How did this experience of telling the story compare to telling the story in Memento?

Guy Pearce: How did it compare? Well, I don’t know how to answer that.

Was one more emotionally taxing than the other?

Guy Pearce: Memento was faster and more furious; and Chris and Mark are very different people. It’s different because you’re surrounded by a completely different group of people, I think. I don’t know, I think even though Mark kind of knew – the film that’s there on the page is pretty much the film that’s there on the screen, but I feel like there was a more. Well, this is going to sound like the Memento experience was kind of insensitive, cause it wasn’t; it was very sensitive. But I feel like this experience – I was probably a different person by the time I did this film to when I did Memento as well. And Chris is very articulate and clear cut, and he’s incredibly sort of deft when it comes to technical, Chris Nolan; and he said to me, Chris Nolan said to me initially, ‘I’m not really sure how do work with the actors.’ And he’s far more technical, I suppose, where as Mark is far more connected emotionally. But in saying that, that’s not to say Mark is not technical, and Chris is not emotional, I’m just trying to find a difference, I suppose, between the two. But Memento was fast and furious – (to Mark) how many days did we shoot this in?

Mark Fergus: 29 days.

Guy Pearce: 29; Memento was 24 or 25 days. Memento felt like we were running around like crazy; ‘we’ve done this, now let’s run to the next location.’ And it kind of took that– there was just a different vibe. Chris and Wally (Pfister, director of photography on Memento) are just fast and furious guys, where as our team was pretty chilled, I suppose. I mean, Richard is pretty snappy (snaps his fingers), I suppose, but it was a sort of chilled vibe about this film in a way. I don’t know how chilled you were directing your first movie, but it was pretty chilled –

Mark Fergus: No, it was definitely – we wanted to discover more, we didn’t want to know how every scene was going to - we knew what we wanted, we knew where we were starting from, but we wanted to let some chaos into the process.

Guy Pearce: And I think Memento is kind of a technical miracle, really; it really is a kind of a machine you really don’t understand until it’s up there on the screen – and I think the only one who fully understands it is Chris. And I was able to do my job emotionally, but I don’t really think I was aware of how brilliant the thing was until I saw the final product; where as this felt like a normal film, organic, and we did a lot of discussing about the character, and the relationships between the characters, and so it was kind of different in a way.

Does that help you as an actor rely on the different styles of directors?

Guy Pearce: Yeah, sometimes it just kind of depends on how safe and secure you feel; that’s my first thing, you know. When I go into a photo session with somebody, and their attitude isn’t right, I immediately feel insecure – like a kid who doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing. And someone else can go, ‘No, what you’re doing is great.’ ‘Cool.’ And you’re immediately relaxed; and it’s amazing how you can go from that place to that place depending who you’re talking to.

What are you doing next?

Guy Pearce: I don’t know what I’m doing next.

What have you done recently?

Guy Pearce: I finished doing Death Defying Acts with Catherine Zeta Jones in England with Gillian Armstrong directing, which is a sort of fictional story about a woman and her daughter in the 20’s in Scotland, who have – funny enough, a psychic act. Houdini, on his world tour, stops off in Scotland and makes this announcement. Which is true, that anybody who could come forward with his mother’s last dying words would win themselves $10,000, which was a huge amount of money in that time. So they’ve taken that idea, and made it as a sad sort of fictional account of these two people coming together, and Houdini becoming a catalyst of what happens to Catherine’s character. I play Houdini, but it’s not a biopic, or anything like that.

To Mark, did you refer to the comics of Iron Man or did you go with a blank slate?

Mark Fergus: It’s kind of both approaches, it’s the guys who are the Marvel guys; there’s a tremendous motherload of history and detail, and being respected and being considered from the whole history of the project to yesterday. And then there’s also a tremendous opportunity to look at, from the outside, as a story that needs to do certain things, and to find out what else could be done, and to not let anything be off limits. It’s kind of the best of both worlds for the fans, but it’s also not going to just be stocking that cage that has to follow everything. Cause the comics evolved, too; everything has been tried in the comics over the years, and they’re taking a really broad approach to ‘what’s the coolest story,’ ‘what’s the most interesting story,’ and anything goes that fits into that – that feels right, not just anything. I think it’s a smart thing, they’re being really open and they’re not going anywhere that fans wouldn’t be psyched about; I think it’s the best of both worlds. And I’m an outsider coming in, cause I’m not a comic book guy, so I’m learning it from the perspective of someone who hasn’t grown up with the comics; and there are other writers on it who are comic guys. So they’re hitting it from a lot of cool approaches; and Jon is the ringleader, who says ‘this is the movie, bam.’ And he’s great, by the way; it’s in amazingly deft hands, so he’s a natural story teller and he’s going to really knock it out of the park, I believe.