'Film is a powerful medium'

Indie film stalwart John Cusack bursts into the blockbuster action with his latest film, 2012. Here he sheds insight on the project.

So do you think people are going to get paranoid about seeing a film about the end of the world?

I don’t know, maybe. I think a lot of people are already kind of obsessed with the Mayan Prophecies. There’s a real fascination for that kind of thing. I know when I first read about Nostradamus it hooked me. Who doesn’t want to read that — it’s endlessly fascinating right? It just trips you out. It’s great. No matter if you want to believe it or you think it’s all crackpot stuff, I think it’s undeniably compelling. Or if you even read prophecies, like The Book of Revelations, just the imagery and the poetry of it is so intense. And if you’re raised catholic too, you’re raised with that in your consciousness too.

Did you read about the Mayan Prophecies when you were young?
Mayans I heard about later, you’d hear about that and all the different religions have a version.

You don’t make a lot of these huge movies. Why did you choose this one?
It sort of chose me, I was just at home doing my thing and I get a call saying [director] Roland [Emmerich] wants you to do this movie. I met him and it was a big movie for Sony and I read the script and it was actually very well written and surprising in lots of ways. It wasn’t like a genre disaster movie, it was very different to what I expected, and so it was a kind of easy choice for me. 

In what way did it surprise you?
Nothing happened and it was just character stuff for almost half way into the script. The character I play is a writer and his wife has left him because he’s too focused on his writing. They have two kids together, but she’s now with a doctor, and so you really get sucked into the family drama, and then Chiwetel [Ejiofor] plays a scientist and he and another scientist working on an international team of experts know there’s something happening with the sun and the governments have been preparing for it, but they think that it’s going to happen a lot later. And then the movie starts and something happens and it’s got like two days. And then it’s about the governments starting to organise and the ethics about whether they should or shouldn’t tell people — what they will reveal to people. And it’s all at a very human level — you go inside the corridors of power and it’s kind of about what would you do? And then the storylines converge. I really liked the different storylines and I found it surprising, in a good way. I thought it was much, much better than some kind of action film. When everything starts to happen and the world is facing the ultimate disaster, my character’s own over-riding instinct to get to his family and try, somehow, to save them. That’s a powerful emotion — it’s a family literally trying to stay alive as these cataclysmic events are happening all around them.

Is the book that your character has written relevant in some way to the plot?
The character wrote a book called Farewell Atlantis, which is kind of a sci-fi book, dealing with the same kind of questions that they face in the movie. 

Has working on 2012 changed your mind about working on other big, blockbuster films?
Yeah, well it didn’t change my mind about it as much as if you can work on a movie that’s like this, which is kind of an A movie all the way around, then great. Roland casts actors to do this stuff whereas usually actors who do more of the action genre would get in other studio films like this. Roland casts actors that he likes and what was remarkable about the script was that there are all these very human stories. Like page after page these things would happen and it would then say, “and Rome fell...” Page after page these amazing things would happen and you would think, “I have no idea how he would even approach shooting that.” As a filmmaker, I just go, “Well how do you shoot that? Where do put the camera, how does one do that?’”There were things that I’ve never seen even attempted on film — the scale of it was incredible. And I did think, “Well, will you have time for the acting?” And he most certainly did. A lot of attention was paid to that all the way through the shoot. Actually the script was all about these very simple, family things and Roland was very focused on telling that story with all of this other, amazing stuff happening as well.

So it’s still about the story as much as the effects?
Yes, very much so. It was amazing. So he would do all this big stuff and then he would totally focus on every character. And actually, I’ve done other films where it is an absolute afterthought. But I think that has to do with Roland being at that place in his life where he’s earned the right to work in a way that is optimum for him and for actors. And it was extraordinary to see — he has all this stuff in his brain and he is somehow able to put that up on the screen and that alone would be enough to drive most people insane [laughs]. But he does that and has time for the actors and that’s very unique, I think.

One of the moral dilemmas in the film is whether the public should be told about the impending disaster. What’s your view?
I was always geared towards telling the truth. But yeah, I think they should. Shouldn’t people have the right to know and to be able to do what they want with their last remaining days? I think that would be right.

