Paul Giamatti: Why I'm Not Brad Pitt

He once joked he was a ‘zeta male’, and Paul Giamatti, 43, has made a career of playing disappointed, angsty men. For years his name was firmly in the file marked ‘supporting character actors’, with small roles in movies such as ‘Donnie Brasco’ and ‘Saving Private Ryan’ – until in 2004 ‘Sideways’ made him an unlikely star.

In his latest film, ‘Barney’s Version’, released next week, he plays a producer of slap-and-tickle TV, whose life’s reward is his marriage to his third wife (Rosamund Pike, pictured with Giamatti). The film is adapted from a novel by Mordecai Richler – the ‘Canadian Philip Roth’.

You often play moody, angsty roles. Does it come naturally?
‘I don’t know that it comes naturally! [Laughing]. I hope it doesn’t. Often they’re the more interesting, complicated characters. And honestly, often it’s what people want me to do. They see you do something and want it again – a lot of it is that.’

It’s hard to think of a film where you’ve gone the other way – with a full throttle alpha male. Have you?
‘It depends on what you mean by alpha male. I did a movie called “Duplicity”, this weird spy movie where I played a super high-powered CEO. He’s kind of a ridiculous asshole. I suppose he was the most alpha maley. Except my thing is that
I think an alpha male like that has got to have insecurities and weaknesses that are making him behave like such an asshole. I tend to undermine it.’

In the new film Barney is angsty but not so repressed – he’s angry and funny. A departure of sorts?
‘Yeah, I guess this guy is sort of neurotic, but I didn’t think about him like that. He is more aggressive and proactive than a lot of the guys I’ve done. His aggressive nature was interesting to me. He’s unpleasant. And I would have been happy if he’d been more unpleasant. I’m okay with playing unpleasant people.’

The set-up is that Barney has three wives for the film’s three acts. So you play him from 20-odd to his sixties. Was it hard to play older?
‘Actually the younger stuff was the trickiest. I mean I never looked like I was 30 – I always looked older. When we were first talking about how they were going to do the progression of ageing, they were excited. The wig guy said: “What’s great is that as you lose your hair when you’re an old man, we can just use your own hair.”’

Barney gets Alzheimer’s. How much of his bad behaviour can be explained by that retrospectively?
‘A lot of the erratic stuff – which doesn’t let the guy off the hook necessarily. You can see it creeping through the movie a little bit. Like the 3.30am call he doesn’t remember making. I’m not sure you can blame all his behaviour on that. I liked the way it was worked into the script as it went along. And hopefully it’s not sentimental. It’s not a movie about Alzheimer’s – I’m glad it’s not.’

Has it made you fear getting old?
‘I was having this whole Alzheimer’s thing recently and somebody told me not to worry because it’s not about losing your car keys, it’s about forgetting what they are. That’s the difference. I lose keys all the time, but I remember what they’re for.’

For years you worked in theatre. In films you were a supporting, character actor. Now that’s changed, do you feel more relaxed, or do other pressures – about making wrong choices – kick in?
‘It’s nice to have choice. I don’t know that I ever particularly worried about making wrong choices. As long as I was working, I was okay. Seriously. I still don’t think about making wrong choices. A guy like me has a very different career from somebody like Brad Pitt. I won’t ever have any of that pressure, you know?’



Interview: Cath Clarke

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