Freddy: Yeah, two karate movies for two bucks. They were just terrible, but it was like ‘wow, we got to go out and go to the movies.’ We would go in in  the daytime and come out when it was night. I remember that as a kid, like wow!

Q: I just watched the director’s cut of Payback, the deluxe version, and I was just curious what your experience was on that because when you were seen, he definitely, specifically talked about you and said it was really cool working with you.

Freddy: Oh yeah, yeah. I just talked to him. He just told me about that. That premiered at the Austin Film Festival.

Q: It did.

Freddy: Yeah. He told me about that.

Q: It’s going to come out on DVD next month.

Freddy: Yeah, yeah. Wow, you got to see it. Brian was awesome. This was 1997 I believe, so this was before Six Feet, before anything. I was just working and I just remember he was always really good to me. You know sometimes these directors, if you’re not a big movie star, they’re just… But he was always really good to me and everything you saw in the film, he allowed me to create. The dreads – that was my idea. The only thing that was in the script was the nose ring. But he said, ‘yeah, just come in and do what you want.’ He allowed me to create this kind of druggy guy with the drug eyes, talking that way and he was just like ‘yeah, go for it!’ At that time I was a young actor and I was working with Mel. I wasn’t sure if they would let me have that creative freedom, but I took the chance and I said, ‘I think this is what it should be,’ and he was like ‘yeah, just go for it.’

Q: Robert is such a visionary. Can you come to him and say ‘hey, what if I did this?’ and he’ll listen?

Freddy: Oh absolutely. He’s extremely collaborative. If you have an idea, he always allows you to bring it to the table. To him, it’s about who has the best idea. He has a blue print in his head of how he envisions the film and where he wants it to go, but if the idea that you present to him works better for the blueprints, he’s more than glad to accept the idea.

Q: What are you working on now?

Freddy: There are a few things I have going on. I haven’t signed on yet. I can’t say, but as I said earlier, I put four films out last year. I just took a break after doing so many films and five seasons of my show, I just … I was burning the candle at both ends as they say. I took a couple months off. I haven’t signed the papers on the new flick so I can’t say what it is.

Q: Would you ever go back to series television?

Freddy: Yeah, I think I would. I don’t know. I would consider it. I would never say no, I would never go back, but right now the film career is going very well, so I think I’m just going to follow that path right now.

Q: What was the biggest memory you took away from shooting in Austin?

Freddy: Ah man, I just remember the people were so nice there. The people were so cool and the food was phenomenal in Austin. Yeah, yeah. And great music too. Great music. I’ve always heard about that and we kinda  went out and saw some bands play and some DJs spin and I was really impressed by how good the music was there.

Q: What was it like working with Christian Bale?

Freddy: Man, it was great. Great, great guy. Good human being. And such a committed actor to what he does and very gracious with – how can I explain it – with his art. I always describe acting as emotional tennis and that whole movie was just him and I 14 hours a day in a car and so he was just very gracious in terms of what he gave back.

Q: Can you talk about the importance of these type of movies, of science fiction?

Freddy: The importance of it?

Q: Yeah, in the context of all the other films that come out.

Freddy: Right. Well the horror genre is really popular now. You have yours Saws – Saw I, Saw II, whatever, The Hills Have Eyes and all that. So I just think that the 20-year-olds are going to come see this movie because they like that genre, right? But those same 20-year-olds are going to see this other genre that was really popular back in the day and it was a great genre. The whole concept of double features, they’re going to get to experience something new and original when they come see the film.