MUST LOVE DOGS
An Interview with John Cusack

For a generation of women, he'll always be known as Lloyd Dobler. The sensitive guy who can hold a stereo over his head. Thanks to a string of romantic comedies like "Amercia's Sweethearts," "Serendipity," and "High Fidelity," he's stil a poor man's knight in shining armor. With "Must Love Dogs," co-starring Diane Lane, Cusack adds to his dream-boyfriend resume. He sat down with LatinoReview to talk about his latest film and the difficulties with the genre in making a good romantic comedy. Below is what he had to say to us:

You’ve done a couple of these romantic comedies before, what was it about this one that struck you as different, or appealed to you?

John: I was going to go off and do a film in Europe, and the way things happen in the film business so many times, it fell apart at the last minute, and I thought, ‘I’m going to be sitting home right now not working,’ and I hadn’t had any of my own projects ready, and I then I had a call saying, ‘You’ve got to meet this guy Gary Goldberg. He really wants to talk to you.’ So I went and met him for lunch and he seemed like a great guy, and I read the script. So it just sort of came out of the blue, and they asked me to do it, but I thought the combination of Gary and Diane and Chris Plummer – that’s a pretty great pedigree, so I was kind of happy to be asked to join such a great group.

Do you have a favorite movie like your character?

John: Like in the movie? Yeah, I’ve watched Sweet Smell of Success like that for a long time. I don’t know why, but that movie was fascinating to me, and there are certain pop songs I listen to, and once I get them into my head I listen to them two or three hundred times, I just keep going. I’ll get a list of stuff and I’ll just keep doing it, so I am actually like the character in that way. So Sweet Smell of Success, I did that with – I think everybody does that with movies, don’t they? Good ones. But nothing quite as obsessive as that.

A lot of people face that dilemma of being single, and where do you meet somebody, and in this modern day and age it’s the internet that people turn to, so can you talk about your own relationship to the internet, also have your friends and family tried to fix you up?

John: Yeah, all of my sisters pretty much around the clock have tried to fix me up with the wrong women, and the first part – I’m not really that much of an internet person, I use it final draft for screenplays, and then e mail, and then I call my assistant all the time and say, ‘My computer’s down, can you have someone come fix it.’ And then she comes by and they turn it on, and that was the problem with the computer. So I’m not really that good with it, but I do the Google thing where you can Google your name and then find out what the press is saying about you, I’ve done that a few times just to see if they’re saying anything – but what I did, I did check out some of those online dating things and some of those chat rooms, and I was amazed at how intense that is.

Do you think it has gotten impersonal?

John: It is pretty bizarre, but the whole instant messaging – text thing, it can replace the phone, but you can keep things going it seems like. You can stay in touch with people, even if they are all over the world, so in a sense it’s great because you can just write anybody a note any time and it seems fantastic. But there are more and more of those ads for these things – we’re going to find your perfect mate, you put all your information with us. There’s more and more of those things on TV, isn’t there, late at night when we’re sitting there not trying to sleep. They’re all over.

Since your character believes in old traditions, like the wooden boat, what are some of the traditions you hold on to and believe in, in spite of the bigger, newer things that come out?

John: Ummm, let’s see. New deal is alright, I don’t mind that one. A certain kind of filmmaking, it might be they’re nostalgic, or committed depending on how you look at it, but a certain kind of filmmaking with some restraint I guess in it I think is always pretty interesting. I like vinyl records too, I like some old records that way, I think stuff like that.

What are some of the difficulties with the genre in making a good romantic comedy?

John: What I think was so great about what Gary was, and I really didn’t know Gary, I just knew that he was this kind of this impresario of television, he’s like James L. Brooks or one of those guys who made those great comedies and character-based comedies that will work forever in television, but, yeah, he really loves character, and I think from working in television, the process keeps evolving with Gary, so he’s always writing it, and re-writing it, and re-tweaking it, and throwing something out, so it’s all based on – he just loves characters. I think he found the book and loved the idea of doing this story with Diane, but then he just kinds of falls in love with the characters and then just keeps trying to make their world more interesting, and more interesting, and he’s not precious at all, he’s really a terrific – I heard great things about him, but he really exceeded all my expectations that way, because he just stands there and he goes, ‘I love this guy, I love this girl,’ and ‘how do we make this better?’ and ‘What do we do here?’ I think if you just approach it from being interested in the characters and not just interested in the devices or the plot twists, because obviously in a romantic comedy you know that these people are going to meet, then they’re going to get separated, and then they are going to come back together, so it’s really just fleshing out the lives in between. Any genre can be done well or bad I guess.

