Я сильно заболел тобой. Лекарств нет. Искать не буду. Я буду болеть. Всю жизнь. (с)
"Добрый день! Спешим сообщить об открытии Фандома вселенной Марвел в Санкт-Петербурге!
Мы рады видеть всех поклонников комиксов, фильмов и мультфильмов, которые не просто обожают красавчика Локи (мы не против Локи), а еще и примерно осознают, в чем на самом деле интересность вселенной. Способны обсуждать, отыгрывать и просто быть активными на встречах!
Нам нравятся Мстители, Росомаха, Железный Человек, Человек-Паук, Капитан Америка, Тор, Локи, Люди-Икс и многие другие команды и персонажи. Мы общаемся, встречаемся, играем, вместе отдыхаем и творим безумства. Добро пожаловать всем, кому 16+! spbmarvel.diary.ru
- Я написал на сигарете твое имя... - Чтобы докурить и бросить?.. - Нет, чтобы дышать тобой...
В тумблере появилась полная запись песни Driven to tears в исполнении Роберта и Стинга в достаточно хорошем качестве)) Слушать здесь, спасибо за эксклюзив fictional-downey.
Я сильно заболел тобой. Лекарств нет. Искать не буду. Я буду болеть. Всю жизнь. (с)
Роберт Дауни мл. и скарлет Йохансон вновь встретятся на одной площадке вкупе с Фавро. По последним данным, как сообщает пресса, к актерской труппе нового проекта Джона Фавро "Chef" присоединилась и Скарлет Йохансон. Роберт Дауни мл. И Скарлет уже были партнерами на площадке в ЖЧ2 под руководством того же Фавро а так же в Мстителях.
Я сильно заболел тобой. Лекарств нет. Искать не буду. Я буду болеть. Всю жизнь. (с)
Итак, судя по найденной информации съемки "Судьи" стартуют 3 июня. Место локации Бостон и окрестности Массачусетса. Кому интересно в целом о проекте, более подробно можно проглядеть здесь =) Там есть не большой спойлер о сюжете =) Внизу под заголовком: Open casting call for 'The Judge' starring Rober Downey Jr.
Я сильно заболел тобой. Лекарств нет. Искать не буду. Я буду болеть. Всю жизнь. (с)
Robert Downey Jr. joins Jon Favreau’s indie ensemble film Chef “In a pre-Cannes move, Robert Downey Jr. has reteamed with “Iron Man” director Jon Favreau on the indie ensemble comedy “Chef,” with production starting July 8 in Los Angeles. Favreau is directing from his own sсript and starring as a man who loses his chef job and starts up a food truck to reclaim his artistic promise and reclaiming his estranged family. Sofia Vergara, John Leguizamo and Bobby Cannavale are also starring.” Горячие пирожки прямиком с rdjnews
И на аперитивчик пару фоточек Роберта а-ля мастер шеф, с фестиваля в ЛА "LA Food and Wine festival" проходившего там два года назад.
- Я написал на сигарете твое имя... - Чтобы докурить и бросить?.. - Нет, чтобы дышать тобой...
Кинопоиск опубликовал интересную статью, разоблачающую внутренние финансовые разногласия Марвел с актерами, в том числе подробности о дальнейшей возможности участия или не участия Дауни и других актеров в проектах. Советую почитать всем, кому интересно.
Роберт Дауни-мл. получил 50 миллионов долларов за «Мстителей» и уже начал собирать миллионы положенных процентов с прибыли «Железного человека 3». В понедельник вечером представители Marvel собрались на ужин, организованный супругой актера, чтобы провести переговоры. Студия оказалась в непростой ситуации: «Мстители 2» под угрозой из-за финансовых разногласий с актерами.
Уже несколько недель Роберт Дауни-мл. терроризирует Marvel через прессу, намекая всеми возможными способами, что Тони Старку пора бы на покой. Но сейчас главной головной болью студии становится сиквел «Мстителей». Фильм, заработавший в мировом прокате полтора миллиарда долларов, не может обойтись без продолжения. Вот только одна загвоздка: участие Роберта в «Мстителях 2» пока ничем не подкреплено.
«Он нужен Marvel, но его у них пока нет. У Роберта сильное преимущество», — говорит инсайдер сайта Deadline. А как же остальные актеры? Скарлетт Йоханссон платят за каждый фильм Marvel, возобновляя контракт. Крис Эванс подписал договор на «Мстителей 2» одновременно с сиквелом «Первого мстителя». Крис Хемсворт стал гораздо известнее с момента первого «Тора», и у него нет контракта на «Мстителей 2». Хорошо, что публика с радостью приняла доктора Брюса Баннера в исполнении Марка Руффало, а то это уже третий актер, играющий Халка. Все участники сборной супергероев, включая Джереми Реннера и Сэма Джексона, рассчитывают как минимум на 5 миллионов аванса и процент от сборов сиквела.
читать дальшеВообще у Marvel, помимо всех положительных качеств, есть один недостаток — жадность. Студия получила единственную номинацию на «Оскар» в категории «Визуальные эффекты», но могла бы рассчитывать на большее количество технических премий. Просто боссы Marvel решили не тратить средства на оскаровскую промокампанию. Disney, владеющая студией, предложила свою помощь, но Marvel ее отвергла.
Но вот еще один пример вопиющей несправедливости, которая имеет место в «Мстителях». В то время когда Дауни-мл. получил за фильм 50 миллионов долларов, кое-кто из его коллег заработал всего 200 000. Ясное дело, этот кто-то не очень-то рад существующему раскладу. Агентство CAA, представляющее большинство звезд Marvel, всеми силами пытается удержать переговоры своих клиентов вдали от прессы, но это удается с трудом из-за тактики сжигания мостов, которую практикует студия. Инсайдеры говорят, что Marvel чуть ли не выворачивает руки актерам, чтобы те подписывались на сиквелы на условиях студии. «Меня достало слушать, как Кевин Файги хвастается, что компания Marvel заново изобрела кинобизнес, — говорит анонимный источник журналисту Deadline. — Они лишь изобрели заново бизнес — и точка».
Поговаривают, что боссы Marvel уже пригрозили судом строптивым звездам, требующим повышения гонораров. Правда, есть еще один вариант: особо несговорчивых заменят другими актерами. «Валяйте», — сказал один из Мстителей. Подозревают, что это был Крис Хемсворт. Инсайдеры говорят, что актеру совершенно не улыбается возвращаться на жесткую диету и изводить себя тренировками в спортзале, чтобы вернуться в форму скандинавского бога Тора для сиквела.
