Public Enemies - Rory Cochrane and John Michael Bolger
The Los Angeles Film Festival hosted the premiere of Universal Pictures' 'Public Enemies,' a crime drama based on the pursuit of gangster John Dillinger. On the red carpet, Rory Cochrane and John Michael Bolger talked about working on this thriller.
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Transcript: Public Enemies - Rory Cochrane and John Michael Bolger
Rebecca Murray from About.com Hollywood Movies at the LA Premiere of Public Enemies.
Rory Cochrane - 'Carter Baum' in Public Enemies
So tell me about your role in this.
Rory Cochrane: "I just play one of the G men who are going after the bad guys. But probably people will think that those bad guys are good guys."
We're going to be cheering for the bad guys.
Rory Cochrane: "Well you know, Johnny Depp's very good looking. You'd probably want to cheer from him anyway."
Did you read the book?
Rory Cochrane: "No, I did not."
I was amazed when I read it how inept the guys were when they were first starting out. Is that portrayed in the film?
Rory Cochrane: "You mean the FBI? Yes. You know, yes, you are correct. They were under-gunned. They didn't have the gun power that the other guys had. They were always kind of one step behind. If you're a criminal, your mind is thinking in a way where you're always thinking how not to get caught where these guys are trying to catch you. But you know when that was developed, before that people could just go interstate and split. That's why they created this government brand, this unit to go after these guys with. But these guys, they brought them out of Yale and Harvard. They were bright guys but to catch a criminal, you've got to think like a criminal and they weren't those guys. They fell a little short."
It's 70 years later and we're still fascinated with that time period. Why is that?
Rory Cochrane: "I think it's a romantic period. I think that the economy is bad like it is today. I think that you know it's sort of a Robin Hood thing. I think people today would sort of admire someone who's doing that because they think that they're getting screwed over by the government. So I think that's why people have a fascination for it. It's a romantic kind of time in history where things were simpler. Now it's a lot harder to break into a bank."
Michael Mann as a director - amazing?
Rory Cochrane: "The guy is a phenomenal filmmaker. His attention to detail and the way that he sort of... I've worked with different filmmakers, some good, some okay, and I've never seen anybody dedicated the way that he's dedicated. It's like his life depends upon it. It's pretty neat to see. He'll change an extra's tie in the background to make sure his film is the way he wants it to be."
And you guys actually shot in the actual locations where a lot of this went on?
Rory Cochrane: "Yeah."
What's that like as actors to be actually be in that spot?
Rory Cochrane: "It's terrific. You're getting paid to shoot tommy guns and to drive 1930s cars. Who wouldn't want to do that? It's great, and it's great for the communities that we shot in as well. I mean it brought a huge amount of revenue to the town's we were in so it's sort of a kickback for them, and fun for them.
When you film, Johnny Depp is like Princess Diana. There's like 4,000 people lined up to see this guy. And he would meticulously go down the row and sign everybody's autograph. He was a real trooper in that and it was kind of amazing to see that after a 12, 14 hour day he would do that. And they'd wait in the hail with their babies! It's like, 'The baby don't care about anything.'"
John Michael Bolger - 'Martin Zarkovich' in Public Enemies
Tell me about working on this and specifically about working on a film set in the 1930s, because that's such a captivating time period.
John Michael Bolger: "I'm going to tell you what I told them. When I was a little boy I saw a James Cagney film called Public Enemy. And I knew I was going to be an actor and I didn't do anything about it until I was 27 years old. And my immigrant father, lord rest his soul, he never understood why you'd want to be an actor and do things for free and you had to struggle. And that was his way of loving me, and he did. The way life works I always knew that I would be an actor and I hoped that I would be in a James Cagney movie. When James Cagney died I went to his funeral and I was a pallbearer at his funeral, so I am actually living my dream right now. You're all a part of my dream. Because when I was a five year old kid sitting on my stoop in South Bronx I said to all my friends, 'I'm going to be an actor.' And they went, 'Yeah, right.' And here I am, so this is all a dream. I'm just hoping I'm not going to wake up in the W Hotel and it was all a dream."
That's amazing. This film has the same type of feel as his did.
John Michael Bolger: "It absolutely does, so it's quite incredible."