I like the contrast between your character and his best friend – your character seems a lot more romantic and he’s more matter of fact about it – do you think of yourself as a romantic kind of guy?

John: I would probably vacillate in between the two, depending on your mood, right, or what’s going on in your life.

When you checked out the dating websites, did you create a profile for yourself, and if not what characteristics would you put in there for other people to know about you?

John: Boy, I could go so many different ways with that answer. Let me think, which way do I go? I think I need to drink more coffee. What characteristics would I put into a dating profile? ‘White Supremacist!’ No, I’m sorry, let me take that back. That wasn’t’ right. I don’t know if I would ever put stuff online.

If you did, without saying you’re a huge movie star, because that’s just not fair.

John: And not true. What would my profile … I would probably put ‘partial insomniac,’ so I stay up late half my life, what else would I put? I don’t know, what would I put? I don’t think I would ever put my information online, I can’t even think of it.

If you had to sell yourself.

John: Why do I have to?

Because you want to get dates.

John: Online? I don’t want to get a date online. I’m trying to think of what I would put online. I’d probably put something just really funny and absurd, and then if somebody approached me with something that was equally funny, then I would know I would like them. I would try to be funny, and then if someone was funny back then I would think, ‘Oh there must be something interesting there.’ What would I put? ‘Nice person, sometimes brooding, sometimes nice,’

Voluptuous?

John: No, not voluptuous. ‘Black Irish basket case.’ (He laughs)

Voluptuous White Supremacist – I like that – I think I’ve got a headline. It’s always interesting to see the choices you make, it’s hard to pin down a John Cusack role because you’ll do a Must Love Dogs, but you’ll do a Max – didn’t you go from this to A Doll’s House?

John: No, I haven’t done that one yet.

What does enter into those choices – is it a one for them and one for me creative experience?

John: Yeah, but this one, as I said, came out of the blue, and I really didn’t know what to expect, but I knew doing something with Christopher Plummer and Diane Lane and Stockard Channing, that’s not really a ‘one for them’ kind of a movie. I didn’t know what the experience was going to be because it came very fast, out of the blue, but it was really one of the most lovely times I’ve had making a film. The group of people they got together were so nice, and Gary set such an amazing tone, and he made it all seem sort of effortless, but he really just loved the characters so it was kind of a joy to come in – it was very light, it’s a very fun movie, and it’s supposed to be a really fun movie, but it didn’t feel like I was going off to do some Diet Pepsi action movie and make some corporate mark, it really just felt like a movie about these characters, and everybody approached it with a lot of love, so it was really a wonderful time to go work on a film. I was just very, very lucky to be wanted. Sometimes they just come to you, but this was just I think luck, I was just very lucky to get asked to work with these people. And then sometimes you take it because you think, ‘if I do this kind of movie maybe it will help me get the movies that I want to get made, made, or help my profile out, it’s kind of a dance you do with the business. This had the combination of being a really fun movie and I think that ? will be really commercial, so that’s just dumb luck to get ask to be in this.

You said that first dates are like the audition process, they are both nightmarish –

John: Did I say that?

That’s what’s in our notes.

John: Alright, then I must have said it.

Have you had any nightmare first date experiences that you can share with us?

John: Yes and no. Yes I’ve had them, and no I won’t tell you about them.

How did you relate to your character with things like going on a first date?

John: Some of them you can know that stuff, where you actually start talking over dinner and then you realize that you’ve been talking a long time and the person is looking at you with the face of utter incomprehension, and not laughing at your jokes, and then you realize that you still haven’t ordered yet. That’s not so pleasant. But it’s kind of awkward, it’s hard to fathom someone and everybody’s coming at it with – it’s all ripe with possibilities, is this going to be something great or not, and sometimes the pressure of that is kind of insanely comic.

What do you think the dating scene will be like ten years from now?

John: I don’t know, maybe there’ll be people just scan their chips with each other and get their information. I don’t know that much about it. I didn’t even know that blogs were as crazy as they were – just the internet itself is so wild, I guess you have people be able to go into chat rooms maybe and see each other with cameras and give each other body scans, who knows. It’ll get good, right?

Do you think people are more dishonest today, they put false profiles on the internet

John: They are probably as dishonest on the internet as they are in real life, right? They’re probably a bunch of people who are really honest online – don’t you think? They’d be about the same ratio of liars on the internet, because people go onto bars and talk trash all the time, and present false versions of themselves, and then you realize who they are. But it is real weird, you can hide behind the typewriter.

You mentioned about men taking a break in-between relationships, would you say that you do as well? Do you want to give any advice to people watching this film?