Кое-кто из агентов CAA поразился «щедрости» Marvel, предложившей его клиенту повысить гонорар на 500 000 долларов, когда сборы перевалят за отметку в 500 миллионов. Ни о каких миллионных зарплатах речи не идет.
Deadline утверждает, что главным защитником «Мстителей» является Роберт Дауни-мл. Все актеры фактически собрались за спиной Железного человека. Он может выторговать гонорары побольше для своих коллег. «Только у него в данной ситуации есть настоящая власть и стальные яйца, — говорят инсайдеры. — И он уже дал знать студии, что не собирается работать там, где с его коллегами обращаются как с дерьмом». Роберт в шутку называет себя «стратегическими издержками» студии, но его ирония на публике сменяется совсем другим отношением, когда речь заходит о бизнесе.
Marvel, глазом не моргнув, заменила Терренса Ховарда, дерзнувшего просить повышения гонорара после «Железного человека». Дон Чидл оказался сговорчивее и продержался в двух фильмах. Брюс Баннер в фильмах Marvel сначала был похож на Эдварда Нортона, а потом стал Марком Руффало (картина Энга Ли с Эриком Баной снималась на другой студии). На сегодняшний день о «Железном человеке 4» не идет речи. По крайней мере сначала студия попробует договориться с Робертом Дауни-мл. по-хорошему.
Даже Джосс Уидон в своем интервью признавался, что компания Marvel может быть чересчур экономной. Режиссер «Мстителей» получил 100 миллионов долларов за работу над несколькими фильмами для студии, а также за постановку пилота сериала про агентов Щ. И. Т. и за консультацию по вопросам супергероев. Однако Уидон намекает, что когда-то было время, когда за большими гонорарами не гнались. «А потом внезапно случилось разделение: Джим Керри и остальные актеры. Актеров среднего класса больше не существовало».
Какова будет жизнь Marvel без Дауни? Аналитики называют примерную цифру: минус 9 % от всех доходов. Остальные супергерои в одиночку не собирают так, как «Железный человек». У Marvel началась так называемая вторая фаза супергероических фильмов, в создании которых принимают участие люди поскромнее: режиссер Джеймс Ганн пришел снимать «Стражей Галактики» из недорогих хорроров и независимых фильмов, постановщик «Человека-муравья» Эдгар Райт пока не требует огромных денег. Впереди «Доктор Стрэйндж», «Железный кулак», «Черная Пантера» и прочие герои комиксов. Помним, что недавно на студию вернулись блудные сыновья Блэйд, Призрачный Гонщик, Сорвиголова и Каратель — фильмы о них можно будет запустить заново.
Главный вопрос стоит так: хочет ли Роберт Дауни-мл. стать пятидесятилетним супергероем?
PS. Чем закончился ужин супругов Дауни с представителями студии, пока не сообщается.
“Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on ‘I am not too sure.’” -H.L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken and Robert Downey Jr. did not cross paths in life (though it’s fun to imagine that conversation), but the essayist’s quote is an apt description of the actor’s approach to life. Downey’s restless intelligence is reflected in his ability to express several contradictory points of view simultaneously, making sense all the while. He can be direct one moment and elusive the next, often spinning off on seemingly unrelated tangents. But like watching a juggler on a wire, being in Downey’s presence is a riveting experience. For someone who almost from the outset was deemed “the greatest actor of his generation”, the majority of Robert Downey, Jr.’s career has been filled with big commercial flops, “critically acclaimed” flops, very public struggles with drugs and more than a little jail time – all of which have landed him squarely in some of the biggest blockbuster films in recent history. It’s an unlikely hero story, but then Robert Downey Jr. is an unlikely hero. With the release of the final film in the Iron Man trilogy, it’s ironic to contemplate that the studios also didn’t see him as a hero, least of all an action hero. Downey disagreed. At once supremely convinced of his own talent and extremely humble, he fought hard for the role of Tony Stark when the studio flatly refused to even let him audition. He prepped intensely, though for other roles he admits he’s just as likely to wing it. Downey is an enviably comfortable resident of the gray area we all inhabit. He is (somewhat) remorseful about his jail time but without resentment towards the upbringing that arguably introduced him to the lifestyle that led him there (“I choose to see it in a positive light.”) His years in the industry have left him clear-eyed and cynical about the business; yet he remains full of enthusiasm and curiosity about his art, and he’s deadly serious about bringing the best of himself to the set every day. He’s an obsessive analytic who’s inclined to let his gut make most of his decisions. On any multiple-choice personality test, Robert Downey Jr. is ‘all of the above.’ Maybe that’s what keeps us watching.
Q: Hi Robert. How you doing?
A: Happy.
Q: Thank you for doing this. I appreciate it.
A: You’re most welcome.
Q: You know, I see you as a kind of a modern renaissance artist. You’re an actor. You’re a dancer. You’re a musician.
A: Primarily a dancer.
Q: Primarily a dancer, as we all know [laughs]. But I realize there are a lot of things I don’t really know about you. First off, how did a career in the arts begin for you? I know you worked on your father’s films first and that he was kind of an experimental avant-garde film maker, but when was the first time you were in an acting situation that felt like a career and something you wanted to be successful at?
A: Well first of all the disclaimers: I’m not a dancer, but I have had to dance before. And there are things you learn. It’s like anything. When I was young, and going to 890 Broadway and auditioning for some musical or whatever I was doing, I felt like having a general understanding of a bunch of different disciplines gave me a better chance of getting any job, which was the objective. My earliest thought on the matter was that it would be more lucrative and soul-soothing to get a job doing something in entertainment than to continue busing tables and working shoe stores and doing food prep. And I remember being in New York with this whole group of guys who were trying to do theater, and some of us were trying to be in bands and all that stuff. And that moment you are asking about was a musical called American Passion which ran at the Joyce Theater for one night before Frank Rich’s reviews closed it, and we got to go workshop it in Boston. I just remember thinking, “Wow, this is really cool.”
Q: So it was real for you at that point?
A: So real. I was 17 or 18 at the time, and we were getting $140 a week and singing. I won’t claim to be a dancer. I can sing, however, so the dancing to me just meant learn the steps and don’t fall down when you’re doing them.
