Jennifer’s Body is quite similar in tone to the Sam Raimi film that came out this year, Drag Me To Hell. Before that film you’d been in his last five films. Were you disappointed not to make it six?
Well, yeah, that actually turned out to be a scheduling difficulty. Sam did want me to do that, and I very much wanted to, but by the time it came round to me it was too late to try and work the schedule out. Yeah, that was a disappointment. I was hoping to keep my record of Sam Raimi films, my string, intact. Knock wood, I’ll start a new string with Spider-Man 4, which we’ll be shooting next winter.
Do you enjoy that collaboration, working with people you know?
Yeah, absolutely. It’s really nice to start a project with the comfort level already built in. And certainly that’s the case with Sam, with Jason Reitman, and with Ethan and Joel Coen. Yeah, there’s a real nice feeling of coming home, whether it’s a bunch of sequels like the Spider-Man films, or just another feature.
J Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man films is such a memorable role for you now. Yet despite those films being so big, your scenes don’t feel that scripted. Do you have much scope to play around and improvise?
Yeah, probably more than almost any feature work I’ve done. We start out with the script, and Sam asks for a little input, or some basic ideas, and then when the writers are done with their job Sam and I get in a room, sometimes with one or more of his brothers, and Tobey [Maguire, who plays Peter Parker] and Liz Banks [Spider-Man’s Betty Brant], and whoever’s scene it is, and we really have the opportunity to play and improvise. The finished product in those films tends to be maybe 60 per cent what was on paper and 40 per cent what we come up with. So those are some of the most fun projects to work on, where you have that freedom.
Are there things out there still that you’d like to do, in terms of working with filmmakers or doing a particular genre?
I don’t really have a list of filmmakers or actors that I’m particularly dying to work with. If it’s Diablo Cody or Sam Raimi or somebody like that, I’ll pretty much sign up to whatever it is they’re doing. But I’ve got a lot of great people I have worked with, I’ve been very lucky, and I’m just hoping that continues. Also, I’m like the least film buff person of almost anyone I know. My parents in Montana are actually more in tune with what’s going on in show business than I am. I just basically sit around and hope that the phone rings and try to live a relatively normal life in the insanity that is Southern California.
Jennifer’s Body is released nationwide 6 November from 20th Century Fox.