John: Do I have dating advice? No. No, I don’t have any dating advice, except endurance is more important than truth. I don’t know what they means, but it sounded cool.

How much input did you have on the script as a screenwriter, because your character seems very reminiscent of some of the speeches, the way that you would speak in other films?

John: Oh really, like I sampled myself? When I talked to Gary, when I met him I said because it was a little bit of a small (?) part, he goes, ‘Well, if we’re going to have you do it, we’ve got to make something of it,’ and then that’s his thing, his process is to just get an actor and then write, and re-write and work on the set, and he’s always bringing new pages on the set, so I came with some ideas and then he wanted to go with them. That was kind of how he wanted to do it, and I like to work that way too. And I have ideas.

Do you have an example of how you change something?

John: I’m trying to think of stuff. It’s just stuff I worked on with Gary, and we came up with. I can’t remember. Suzanne Todd would remember.

Dr. Zhivago’s internet ads

John: Okay I doctored (?) the internet ad, something about Dr. Zhivago, I think the word Zhivago is inherently funny, and I don’t know if saying it funny (?) so if you say it more than five or six times it becomes funnier. It just seems that way to me. It somehow rolls off the tongue. Some notions about – the idea that sometimes when you go through a break up you kind of get your heart stepped on, then in a way it allows you to be more open for the next one. That seemed really true to me. It’s like what’s the function of all that heartache and it seems to be to open you up. So we sort of played around with that idea and put it into the text, just to give Jake a little bit more depth, or make him sound like people who kind of try to grapple with all that stuff all the time. I think that’s what we did, we just tried to flesh it out.

Can you talk about working With Diane Lane?

John: Yeah, sure. I’d always sort of wanted to work with her so, as I said I was very lucky to get asked to do this because I’d been following her, probably had a crush on her since “A Little Romance” (he says Modern Romance but he means A Little Romance) when she was thirteen and I was about the same age probably.

Did you two rehearse or just automatically click on every scene?

John: We rehearsed them but it was more just like kind of roll in and do it and be responsive to each other and available. She’s such a gifted woman that it was really nice to work

Did you improvise a lot doing scenes with Diane?

John: I think Gary would have it on paper and he’d be rewriting it a lot and you come up with an idea. I would do it that way and then I’d say ‘Well, let’s just do one where I say anything that comes out of my mouth’ and we’d do that. Sometimes Gary would laugh and sometimes he would sort of look at me like I was insane and I don’t know how much of that he used. We improvised a bit but there was a lot on the page and the actors kind of just went with it and went with their impulses. It’s kind of nice to do that in comedy because it’s really all about the character so it’s not like it’s a heist movie where they have to be at this moment and do this and crack the safe and get the number. Character drives plot so it’s all about these characters and what’s going on with them and what they’re feeling so there is room for improvisation in a film like that. Gary likes to work that way. I think he’s worked with actors before who like to riff.

Did you know anything about building boats?

John: No, nothin’, nothing, at all but I loved it. I liked that he was making these….. then we came up with some of that stuff about the boat being a time machine and that connection back and holding on to that kind of purity. That was one of the riffs we came up with.

Besides acting what interests do you have in your life now? Any new interests or goals?

John: I have some of the same older interests and goals, I want to do a film on the life of Edgar Casey which I’m going to do, I’m hoping with Revolution and I have a couple of screenplays I’ve written so to continue working as a filmmaker and I’d like to go to the Far East for some reason. I haven’t been there and I’d like to go there. I haven’t really checked out that part of the world. A goal is to go there and see that. I hope to go to Chicago to see the Cubs in the World Series in the next five years. I’m really hoping for that while we have a window of four starting pitchers and they’re in their prime now. I believe this will happen in the next five years. That is my goal, to be in Chicago at Wrigley Field in October.

Do you have a dog? Do you like dogs?

John: I do. I do. I had one but it kind of went with a sort of divorce, not a divorce. I’ve never been married but I had one before. She got the dog.

What kind of dog was it?

John: I’m not at liberty to discuss it. (laughter) But, I love dogs. I grew up with them but it’s hard because I’ve been in Vancouver and I’ve got to go to Bulgaria so it’s hard unless you have one of those little ones that you can bring, that you can fold up into your wallet (laughter). It’s hard to travel with dogs.

What are you shooting in Vancouver?

John: I’m shooting this film called “The Martian Child” with myself and my sister Joan and Amanda Peet’s in it and Oliver Platt and [sounds like: Sofio Canado] and I’m making it with the director who I made “Max” with and it’s about a guy who adopts a kid with kind of special needs. It’s a really nice story.

And what’s in Bulgaria?