Q: I read that you studied ballet at some point.
A: I love that story. The real story is that my dad took our family to London in1970 or 1971, when he was writing the sсript for what wound up being his movie Greaser’s Palace. My sister Allyson went to a public school – which in England means private school, so that’s confusing — called Perry House, and all the boys there took ballet. And I don’t know, the girls played lacrosse, or something. I don’t know what they did. So…
Q: So we’re not going to perpetrate that myth any further.
A: No we shouldn’t, because right before this musical I was talking about, I was going to Santa Monica High School. Right before I dropped out, Ramon Estevez – the very eccentric and gifted middle brother of Emilio and Charlie — and I, we were doing Oklahoma. I got cast as Will Parker or whatever his name was, and there was a tap dance number, so he forcibly made me learn enough tap to be able to do the sequence in the musical.
Q: I do notice in photographing you that you have an awareness of your body in the way you move and how it functions with the character that a lot of good actors do. Is that something that just comes naturally to you or was there a point where you realized, “Oh, I need to have a control and understanding of my body to add dimension to what I do?”
A: Truth be told, I didn’t grow up feeling like I was necessarily in my body or aware of it or learning how to move it or anything. I still marvel at performers who seem like they have that, the ones with objectivity about what they’re doing. But what I did do, like I said, was learn a little bit of tap dancing, which came in handy when I did Less than Zero, because I used it in a scene where Julian thinks things are about to come together for him, so he’s celebrating. And it also gave an opening frame for our director to pull back to have Michael Bowen, who played my uncle in the film, tell me that it wasn’t going to happen. All these little things had a cumulative effect. Being a generalist, knowing a little bit about a lot of stuff helped, but I’ve actually found that in some ways I’ve become less and less conscious of having objectivity when I’m working. For instance, I used to go up and touch the cameras; I felt like I was really paying attention and learning and observing everything, like, “Okay, that actor knows how to open a door,” or whatever. Anything you take an interest in as an artist, you’ll be able to use in your work. In my late 30’s I got interested in martial arts, you know?
Q: What you say about being a generalist makes sense; my favorite artists are generalists. If you have a natural curiosity about everything, there’s no way you can’t get involved, or stay present. If you’re around something new you can either not pay attention to it, or you can dive in and try to absorb it, even if it’s only for half an hour or an afternoon of your life.
A: Right. Speaking of dance, I went to Royce Hall a couple of weekends ago with some friends, and we saw this company called Ultima Vez out of Belgium, and I thought it was mind blowing. Everybody thought I got too excited about it, but I was just amazed. Being a bit of a Village-y art rat growing up in the 1970’s, I remember seeing glimpses of modern dance and that really thoughtful, evocative choreography world, so I got really excited about that. You know, I think the reason that you [Jones] and I work well together goes back to what you were saying about having a genuine enthusiasm, even on the days when I don’t want to be anywhere. It’s important for me to demonstrate that I’m glad to be where I am, and I’m going to have an earnest and authentic empathy for the potential stress of doing things. I always want to be excited about what I’m doing.
Q: Or else, what’s the point?
A: Right, well then the point is, you go down that rabbit hole of just being an asshole – a really lucky asshole — all the time.
Q: (Laughs). I picture your upbringing being kind of like a crazy art commune where anything goes, like a salon in the 1920’s or something. Even before you decided you were going to be a professional actor you were immersed in the arts every day, just being at home. Your dad has a reputation for being an eclectic artist and an odd director who might pull people out of phone booths and give them a role in his movie. So what was the Downey household like?
A: I don’t know if I ever consciously thought, “This is what I’m going to do.” It never occurred to me to do anything else – life happens you know? I think about that in the context of how absolutely competitive it is now to go out and land a job anywhere, whether you have a background of extraordinary training or just being on a reality show for two days. But speaking of the way I grew up, my mom and dad were actually kind of squares who found themselves entrenched in the counterculture, underground film making world. So it was all the people you would expect to be around Greenwich Village at that time, and to me, it was just really natural. Just the other day me and the missus [Downey’s wife Susan] and a bunch of people are sitting around spit balling on a big studio movie, and Exton, our14-month-old, toddles into the room, and he just sits down. We’re all talking and laughing, and ideas are going back and forth, talking smack about some potential casting choice or doing whatever you do. We’re just kibitzing and kind of heating this project up to 211 degrees and stirring it slowly and seeing what happens you know? And I look over at Exton sitting in the middle of it all, and that was my childhood, captured in one moment. It was absolutely natural, and I took comfort in being around that situation, whether it was an after-hours poker game with my dad or pick a name of anyone who was in that world in the late 1960’s, or my parents trying to beat each other with a funny one-liner for a scene in a movie.
Q: How did you see your father at that point? Did he seem powerful to you? What was that relationship like when you were young?
A: It’s funny. Joe Wright [director of The Soloist, Atonement and Anna Karenina] told me he once did a TV series with an actor who had to play a British king, and the actor said, “I just don’t know how to get the authority of this character. I’m not really grasping it.” So during rehearsals, whenever the actor walked in, Joe had everybody in the rehearsal room stand up. And they wouldn’t sit down until this actor did, so it invested him with authority. And what I remember is growing up around someone to whom many others were very reverent, particularly around the time that his film Putney Swope came out. That film was kind of a mind-blowing satire of advertising and racism and power and corruption, and it was just brilliant, and so that’s what I heard a lot. My dad was brilliant, my dad was this and that. And I remember this t-shirt that my dad had with a Superman logo. I think it was really hip in the Village circa 1968 or 1969, people were getting t-shirts with big decals on them, and someone got him a blue shirt with a big Superman logo on it. And in the loft we lived in there was like, this king’s throne. And I remember seeing him sitting in the throne, wearing this Superman t-shirt. But I think everybody’s dad is their first projection of that archetype of power and virility.
Q: Was he working a lot at that time?
A: Yeah. He was a very post-Midcentury guy, more James Dean than James Franco. What’s funny is I have a 19 year-old son, and now I also have a baby, and you look back at your childhood in that context. And it’s great, and that’s kind of the whole point. I find myself looking back at my parents in the context of my parenting, and I realize that as nuts and as gonzo as that emerging generation was – and obviously there’s casualties littering the landscape of that generation – I remember an incredibly thoughtful, considerate, affectionate and attentive dad. He was almost always home; or if he was on the set, I was probably heading there if I wasn’t there already.