Your character is focused on trying to save his estranged family. That gives him the most urgent imperative doesn’t it?
Yes, absolutely and he sort of has to block out everything else and just focus on the next 20 yards — and in a way he has to be sort of ruthless to do that. He can’t stop and think about what’s happening he just has to keep going and deal with what is in front of him.

So are you still planning a holiday for 2013 or are you a little concerned that the Mayan prophecies might be true?
[laughs] No, I don’t think the world will end. I think maybe it will just be a change in consciousness in 2012. I think there will be a big shift in consciousness. That’s probably what I think will happen. Either that or it really will be the end [laughs]. I obviously hope it’s not. 

If you had to save a favourite band, who would it be?
That’s a really good question. I’d say Bob Dylan. I’d ask Bob Dylan on the boat. He would get to come on the spaceship. 

Did you recommend any music for the film?
Well, I did get them to put the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s The Circle Will Be Unbroken in the film. Which is kind of a rapturous, hillbilly frenzy. It peaks up into a kind of rapturous frenzy.
 

If you knew that you were going to die, and somebody is going to be saved, what would be the best advice you could give that person?
Bring some sunblock? I don’t know. [laughs] Eat sensible foods in the new world, diet and exercise.

And what things wouldn’t you be too sorry about seeing destroyed?
I would destroy a lot of the news organisations — I would blow them up [laughs]. I think Reality TV, although I haven’t watched much of it, but what I’ve watched of it, I think I’d blow that up. A few of the studios [laughs] — but not Sony. Independent Spirit Award Shows, Award Shows, I’d blow up Award Shows...

Even if you won an Oscar?
Yeah. Blow it up. [laughs] Yeah. Absolutely. That’s a good question. That’s got me really going. Yeah, I think CNN, whenever any celebrity dies, I’d just blow them up and just have to rebuild the network, so you can’t have like the Michael Jackson death channel on for three weeks [laughs], while there’s like two wars going on. [laughs] Fox news would go too, that goes without saying.

There must have been quite a lot of physical challenges on this shoot...
It was really kind of a nice shoot, there were such great professionals and so amazing to work with, and so it was really nice for me. Doing all the underwater stuff was pretty intense, and then some of the physical stuff was too. There were a couple of times, like when they have you on a conveyor belt — one of those runner things when your character is running away from some impending disaster — and you’ve done it a couple of times and then you’d have to say, “You understand that we can do this like, four, five, six times more and that’s fine. But if we have to do this 15 more times I’m going to pull a hamstring and I won’t be able to walk tomorrow. So you do understand that will be your choice?” (laughs)
So when you do an action movie, you have to like let everyone know what’s about to happen. Say, jump over that fence and tumble — I’ll do it like ten times. And if I do it thirty times that might be too much — so you have to negotiate [laughs]. That’s the same on any action film because they want to get so much coverage — but there’s only so much my hamstrings can take!

2012 is epic and provides a big cinematic experience. But you’ve done lots of smaller films throughout your career that have had a big effect on people. Is that the intention to balance the two?
Hopefully I’ve made some films that have made people kind of read things when they’ve seen the movie we made of the book, made people feel like they weren’t alone, whatever — stories or films do help people, some of them have been nice enough to say so. There were people that appreciated them.

Is that important?
It feels good, yeah. It feels good to have people like me doing that.

Did you have films that spoke to you in that way?
Oh yeah. So many. Just everything I think from ’60s and ’70s, and I used to go to the revival art houses in Chicago, The Music Boxes and these things and they’d just show festivals of films — of films from different directors and stuff and it would be like your sort of passport into the world and definitely bring history alive for you. You learned about cultures and other ways of seeing things so it was a big deal. Film is a powerful medium, a powerful thing for me as a kid. 

What is the most scariest or dangerous thing you’ve done in your life?
Well, being around gunfire, I’ve been around that a couple of times. That’s pretty scary. I’ve just been around people shooting at people — that’s happened a few times in an urban setting. 

Were you familiar with Roland Emmerich’s previous movies?
The last one I’d seen was The Patriot, which I thought was really, really good, with Heath Ledger and Mel Gibson.

None of his disaster movies?
 I hadn’t seen Day After Tomorrow...

After this huge experience, what are you going to make?
Nothing. I just finished some stuff and now I’m out of work but I’m fine. I just finished a lot of stuff, so I’m sure I’ll be promoting this for a while. And then just looking for another next thing — but I’ve got nothing on the books at the moment.