: You’ve been to the set.

Yeah, let’s talk about Dr. Manhattan’s lab or the shit that was built.  It’s insane.

Matthew: It is absolutely off the charts.  Did you get to see the stuff at the ice palace as well?

I did not see the ice palace but…we saw the storyboards of the ice palace.  So what was it like in person?

Matthew: Oh my God it’s just the biggest set you’ve ever seen and again the joy of doing it was like…there was also a slight worry about how much green screen and what that can do to your acting and having not been doing a lot of green screen before, so I was like fuck, it’s so nice to have everything that was required.  Apart from a 100 foot Manhattan so that was a bit tricky.  In that one you have to use your imagination a little bit but no, to have such a scope of a story and to have all these sets around and to be wearing these costumes and not feel a complete dick because they just make sense.  Everything just made sense around Zack Snyder. 

We were on set the day the costumes arrived. 

Matthew: Oh, brilliant.

And the next day was that group photo shoot with everyone in costume.  So could you talk a little bit about…we didn’t get to ask you this…but what was it like for the first time you put on that costume and what was it like being in that scene and just all that?

Matthew: It’s extraordinary.  And also because I didn’t have a rough deal.  I think the person who had the roughest deal was Jeffrey Dean Morgan, he literally had to be put into a completely different skin.  He’d have 7 hours in makeup before we even started shooting and he has a hairy chest so these glued on things were ripping at his chest.  He was uncomfortable the whole time.  But yeah, amazing and it was kind of nice when we had that group shot because I have very little interaction until right at the end with anybody else.  I’m sort of not…I don’t really have much with the other actors or the other main characters until the Ice Palace at the end, so or Carnac I should really call it, but so yeah, it was a particularly nice day for me because I just got to see just how awkward everyone else was putting their costumes on—well not everyone obviously because I wasn’t there when Malin was putting on her stuff.

We saw her fighting in the jail sequence.

Matthew: Oh you saw the fighting in that?  Yeah, it’s quite a get-up that she’s got on.  It’s a little revealing.

It is.  It was quite nice to watch it being filmed.

Matthew: I’m not surprised. Completely pert nipples and everything.  Exactly.

It was good times.

Matthew: And Carla as well. She looks…great little sex kitten in everything she does really.

She’s attractive.

Matthew: Yes, she is.

Just a little bit.

Matthew: Just a little bit.

Just a touch.

Matthew: And after this film comes out there’s going to be an even wider audience of people who feel that way I think.

Yeah, I guess I’m curious about….well let’s talk a little bit about Comic-Con because that’s coming up next week.  Are you….they’re doing a presentation in the room that holds 7,000.

Matthew: Yeah.

So are you prepared to be on stage with Zack and other people talking about this in front of the absolute Fanboys?

Matthew: No, because I’m really not.  I get scared talking about “Brideshead” in front of 7 people because thematically it’s very complicated.  So you take “Watchmen,” which is equally if not more thematically complicated and remember that the audience is far more intergent that you are, so I’m really worried that at this stage it might compound some people’s ideas that I’ve been miscast because I’m not…

No.  I’ll defend you on-record.  I see you in the part.  I really do. Definitely.

Matthew: I hope so.

No, no I’m really confident and I really believe in Zack and if Zack believes in you then I’m sold.

Matthew: Well, I’m slightly worried about the…because we’d come up with this idea that again, its…I assume I can talk about it…. it’s the fact that I wanted to do something a little bit different with it and so we decided to sort of embellish upon what given certain circumstances of Adrien Veidt’s past are in the novel.  So it’s like well, was he born in America?  I don’t know.  It seems to me there’s a possibility that maybe he grew up a little bit in Germany and maybe that’s the reason he gave away his parents wealth is because….it’s stuff that’s not going to be known by audiences.  It’s not talked about but just for the actor.  Well, isn’t it more interesting if he gave his parents money away because they were Nazi’s, which is kind of in keeping with a sort of graphic novel form or a comic book, you know there’s sort of values to the superhero or you know what makes them rise above the normal person.  And it was also a really interesting idea as far as the American dream and propagating a public persona that’s very American but in private he has a slight German accent with the American.  I don’t know, it seems very interesting.

Were you able to work that into the actual film?

Matthew: Yeah, it’s in.  It’s in.  It was in pretty early on because after the first scene which is all done American, it was only after we shot that that I thought wouldn’t that be interesting and Zack was like, you fucking bet.  Go for it.  And because it’s not mentioned to anyone then some people might be a bit thrown of like…I think they’ll get it as in the public/private thing, and I just hope they buy into it and like it rather that it being a hindrance.

I don’t see people…I think that any movie has to be a movie.  And it can’t just be a movie of the book.  There has a be, you know, the director has to put the ….you know what I mean, they have to change things to make it a movie.

Matthew: Yeah, it’s entertainment as well.  That’s what you can never get away from and I think sometimes things take themselves far too seriously and they forget that and that’s why I think Zack has brought such….because he’s remained so faithful to the book and obviously the Black Freighter was a big option and I don’t know what he’s going to do with that and I think that will be something brilliant for the fans to get which I think will come on.

He talked about putting it as an animated thing on the DVD.

Matthew: Yeah, exactly, because otherwise there’s just no way.  The budget would spiral to try to get some of that stuff in there.  It’s frightening.

The rumor is that he has a 3 hour cut of the film right now.

Matthew: Yeah, he does.  I spoke to him about that the other day.  They wanted to go down a bit lower and he’s like, I just don’t think I can. 

I heard 2:45 is going to be their goal of release.

Matthew: Yeah? So he’s got to trim another 15 minutes of it.

That’s what I heard.

Matthew: Yeah.  That’s tough.

It’s a big fucking book.

Matthew: It’s a huge fucking book.  I spoke to him and he’s like everyone’s going to be expecting this actiony thing and I’ve made a 3 hour art house film.  If you can release that statement right now you’ve made even more thousands of people happy.  I think that’s people want and I think he’s got the perfect balance of entertainment and integrity for the original…for the seminal piece of work that it is.

Well, the big question for a lot of fans is the movie going to go follow the structure of the book where you get a little bit of modern stuff, you get past. Is it going to be linear…there’s so many things that the fans don’t know.

Matthew: You’ve got to set up this sort of parallel 1980’s universe as well with Nixon still President, so I don’t think that’s speaking out of turn by just saying that in the initial credit sequence—the opening credit sequence—there’s the stuff that isn’t in the book.  For example, myself shaking hands with David Bowie and Mick Jagger, you know.  So setting up these ideas of celebrity and also stuff to do with the Keene Act.  So it’s so multi-layered and until I see it myself, which I haven’t, I’m never going to know.   All I know is the level of commitment that everyone put into it and it was of the highest ilk. Everyone who was working on the project wanted desperately to be working on “Watchmen”.

What’s funny is I wrote that last night.

Matthew: That’s why I felt like such an outsider until I got there and read the book and I was like oh my God, I’m on-board.

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