Q: I think it’s amazing that he included you guys in that life from the beginning. There are of course those stories where he may have included you in some adult things when you were still a kid [Downey has talked publicly about his father introducing him to recreational drugs when he was a boy]. In the context of being a parent, how do you look back on those decisions? Do you think it was just naiveté, or do you think that he just felt like you could handle it?
A: To me the 1980’s are a period piece, and then if you go back to the 1960’s and 1970’s, it’s kind of like it’s our own ancient history. So to me it might as well have been the Restoration of the 1660’s. It’s an entirely different set of priorities and entirely different set of tools and resources for living an examined life and all that stuff. I just choose to remember it fondly.
Q: I read one story about a confrontation you had with the administration at Santa Monica High School, and about how your dad backed you up when you told the school that you weren’t really interested in being at the school. Looking back, do you think that your father really felt like he was doing you a favor at that point? How did that influence your idea of right and wrong?
A: Think about the “negotiation generation” of kids in the child-centric 1990’s who are now off to college or dropped out, or wondering what they’re going to do. Previous to that generation, there was this kind of stoic mindset: there comes a time when you have to boot your kid out of the nest to show them that blah, blah, blah, and I’m sure that goes back to postwar stuff and probably turn of the century stuff. And by the way, I love when the words “kids these days” come out of my mouth [laughs]. But I think that we hesitate more nowadays to have those kind of abrupt boundaries, and I also think a lot of it was somewhat arbitrary. It might be perfectly understandable for the son of a farmer in Omaha, but people are raised a little differently out here. You know that saying about when you shake America and the weirdoes wind up on both coasts? It’s like we have different ideas of what’s supposed to happen. But I found my father’s approach really motivating.
Q: You did?
A: Yeah. I never really looked back. Certain things, the way they happen, you just accept them as okay. But also I think the greatest gift anybody can give anyone is the opportunity to develop your hustle. Sam, you didn’t wind up these great pictures on the wall and documentaries in the can because it was all handed to you. You have to develop that, and nobody’s hustle is like anybody else’s you know?
Q: I’ve always seen you as someone who doesn’t make excuses for himself. You seem like part of a previous generation in that way. And even with all the very public troubles you have gone through, you have always stood up and shouldered the blame.
A: Yeah, I don’t know why. Whatever was dealt to me or whatever I dealt to myself, I just decided that was kind of the card I dropped. Maybe I’d heard intelligent people complaining about people who forever blamed others for what clearly they were responsible for. It would have been very convenient to blame someone, you know, but I just don’t know. I’ve been in this kind of reverie in the last couple months, and this is why this is an interesting time to be catching up and talking to you; we’re not trying to sell soap – we’re just talking, and it’s a little more introspective. On the way down here we drove by my junior high school, and I used to jog around the track with a boom box playing Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall. And I look back at that, and I think, “I was like Chachi.” Like, “Who was that person?” I was a product of what was going on societally in this huge influx of music and commercialism and all that stuff. I can’t place myself back there from where I am now, and I can’t really imagine my life now being the end result of where I was then. It’s very mysterious.
Q: When was the last time you had to audition?
A: The last time recently was for Iron Man in 2006.
Q: Now that’s amazing to me, because at that point, you’re like, 30 films in [59, actually]. Is there a value to auditioning?
A: There’s a value to everything, and the more you resist something, the more you make out of it. Everybody has things that they’re quietly resisting doing, and a good day for them is when one of those resistances come and directly confronts them. And I realized that, in [the studio’s] defense, I hadn’t exactly played Mister Johnny Handgun or some guy who was a semi-sexy, charming, billionaire type guy who then you’re going to put in this big machine and believe that he’s going to kick ass and save the world. But I like proving grounds. I like those crucibles that people have to go through. I wouldn’t wish the anxiety of them on an enemy, but I also know that if I’d been spared a single one of them, I wouldn’t be where I am.
Q: Were you anxious going into it?
A: Yeah, but anxiety is relative, you know. To me anxiety is being conscious of how much you’re avoiding preparation.
Q: Oh really?
A: I think so. I once heard anxiety described as doom light. You wake up in the morning, and nothing’s really happening, but you just have this sneaking suspicion, because your brain is already going, that something’s afoot. And I feel that’s like sweeping your storefront in the morning; it’s just like general maintenance. And then there’s the anxiety about an upcoming opportunity or a challenge where my life is literally going to go one way or another depending on the result of this day. I tend to think about these things in a semi-military way, even if it’s just self-soothing, by preparing and preparing and preparing. It’s like, check your equipment, get ready; lives are saved by tough drill instructors, and in the absence of one, you have to be your own.
Q: That’s interesting, because people who don’t know this business very well might think that you could very easily skate by on your body of work. And I’m sure that there are a lot of actors that take their career enough for granted that they feel like they can just sail through it. Have you always done tremendous preparation?
A: It depends. I’ve gone to both extremes. I’ve gone to where I know everything inside and out, and I know everybody else’s lines better than they do. And I’ve also spent years just using an earwig so that someone else is saying the dialog, and I don’t have to stay up the night before. I think both extremes work. The best thing to do to prepare for something is to really take care of yourself—psychologically and physically – and then show up. Because anybody can fumble the ball if they’re too in their head, no matter how good they were at practice. I’m sure it’s the same for you. It all has to happen between the time the subject shows up and the time they go home – that’s your action and your cut. For example, when I’m doing a shoot with you, sometimes it seems like you don’t really have a concrete idea, and sometimes your idea is very specific, and you’ve picked out all the sets. Now some of that’s just due diligence, and some of that is respecting the boundaries of other peoples’ time. As long as a director doesn’t micromanage so much that you’re just like, “Oh my God, why did you even ask me to come do this? Anybody could come in and do what you said.” I like when someone has a vision for what they’re doing.
Q: I read that director James Toback said the best way to direct you is to just get out of your way and let you do your thing. But are there certain ways that you like to be directed, or certain traits that you look for in a director?