John: I’m making a film with Morgan Freeman called “The Contract” with Bruce Beresford. Kind of a hostage drama kind of thing.

Are you the hostage or the hostage-taker?

John: It sort of switches back and forth but Morgan plays a bad guy which is pretty interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that so I said ‘alright, I’m goin’ to Bulgaria’ because he’s one of those actors kind of like Christopher Plummer or Stockard Channing or Diane or any of those people where if somebody said ‘come on in and they’re going to read the phone book from L to M’, I would just listen because they are so interesting to watch those actors.

How much of your sense of realism do you have to depart with in this film? We don’t know where Jake gets enough money to afford that great woodshop and all the tools he’s working with if he’s not selling any boats.

John: Did they cut that line out? See that was a tactical error. The story was that he had a start-up business that did well and now he was doing his thing but I didn’t know that that didn’t make the cut. Humm.

When you are creating a character do you say, well the audience is just going to have to accept some things about your character?

John: Yeah but then, mostly, you try to make it as real as you can. Real life seems to be even stranger than most movies. I don’t know about that one little plot point but the rest of it seems to be rooted in everyday life. But, I guess there is that element of suspension of disbelief though when you go to any movie.

What was it like working with Christopher Plummer? Is it different working with an actor who has been around so long than with somebody newer?

John: Yes and no. I think talent is talent. I’m working with this little kid in Vancouver and he’s this remarkable, Bobby Coleman, this remarkable little guy and he has these fantastic instincts so, in that sense, it’s kind of the same thing. You’re working with the same kind of energy but yeah, Chris Plummer, I’ve admired him and seen him on stage and so many of his films. He’s kind of an extraordinary person to work with. The problem is when you’re in a scene with somebody like that you want to stop the scene and just watch and then he’s going to look at you like ‘what are you doing’? But I was thrilled that I got to do a scene with him.

You mentioned Edgar Casey. Do you have a strong interest in the paranormal?

John: I have an interest in that sort of thing. I’m very interested in that and then my father and I started working on a screenplay before he passed away so I have a connection with my father too. I just think the world is fascinating. I’m interested in what you can learn from it.

Have you had any paranormal experiences yourself?

John: A few but paranormal sounds like UFO but I’ve had experiences where I’m pretty sure there’s more going on than [what’s on the surface]. Instincts and intuition things and things where people have known stuff they’re not supposed to know. You wake up and go ‘something’s up with somebody’ and it’s happened. Just little connections to people where you’re hardwired in ways you don’t really know about or aren’t conscious of. I’ve just studied that stuff for a while and I think he’s a fascinating creature. Houdini and all these people tried to debunk him and nobody could so he definitely had a connection to this other world, whatever that is, that is kind of irrefutable because he was studied and there’s 40 books written about him and there’s a whole institute in Virginia Beach. He’s a fascinating figure. Spencer Tracy wanted to do a movie about him for a long time. They’ve been trying to do a movie about him for a while so I’m going to do that one.

A lot of guys have seen you as a sort of dating guru though your movies. Do you think that’s still the case?

John: What!?

Well, from Better Off Dead and Say Anything to High Fidelity and movies like this you’re always the guy with the ideas about romance.

John: Yeah, but they’re wrong! It’s always wrong. I mean High Fidelity is about somebody who finally gets beaten info submission with his Peter Pan syndrome I guess.

Do you find that that’s the role that most guys identify with?

John: I don’t know. I don’t talk to too many guys about it. No, I think, I’ve probably just explored that territory more I guess.

Do you see it as a kind of type casting or are you happy to continue doing it?

John: I don’t think of it that way, as type casting. I think if I get offered to do a movie about relationships I’m going to download as much of what I think about them into a part or what seems funny to me about it or what’s on my mind about it. So, if I get offered those parts and think they can be good…. It seems to me that one thing people do over and over again is try to figure out how to get married, stay married, fall in love, how to rekindle all this stuff. It seems to me to be a pretty eternal theme so I don’t know if you can get typecast from making movies about men relating to women. It seems to be what is going on on the planet a lot.

Have you learned anything from your characters?

John: Yes. Somehow I think you do. I think you can practice a little bit in the film if you get more than one take. ‘Let’s see, what if it were like that’?

You don’t find yourself using any of your movie lines?

John: I hope not. I would hope not, no.

Do you have a good dating experience?

John: Well, they usually ended up in relationships.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done for love?

John: I flew to Europe to see somebody that I didn’t really know on a whim and had kind of a wild adventure. That was pretty good.

Were you ever approached by the Mission Impossible 3 people?

John: Yeah, I think they talked about that.

But you’re not going to do it?

John: No. I don’t think I have time. I’m working right now.