By Tonisha Johnson

Tom, how did you get the chance to work in this film?

Tom Arnold: Don Roos has been a friend of mine for a bunch of years. One day he was in my house. And he said I have a gift for you and he said read Frank. There was a script and I read it. And I said wow, this is interesting. Here’s a guy…who’s 40. he dates younger women. And I do stuff. I’m like wow, I don’t know where he ever got that from. My wife was like, the first day, I was 27 you took me to Gucci. Lol

And Maggie, how did you get involved with the film?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: I read it and I had lunch with Don. I wanted to make sure he really wanted to elaborate and communicate with me in terms of working with me. And the other thing for some reason with all the singing in the movie, I said the only way I would do that is if it were all live. Because for me I like to sing and everything but I’m not, you know, a singer. For me it’s more about acting so if you do it live then lets say if you sing something aliitle flat or you forget the words or something goes wrong then it’s a real performance. You have to respond to that like you would be doing anything else in your life. I think it’s sort of silly singing in a movie, even if it’s their voice, they prerecorded it, their lip syncing it. All of a sudden it’s a dead moment. And that whole part of everything is dead so, I think that was sort of important. Once he made it clear that he wanted to collaborate with me and he immediately did, he said great.

Tom asks Maggie: Did you intentionally appear like you grew closer to the band?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: No not really, but the last one, that can be seen at the end of the film, the first scene that I shot in the movie, which is like 8 years later, it almost felt like a separate person, which is great. But I didn’t plan anything. Don and I did go spend like a day in a half with some musicians and we rearranged some of the songs , you know thought them through. The karaoke song was a really hard song to sing. It was like really low and really high. I kind of love that and it was really risky to do, you know? I just improvised that when it was too low cause it was a liitle embarrassing. And there were all these extras in the room with me and I was singing. So I didn’t mean to suck.

When you were preparing for the role and the character were you rehearsing the songs?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: We had a day in a half. At the end of which I could barely speak. Cause I’m, you know, not a singer. I could learn to support my breath better and that kind of thing. Actually my mom gave me for my birthday, singing lessens. But I did sing in the choir in school.

So you have some training?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: Yeah. It wasn’t important to either Don or I that she be a phenomenal singer. I just think she had to have some soul, you know? And I think she does.

There is a nice intimacy in the love scenes. How difficult were they?

Tom Arnold: For me it was difficult in a way that would only be difficult for my character. Who’s older and bigger than Jude. In that sense where you more insecure. Even if you act like your not. Even if you’re a guy, there’d have to be a tiny bit of insecurity and ..but she A) technically had done this before. And B) her character was in charge so it was that very …it was really great. It made it a lot easier. Although what God wanted in real life with intimacy which is to be the sex thing, that people could have sex you know. The intimacy of people looking into each others eyes, you know, that’s frightening. Cause you know they’re looking at you. And that’s harder than pretending to do anything.

Maggie Gyllenhaal: It’s important to me, when doing a love scene, that it be about communicating something. Whether it be about that the people can’t communicate. Whether it’s not that they can’t communicate that way or this way…I don’t understand why there would be a reason to have a love scene in the movie when there is another way to communicate the same thing you want to communicate. So, that’s what’s most important to me and I think ideally I think if your having healthy good sex then your communicating. I don’t think you have to put healthy good sex in movies either. I think it’s good to see people having terrible sex. The only thing I’m not interested in seeing is the fantasy version of sex. And putting that into a movie. That I think is kind of disgusting.

What’s the fantasy version to you?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: Well, I just mean the kind of soft core porn. Everybody looks like perfect and beautiful. I’m just not interested in it. Actually, Don…well, what’s been good for movies and I’ve done 2 movies now…especially for an actress to negotiate every part of your body that can be seen in the movie. I don’t feel afraid of nudity. I just think it has to be in the service of something. I just think it can be very limiting that…we can negotiate to see one nipple in this scene. The way that you can act is all of a sudden very limited. So what I did with Don and also on this other movie I did afterward is that let’s just shoot, let’s be, well, your never really totally naked but as naked as you feel comfortable being and afterwards I get to decide, if the way that it’s cut is too gratuitous or I don’t feel comfortable with it. And Don immediately said perfect. Some directors, it’s hard to relinquish that kind of control and I understand that. But it really gives the actors control of some kind of freedom.

You character slept with the son and the father. Was it difficult to grasp the role as Jude in the manipulative sense?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: I think what was hard about her or you could read her in the script or you can look kind of objectively at the things that she does and make a lot of moral judgements about it. And so for me my challenge was not to do that. For me my challenge was to say ok, she’s really far over the spectrum of things that are hard to justify. But if I were in a similar situation, how can I respect her? Things like…my boyfriend said that ‘you really made it great to just burn out.’ But I think that’s because she has so much invested in justifying the things that she’s doing. And you kind of show the audience that actually what I think I am doing is bad then you’ll lose everything. If you let any glimmer of that in, everything falls apart. She’s like so fully invested in going, ok great, I’m going to have sex with you and show you something. I’m going to be generous and sex is great. Sex is free and there’s a lot underneath that. I wasn’t concerned with showing that to everybody I was concerned with making Jude survive.

What was the other movie you mentioned?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: A little movie called ‘some kind of heaven’. It still has to go to festivals and stuff. It’s not going to come out for awhile. That was another free experience and the sex in that movie was very disturbing. My concern in nudity is that I will in some way be taken advantage of. So I just want to like, bolster that in everyway I can. Stay in control of what part of my body is on screen and not on screen. And at the same time be totally free. It’s a kind of complicated place to get to.

When are you going to be naked Tom?

Tom Arnold: Well the great thing in hearing this…well, first of all, Don’s kind of a prude.

Maggie: Yeah he is. He is kind of a prude.

Tom Arnold: But, the less you see of Maggie…the less you see of me. So, I’m all for it. I remember the day and I don’t feel like anybody was trying to hide anything. I remember you felt totally…I kind comfortable which is completely impossible.

What’s the next project for you both?

Tom Arnold: I have a movie that comes out before Thanksgiving called ‘The Kid & I’, that I wrote. It’s about a kid who has Cerebral Palsy who wants to be an action star in the movies. It’s based on a true story.

It seems like there’s another state of writers going ‘holly shit, Tom Arnold can act!’. Is it real frustrating that people haven’t gotten the point yet?

Tom Arnold: umm. Well, it’s nice to hear anybody say that. I remember the first day and seeing Maggie there and Don and everybody…Lisa. Particularly Maggie going ‘oh wow, this is for real’. Cause I know Lisa is a friend. But I heard Maggie go ‘oh boy. I’d better not screw this up’. Because I knew the quality level.

You guys didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for this shoot had you?

Tom Arnold: No, I didn’t.

Maggie: I made like five movies in a row. I just finished this movie like 2 days ago called ‘Stranger than fiction’ that Mark Forester directed. Will Farrel, Queen Latifah…and I made a movie ‘Trust a Man’ with Julian Moore. I made a cartoon. I did in 3 days. Bur it’s not going to look like me. It’s going to move like me and have my voice.