A: It’s so weird, you know. I think it just feels very much like high school – I’m either comfortable if I feel like I can run roughshod over somebody, or I’m comfortable if I feel that they’re really in my face, if I really feel that they know what they’re talking about. But honestly, the middle ground between those extremes is where all the great stuff is. You don’t really know what’s going to happen when you show up somewhere, and I’m not the type of person, except in rare instances, who gets better the more I work on something. I tend to like to let things really percolate in what would externally seem like an extremely lazy, evasive fashion. And then I like to come in and try to just ninja it with not too many swipes. But you’re not always afforded that; for instance, you can’t do that with say, a courtroom drama. But I don’t know. I still feel very young, and I look to other people. I think looking at others’ experience and body of work probably holds a lot of the answers to my questions. I look at the guy with the mud on his face over there [gestures to a picture of Matt Damon on the wall of the studio]. Like Matt Damon, I could probably learn a hundred things that would make my job a lot easier just from all the stuff that he’s done that I haven’t, and probably vice versa. That’s why I think forums like this – when they’re not for selling soap, when there really is an interview – are vital, and I’d like to see them happen more often. Where we’re really looking at each other and exchanging information.
Q: That’s got to be kind of like a director-actor relationship too, because I would feel like you might have more anxiety on a project if you could run roughshod over a director. I would think as an actor, you’d rather feel like you were in confident hands, rather than feeling like you’ve got a guy’s number, and he’s intimidated by you.
A: Yeah. You don’t want to have to lose your respect for somebody’s position in order to feel okay. That’s just such weirdo ego stuff. But it takes all kinds, you know? People are really weird, and you’re taking a lot of eccentric people and putting them in this situation where they’re supposed to communicate and drive towards a singular goal. It’s amazing to me that any project ever gets finished! I look to that as my proof positive of some sort of higher order; life is doing something, and we’re here in it. And it’s really fun and glamorous to have these kind of cool call sheets with hipster titles, or a really great rare piece of writing that you may or may not be able to execute, or a kind of bland two-dimensional genre spec sсript that you intend to make a masterpiece out of.
Q: Are there personality traits that are common and essential to being a great director?
A: I don’t know; it’s odd as heck to me. I’ve been reading The Tao of Leadership, and I recognize that great leadership requires a great ability to not do anything in some ways. In other words, to not try to make things happen, but to be conscious of what’s occurring in the moment and be very flexible in where you go and also very rooted in the principal of what you’re trying to do. So I really just look for a connection; does it seem like the two of us are going to make this third thing?
Q: I’ve been around a lot of directors, and one thing that I’m always fascinated with is this aura of relaxation and confidence they can project, and get exactly what they want. It’s almost like they are able to do it in spite of what you would think it would take to get something done.
A: Yeah. Guy Ritchie is a good example of The Tao of Leadership, because he has a very relaxed set, and a very witty and fun and loose set. Sometimes you look over, and he’ll be playing chess while the crew is setting something up. And some part of me, the kind of anal, uptight part of me, would think, “This is crazy! We should be talking about the next scene!” But that’s because I’ve been in close proximity to a producer for so long, the missus, that I tend to think more and more about the overall scope and schedule and timing. Susan is so efficient that she’s thinking about what she could be doing while she’s doing what she could be doing while she’s doing what she could be doing [laughs]. But Guy winds up getting the kind of results he wants without having to spell it out. And once in a while he’ll step in and get all cheeky and act something out or tell you exactly what he’s thinking just to show that he can do that if he wants. But for the most part, he just kind of really lets things happen.
Q: When you first get a sсript, what is the process to go through to decide if it’s the right project for you?
A: I can pretty much tell before they deliver it. When they send a cover letter saying so and so’s doing this, look at the role of blah, blah, blah; or this is a such and such that wants to shoot in wherever. I just say, “Oh I have to read this,” or more often than not I say, “Thank you for sending it over. I can’t read it.”
Q: Sure, and I bet the percentage is pretty crazy….
A: But everybody has a different process, and some people love just reading sсript samples and seeing if the character is there. I tend to notice that what nobody’s thinking of when they send a project over is, I just did something like it. I sometimes tend to think of it as if a consumer was choosing what I did next.
Q: But what if a consumer just wants to keep having the Iron Man experience over and over again?
A: They don’t, or I’m not listening to that consumer all the time. And I don’t mean to be so rigid and professorial about the whole thing, but I also just tend to think about what kind of story it is. I know what my strong suit is, and I also know the areas in which I want to make inroads, and it’s unlikely that I’ll make inroads in a situation where I don’t really know the people or where I’m not super excited about the theme of the movie. So it’s kind of a combination. I tend to think about things very objectively; it’s just marketplace. I don’t like making movies that nobody’s going to see or care about, and I also don’t want to try to do just “important” movies, because every movie’s important. For instance, the thing I’m doing next is a courtroom drama of sorts. But it’s a lot more than that, and the only reason I’m doing this movie is because my wife is producing it. She’s passionate about it. It’s a fantastic sсript, and it is a bit of a departure for both of us. And now that we’re doing this courtroom drama (even though it really isn’t one), we’re getting all these courtroom drama scripts, like that’s what we want to do for the next 12 years. And I’m like, “Well strangely, no.”
Q: Once you’ve said yes to a project, what’s your work process with the sсript?
A: Well, it’s changed. Since working with Jon Favreau on the first Iron Man, I have practically zero regard for what is physically printed on the pages when I go to work. And sometimes, the better the writing is, the more annoying it is, because it’s more likely I will not be able to innovate within it. So it’s a problem. It’s gotten to the point where director Todd Phillips, when we were finished shooting Due Date, said to me, “I figured it out. You hate paper.” (laughs) I think some of that is my own hubris and ego. I come from a family of writers and I like writing, and I think I at least know how to write for myself, and often times if I take a stab at a scene, all the characters can come off a little better. So what’s my process? Over the last five or seven years, it’s been kind of like drunken monkey. Now I keep the attention on the issue at hand: the issue is bringing the best me I can bring to the set every day. With what we’re doing, you can just pick anything from the Chinese menu, and anything’s really fine as long as I’m in good shape, and it feels good, and if the blocking doesn’t feel like we’re doing a teleplay and all that stuff.
Q: I think that’s especially true as you get older. Get enough sleep so that you have the energy to work. You’ve gotten to the end of the day successfully so many times that you have confidence in that and you can trust yourself.
