Q: Dustin, was there anything in your performance as an actor that you had to take into consideration such as pulling back a little because you had such an intense character?

Dustin: No, I swear I was led by these guys. I told them I was putting myself in their hands because they knew the character, they knew the animation, they knew the story. I’m in a room with just these guys, with Mark and the producers and writers, behind glass a little further away than you are, and they’re saying “Try this, try that.” And I’m always reading stuff. They call you in for 3 or 4 days and then you don’t see them for a few months, then you come back. I mean you don’t know what they’re doing behind closed doors. They’re redoing this and redoing that and you’re working out of sequence as you do a regular film and all I asked of them is early on I said “Please show me some animation beside the sketch.” They said “But the voice won’t match.” I said “But I just need to have some feeling so I could see it and say ‘No, that’s not right. That’s too close to me’ or ‘That’s too contemporary.’” You don’t know what you’re looking for. You just know when it feels right. I mean feelings about the guy came into my head, like William Buckley’s voice and merging it with someone else. You just get your imagination going. I asked “May I do anything over that I don’t like?” I had heard about Mike Myers after he saw “Shrek,” he said “Okay, now I know how to do it.” And he did the entire movie over again with a different voice so I got the Mike Myers clause in my contract. [laughs] And when I was done, yes, I was stunned that there were so few notes I had. They had a sense of it so I was led by them, and I told them that I would say this in the junkets afterwards. So, if the movie didn’t work, I was going to say “It’s theirs.” [laughs]

Q: Did you really have a clause in your contract if you didn’t like it?

Dustin: No, it was a gentleman’s agreement.

Q: With “Mr. Magorium” and this film, you’ve done family friendly films with characters who have great wisdom. Is that just a coincidence or have you reached a point in your life where you’re looking for different kinds of scripts?

Dustin: I’m just taking what’s being sent my way like any actor. I guess the truth of it is that unless it’s someone my age, unless you develop the part yourself, you’ve reached the point where you’re not going to get the leading roles because the leading roles are written for people in their teens, twenties, thirties, forties. Then, after your fifties, sixties, you start to become the supporting actor generally speaking unless you’re James Bond or Sean Connery or some kind of signature action person maybe like Harrison Ford and I’m none of those people. I’m developing my own stuff like anyone does but yes, what’s out there, you take what you have a feeling for.

Mark: You are an action star now though.

Dustin: Yes, yes I am. Yes, I am.

Q: For Mark or Dustin, your tigress, Angelina Jolie, what does she add to the movie and has she enjoyed promoting this movie?

Dustin: Well I just want to say very quickly before Mark answers, there were some very erotic love scenes between Shifu and Angelina that they cut out because they thought it was just poor focus from the rest of the story but we were extraordinary together.

Mark: I think she had a surreal experience at Cannes, for me in particular, but I think she seemed to have a good time and was very graceful throughout the whole experience. I’m really grateful to have her in the film because she was fantastic and the role of Tigress is such a crucial role in the film, such a crucial character even though it’s a smaller side character. She’s Po’s favorite. He idolizes the Furious Five but she’s the one that he idolizes the most and Tigress is the one that really should have been picked as the Dragon Warrior. She spends most of the film trying to deal with that internal struggle of feeling that she knows that she should be this one and this guy’s in the way. And there’s a nice arc to her character too. So it’s a very significant role in the film and so it’s just great to have her helping us not only create the character but also talking about the film because I don’t know if you’ve heard but she’s pregnant with twins. Did anyone hear that? Does anyone know there’s a break in that story?

Dustin: There’s a rumor it could be Shifu’s. [laughter] It was the second time that I met her. The first time I was making a film called “Hook.” I think it was around 1992 and Jon Voight, who I’d worked with in “Midnight Cowboy,” called me up and said “My kids are dying to meet Captain Hook. Are you in costume? Can I come over with the kids?” “Yes, sure. Come over.” So he brings over his kids and comes in the camper and I’m introduced to his son and his daughter and she’s this tall, thin, gawky looking girl with a mouth full of braces and he introduces us. “This is Angelina.” And I said, “Hi.” I was just making conversation. “So do you guys have any idea what you want to do?” And she gave me a laser-like intensity look at me and she says, “I’m going to be an actress.” And I went home to my wife and I said, “I don’t think this kid has any idea what a tough road she’s got.” [laughs] But that was the only other time I had met her, then I see her in Cannes.

Q: Dustin, your character, Shifu, is a master who is still learning. As a master actor, are you still learning while working with young people?

Dustin: My honest answer, and some people just don’t believe it and some do, is I don’t feel I’m a master and most artists I know don’t feel they’re masters, whether they’re actors or directors or painters or writers. You don’t want to feel that. You feel that you’re going to stop in your tracks so to speak. You want to feel that you’re a student for your lifetime. It’s kind of like saying you don’t want to say “Okay, in life now, I understand life.” Because you’re in trouble if you do that. You want to say, “No, I’m going to continue to learn about life right until the last moment.” And I’m going to continue to learn about myself until the last moment and I continue to find the things in myself that I thought were accurate that aren’t accurate. We lie to ourselves. We paint ourselves in a color that we want to be. I must tell you that I am aware of following my own feeling and I just tell actors to do that. I mean this with all my heart, and that is that the most extraordinary thing about being alive is that you look around and presumably you’re looking at the one person that has never existed before and that is never going to exist again, that each person has that extraordinary quality called uniqueness and that’s what any actor and any artist should be trying to get in touch with. That, along with – I use this example – I guess there was an Olympics, I think it was 1988 or something, Greg Louganis, he had five gold medals for diving, and there was one dive he did toward the end which was supposed to be simpler than the others, it was a swan dive, and I remember they were saying when I was watching it, he was supposed to get up into the air – excuse me, I don’t know anything about diving – spread out and then you’re supposed to come down perpendicular and get as close to the edge of the board as you can and he missed by that much and hit himself in the head after five gold medals. I’ve never forgotten it. I said there it is. There’s the difference between nailing it and getting a ‘1’. Anybody in any art form knows that. Success and failure, they’re almost shaking hands.

Q: But even with two Oscars, you don’t feel like a master?

Dustin: No. [joking] There should have been four or five, but even then I wouldn’t feel like a master. I would just feel that I was duly rewarded. [laughs]

Mark: The things you’re talking about are in the film. A true master knows that they still have something to learn. When Po lands in front of Oogway, he is wise enough to know “Oh, I don’t know everything” and he’s open to it, whereas Shifu is very closed down and thinks he knows everything. So I think what you’re saying is actually very relevant and thematic to the film. You keep doing that. You’re very good.

Q: What do you have next, Dustin?

Dustin: What’s up next? Well they haven’t approached me for the sequel. I did this film that I loved doing as much as anything I’ve ever done called “Last Chance Harvey” with Emma Thompson and there ain’t nobody better that I’ve ever worked with. It’s a love story for the baby boomers. Thanks for the press conference. Don’t you wish they went on all day? They’re so much fun!