A: Honestly, you’re only ever just living one day, you know? The worst part of any day can sometimes be when you show up, things get started, and they say, “All right, we’ll be ready in a minute.” And you go, “Oh crap. It’s only 9:00 a.m., so what is this part of me that wants something to be over? Even something I enjoy. Even something that I’m responsible to put my best foot forward in.” It just feels like, well, it feels like school, you know? Life still feels like school. I love a rainy day; I love it when we’re shooting, and all of a sudden, there’s thunder and lightning, and they’ve got to shut down the generators. And it’s not because I’m in an avoidance pattern, or I don’t want to actually earn a living, or I don’t want to have to do what I’m supposed to do. I know that most everybody still operates on the assumption of, “Hey, at some point today they have to let us go home.” So no matter how frustrating or challenging or fun or exhausting any situation is at some point, the day will end. We have unions. You’re not going to work the world’s first 240-hour day, so I think within those limits, it’s just about pacing yourself. And I think also as I’ve gotten older, and I realize a lot of the people I’m working with are of a younger generation, I like to spend a fair amount of my energy just trying to behaviorally model a reaction that has some sort of dignity when things don’t go either particularly well or particularly kindly or smoothly, or else it’s just really hard. And it’s almost impossible to get it right even one time, but we only have to do it right once.
Q: It’s true. You are working toward something you only have to do right once, and then you can move on. You talk about getting older and that strange moment when you look around and realize you are the one with the most experience on the set. You’re the guy that’s been in the most movies. Do you find there’s a shift that occurs?
A: I find that nobody else cares, because like me, they’re primarily thinking about themselves. So if somebody has not made space for their self yet, they can’t really make space for anybody else. I appreciate certain platitudes, but there’s also nothing I like more than when some nine year old kid looks at me and says, “You don’t really even know what you’re doing do you?” And I go, “No, never have. Now why don’t we try starting the scene over here, and instead of looking away from the camera look right here next to the matte box, and then I’m going to stand off camera, and I’m going to give you three funny things to say. You’re going to say all of them three times in a row. All right let’s try that.” So I think it’s just absorbing. I just love projections. I’ve never met someone that I was in awe of who once I was in close proximity to them for a couple of hours, that awe wasn’t smashed. So I like inviting people to realize yes, I am just another shmuck standing here. I’m just really good at being another shmuck standing here, because I’ve done it a lot.
Q: I also think because of your experience and your generalist approach to your craft, you have created many paths you can explore. You have a wide range of places you can go.
A: Yeah, and by the way, sometimes that’s limiting too. They say if you give somebody 30 choices of fabric, no matter what they pick they’re going to be dissatisfied with their choice. If you give them three choices, they’re going to feel like they’ve made the right decision based on that smaller number of options. What’s always on my mind is, “Is what we’re doing effective? Is it efficient? Am I doing one kind of blocking or one kind of continuity in the master shot?” And then, “Am I doing something entirely different, because I still haven’t got what I wanted?” No matter how you feel about what you got or what you know you need or what you’re trying to do, objectively, it’s like “We can’t use this, dummy. You’re going to make the editor go bonkers.” A little consideration goes a long way.
Q: You have to think about that. You think whatever you’re figuring out in the master, you’ve got to kind of stick with.
A: But I also think that people who believe their process is more important than the overall process are…that is how you make enemies with the cosmic justice, because you will be humiliated.
Q: I think editing a movie is the best film education you could ever have. When you have to go in and actually put something together out of the material you have collected. There is no better way to discover what you are missing, or what you didn’t think about. Do you ever think, after doing this for so long, about stepping into directing, or do you just love being an actor?
A: Both. You only know what you know. I grew up around directors, around everyone seeing everything you do before the first day you start shooting. And that vision is what makes or breaks the experience. As an actor, it really only matters what you do between “action” and “cut”. No matter what you thought you were going to do, if you aren’t good in the scenes that day, you’re going to be disappointed. And anyone who’s been around long enough realizes that both of those stages in the process are simply about preparing to collect data and collecting data. When all the hipsters you know fly home, you’re left with this rubble out of which you can make the Sistine Chapel or a large-scale tail of the pup. And so that’s the next thing. I’m kind of looking over Hadrian’s Wall and thinking that’s the part that I haven’t bothered to invest my attention in, so it’s exciting. It (directing) also sounds exhausting.
Q: Are you saying that inevitably you will direct a film?
A: I guess so. I have one in mind, and of course I picked the one movie in our lineup that’s a big puzzle; no one knows how we would do it. But I like it in the same way girls like it when you hand them a necklace that’s so knotted up you think you should just throw it away, and then they untangle it, you know? I like that challenge and maybe that’s what I’ll do. Maybe not. Maybe it’ll just lead me to something else, but right now I’m pretty happy just being in front of the camera and taking it easy. I’m not a kid anymore, but I have kids. Directing is a two-year commitment, you know?
Q: Yeah, and you look at the directors that have had long runs of successful films like the Coen brothers or Clint Eastwood, and the energy and the commitment of time that goes into that is insane. As an actor, you have a lot of time within the machinery.
A: Right, and yet time is relative. I’m a bit of a trailer dweller. If I’m not working, I feel I should be laid out in the trailer watching cable or whatever. I think I’ve gotten spoiled. But I also know the Eastwood method is the way I would go. You know, “There’s no reason to get too excited here. We don’t need to be trying to shoot you know 12, 14, 16 hour days.” It’s so about the law of diminishing returns. Somebody told me the body has these natural rhythms of an hour and 40 minutes of activity and 20 minutes of rest, and I said, “That sounds like a work day that went right on a good set.” We know now that starting a kid in school before 10:00 a.m. is absolutely ineffective for anything except the teachers and the administrators, but nobody’s starting school at 10:00 a.m. Really, if you’re starting a shoot before 8:00 a.m. and shooting past 6:00 p.m., you’re just getting a little more in the can. Maybe you’re making your schedule or your budget, but you’re not necessarily getting great work.
Q: It’s interesting talking about being older, wiser, and believing in yourself enough to be able to walk into a role and confidently try something. But from what I’ve read, I know that you did a ton of preparation for Chaplin. Was that preparation based on fear or a reverence and respect for the man? And how did all that preparation and work inform the rest of your career?
A: Well it was my first Iron Man-esque experience, where I went in and screen tested for something because there wasn’t exactly immediate faith that I could do it.
Q: What was the Chaplin screen test like?
A: When I first went in to meet [director] Richard Attenborough he held up a picture of Tom Cruise and said, “Now isn’t that a remarkable resemblance?” And I was like, “What am I supposed to say? Yeah, you should give him the part?”
Q: You’re kidding.
A: No. And I don’t even think Tom considered doing it. He could have. Anyway, they put the movie together, but the financing kept getting pulled or falling apart and getting put back together until I think Carolco did it with TriStar. Dickey kept calling and saying, “Darling just hold on three, five, seven more months.” So I think I wound up having nine months or something like that to get ready.
Q: So you screen tested, and then the movie didn’t start for another nine months?
A: Yeah, but I was cast. That’s all I needed to hear.
Q: When you did the screen test were you able to prepare scenes?
A: Yeah. I had a couple afternoons with a dialect coach, and I had a day or two with a movement coach. It was this very haphazard grab bag of Chaplinisms. I think I was supposed to play with a stepladder or something like that, and that went okay. I couldn’t tell you what I did or what I was thinking I was going to do, but I just felt akin to the guy. I spent a fair amount of time going around to some of the places he’d been, things like that. But to answer your original question, the longer I had to get ready, the more I realized that this guy was an absolute mountain, and there was no way that I could ever really do anything besides be as honest as I could imagine about portraying an aspect of him, which was his public and private personas.
Q: I read you even learned to play tennis left handed.
A: Well I learned to play tennis with old tennis racquets, and then I was looking at some old films, and I realized he was ambidextrous and was playing left handed. I went back to my tennis coach, and I said, “Just one last thing: We’ve got to switch hands.” And then the day that we shot it, it all kind of went out the window. I’m there with Kevin Kline, who says, “Darling, will they really know?” But I just had to. I couldn’t let it go.
Q: At some point you must have thought, “No one’s going to know this but me,” yet you felt like it was important to do that.
A: Well look, part of that is the story; being able to sit here 21 years later and tell you how committed I was, so often times I think the most earnest things are done with motive. I was 25, 26 years old, and you couldn’t tell me otherwise.
Q: Had you had an experience before Chaplin where you didn’t prepare enough, and decided not to let that happen again?
A: No, I just went mental with it. I also went mental with the screen test for Iron Man. I went absolutely bat guano crazy when I was doing A Scanner Darkly. I wanted to know anything and everything I was going to say backwards and forwards. I’ve done it for TV; you have to do it because you’re going to shoot more pages than any human should have to remember every day. But extreme precision and extreme imprecision both yield great rewards. It’s that gray area in the middle that, to me, is the danger zone.
Q: In other words have a plan. Either be totally prepared or go in knowing you are going to let it happen magically.
A: Yeah, I’m prepared to basically just be dropped in the hot zone, and I will find a bush [laughs].
Q: I am fascinated by the art of songwriting. I think a lot about it, and I write songs. And I love music… A: I as well.
Q: There’s that question of where a song comes from. Whether it is kind of through the ether like John Lennon described when he said “I just heard it in my head, and I had to write it down before it went away.” But then there’s Jackson Browne sitting in his living room, pouring cups of tea and working out the song like scientist working out a math problem. Maybe that’s not too dissimilar from your acting process.
A: Yeah, you don’t want to be dependent on God’s grace. You need to know what to do when the sun is not shining. I think Warren Beatty was probably my greatest teacher in that. He kind of anonymously produced this movie The Pickup Artist. He would say, “What’s Jack Jericho’s action in this scene?” And I was like, “Uh, he’s trying to pick up girls. Um, he’s telling a girl…he’s comparing girls to paintings.” And he goes, “Wrong. You’re so wrong. Don’t you even know what you’re doing in this scene?” It was like, “I know what I’m doing. I, I’m trying to drive a car.” He goes, “No, no, no. You’re trying to get to work, but you keep getting distracted, so your action keeps changing.” I was like, “Oh yeah.” He goes, “So your action is to go to work.” I said, “Yes it is.” He goes, “Right, but what happens?” I go, “Well I see a girl.” He goes, “And then what happens?” I go, “Oh! My action changes.” He goes, “Yeah.” And he said to me, “Nobody’s going to be inspired all the time, but everybody should know what they’re doing if they’re being paid to play a part in a movie. It’s irresponsible not to.” I was like, “Thank you.”
Q: That’s a huge lesson.
A: It’s great, and by the way, it’s embarrassingly obvious that this icon came by and just knew exactly what I was doing, and yet I was absolutely certain that I knew what I was doing. And I couldn’t have been further from knowing what I was doing.
Q: It’s funny how you can’t expect any magic to happen to you if you don’t prepare. It’s almost like you have to prepare to be able to throw it away. I can only make a great accidental picture if I have four ideas ready that I can fall back on. The accidents are in between. Although sometimes you could argue that you prepared so much, you didn’t leave any room for accidents to happen.
A: To me, that’s the great tragedy of any creative situation. Where somebody’s got it so dialed in that if you want to do anything spontaneous, you have to give then ten minutes’ notice. (laughs)
Q: You’ve always been considered an actor’s actor. I don’t know if it was around Chaplin or before, but you became saddled with being called “the greatest actor of his generation” and all this stuff, and yet for the last five years, you’ve anchored two extremely successful commercial franchises for major studios. I am not usually attracted to those movies, but in both Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes, you bring a depth to these characters that’s usually glossed over in those kinds of films. Do you see any difference between a small film like Two Girls and a Guy and Iron Man in terms of what you’re bringing to the character?
A: I like the idea of bringing marketable aspects to small movies, and an independent spirit to big movies. And I just like trying to invest anything with a sense of play. Truth be told, there’s far more skilled and capable actors in my generation than I. I’m just a very seasoned hustler, and I’m definitely dedicated, and I definitely work as hard as the next guy. I think that you make your luck. I wouldn’t wish my trajectory on anyone, but it’s been pretty sweet. It’s also like a thumbprint – it’s never happened before, and it will never happen again. It’s odd to me, but in case you wanted me to answer your question [laughs], I would say that I look at every project the same way –very impartially and extremely critically.
Sometimes my critical nature can dishearten things, so I’m returning just a bit to more raw enthusiasm. Also, nobody wants to watch anybody go through their angst-ridden process. Nobody wants to watch anybody projecting his subconscious dilemmas onto well-meaning co-workers. I’ve done pretty well at not being toxic in that realm. I’ve witnessed a fair amount of it; as actors, we’re all doing this very sensitive thing. But what I do know is I understand a little more each day and each year and each project and each success. I know how to reverse-engineer those things and say, “Wow, that’s why that worked.” The way we get there is never the same twice, and you can never replicate success from success, but you can extrapolate things. And they’re always principle-based. What is the tonal balance? What is the sense of fun? What is the sense of emotional investment? What is the sense of surprise? As an audience member, you’re definitely going to get this thing that you’re sensing you deserve. You’re going to get a resolution. We’re going to make sure that it’s satisfying. In the Marvel universe particularly, it’s like we’re always wondering what we would want in this moment or at this development of the franchise. We’ve created an expectation. If we’re sitting in the audience, we always want something that we didn’t expect after the credits are done – an Easter egg, or whatever you call that thing. A postscript. People love that. So certain aspects of replicating success become pretty identifiable – it goes here every time, and it’s kind of like this, but it shouldn’t be exactly like it’s been before.
Q: But it’s funny, because you created this thing. You created a new, recipe for this kind of film, and then you created sort of a demand for the audience to keep having that experience with the recipe. You’ve raised the bar to where if someone else is going to go make a film about a comic book or action hero, they’re going to reference Iron Man as the best example of how to humanize a larger-than-life character. And I see how different you are in that kind of role than anyone else ever could be.
A: It’s funny. On the way here, there was this big street poster for Iron Man 3, and I’m looking at it, and it’s so odd to me that I still don’t really directly identify with it. And maybe in a way that goes back to what, my theater arts teacher at Santa Monica High, Mr. Jellison, said about how you have to maintain an aesthetic distance. Or maybe I’m still just not letting love in, but I also know that I occasionally have too high an opinion of myself. And if I was to open the floodgates, I could become the very example of everything I’ve been telling you I don’t like don’t want to be.
Q: Sure, but I notice there’s a wink to a lot of your work too, where you give that little nod to the audience of, “Oh I know what I’m doing here.”
A: Right. Well whoever started that did a really good job with it. I remember seeing it in movies, whether it was Bill Murray in Groundhog Day or Chevy Chase always; people who have been able to dramatize what’s great about comedy, what’s great about characters. I was watching Fletch the other night…
Q: Oh god, I love Fletch!
A: And I’m thinking, “How did he get away with this? What is he doing? He just says and does whatever he wants no matter what’s happening. He’s being booked in some police station, and just picks up the phone and answers it.”
Q: It’s like they were writing that film as they were making it: “We don’t have a name for this guy here. Okay, just roll. I’ll think of something.” So, do you feel pressure because there’s so much money riding on your recent films, or do you let other people worry about that?
A: Both. I mean, it’s not my money, but my blood line in the last 50 years has been so outside the establishment that there’s something that feels really kind of dirty and great about being a company man. I really enjoy it. And it’s also been a transcendent thing for me, because it would be so easy to project all of my character defects onto some brand and say, “Oh you know those you know those knuckleheads over at Fox…” It’s so easy to say that, and really what’s behind that illusory wall that I’ve created is other men and women, other human beings. There’s different ways of doing business every 20 feet in any industry, but I enjoy that. It’s been an amazing education in the way things work, and for a high school dropout, it’s been like my degree – I’ve gotten my doctorate in big studio movies and business and creativity. Often times, it’s when there’s the most riding on it that they need the most kind of radical departures from just dotting I’s and crossing T’s. They need that secret sauce, and I’m not saying I’m responsible for bringing it, but I do know when we’re getting close.
Q: Your life has had such an arc. I know you’ve aired your dirty laundry on your history with incarceration ad naseum, but looking back after phenomenal successes like Iron Man, is there was something positive about the experience of being in jail that you took into this phase of your career?
A: It’s like being grounded. When kids are grounded, they sure think about it a lot, and when they’re not grounded they don’t think about it anymore – they’re just glad they’re not grounded. So the best part of any experience where your freedom is taken away from you by an institution is when it’s over. At the same time, I learned a lot about time and doing time instead of letting it do you. There are so many different ways to be in prison. A crappy relationship is worse than jail and being out on the street and not being able to put your head down and realize, “Hey, I made a shit ton of mistakes, and now I have to have the humility to build my life or my career or my relationships back up without blaming and without self-pity. Without being bitter.” In and of itself, prison is just a tool for detaining people who have lost their way with a process of right living. It’s like being grounded.
Q: But if you’re grounded enough….
A: I don’t know. If you were to look at real psychological study results, is it effective? No. What’s effective is motivating people toward what’s numinous to them. It’s motivating people toward feeling that there’s nothing hopeless about their life that they’re not accepting as such.
Q: So is Iron Man 3 the last film in the series?
A: Certainly the last film in this contract. By the way, I think you and I should lock it down for a week somewhere and see what happens. Bring a camera.
Q: You think so?
A: Yeah. Call chow time three times a day. We’re going to get some great work done.
Q: You know what, I could probably do that for about six hours before I started pissing my pants.
A: You’d be fine. [Laughs]. Your favorite day in jail would be the day they told you to roll it up. You’ve been released.
Q: So now that this cycle of films is coming to a close are you looking forward to something different?
A: Yeah, though transitions are always tough, you know? You simultaneously feel limited by something but also comforted by it. And truth be told, the Iron Man trilogy and The Avengers and the Sherlock series, none of that’s been limiting. It’s given me an immense amount of freedom, but like you said, time takes time and contracts run for a certain period. So the nice thing now is transitioning into having this production company with the missus, and we’re going to start alighting to possibly greener pastures and other stuff. The other thing I’m sure you can relate to is when you’re out there doing your job, your craft, however gnarly you want to get about it, you’re essentially not living the real life that other people are afforded. You’re traveling, because you have a gig somewhere. You’re going to a show, because we had to do something on a Saturday, for instance. But because I missed the last several years, or whatever, there’s also a big part of me that has such an incomplete education. I would like to bring a better me to whoever I’m at a dinner party with. Increasing my own generalist self improves whatever people get out of watching me work. I just feel that at 47 years old it’s not about catching up. It’s about making space for the things that have kind of been spoken for. Essentially on and off since I was 17, I’ve been given a call sheet as many mornings in a row as not, and I like that artificial world. And it’s not really artificial; it’s my real job. But I’m looking forward to just continuing just my education as someone who’s interested in life too, you know?
Q: Right. Take Italian lessons, or something?
A: Yeah.
Q: Getting that balance is important, and it sounds like you’re in a position where you can kind of do whatever you want. So you might as well.
A: Right. It’s hard to really grasp that existential fact that the only commodity that is not negotiable is time.