UNITED KINGDOM: Paul Giamatti talks about his Golden Globe nominated performance in Barney's Version

Record ID: 788974

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Paul Giamatti talks about his Golden Globe nominated performance in Barney's Version
  • Date: 29th December 2010
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR PAUL GIAMATTI, SAYING: "There's a lot of political stuff in it that, you know, was very important when it was written and still has some meaning to a lot of French Canadians and things like that. But I think they were smart to take it out, 'cause I just don't think it would have... it wasn't that dramatic. It was funny and things like that. No, it wasn't that dramatic. No, they [Richler's family] seemed pretty pleased with it."
  • Embargoed: 13th January 2011 12:00
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  • Location: United Kingdom, United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Reuters ID: LVA8KC3EKGTABEHP5UCL63EINLAG
  • Story Text: US actor Paul Giamatti was shortlisted for Best Actor for both the Golden Globe and the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) awards for his comedic yet touching performance in "Barney's Version."
    Giamatti who takes the lead as Barney Panofsky in the screen adaptation of renowned Canadian author Mordecai Richler's novel, "Barney's Version", talked recently about his character and the film in London.
    "Barney's Version", which is said to be based on the author, is a picaresque and touching tale of the politically-incorrect, fully-lived life of the impulsive, irascible and fearlessly blunt Barney Panofsky, a Jewish American and seemingly ordinary man who lives an extraordinary life.
    Barney is extremely self-aware when it comes to his own peculiarities and personal failings, self-deprecating to a fault. However, not only is he a true romantic, he is also capable of all kinds of acts of gallantry, generosity and goodness when he least expects it.
    The warts-and-all story is candid confessional, told from Barney's point of view, after a cop-turned-writer, Constable O'Hearne (Mark Addy), publishes a book about Barney's best friend Boogie's yet-unsolved disappearance, a possible murder for which Barney remains the prime suspect.
    Richler's book spans four decades and two continents, taking readers through the different 'acts' of his unusual history, and following his three unsuccessful marriages.
    In the film version, there is his first wife, Clara, (Rachelle Lefevre), a flame-haired, fragrantly unfaithful free spirit with who Barney lives 'la vie de boheme' in Rome. The "Second Mrs. P.," (Minnie Driver), is a wealthy Jewish Princess who shops and talks incessantly, barely noticing that Barney is not listening. It is at their lavish wedding that Barney meets, and starts pursuing, Miriam (Rosamund Pike), his third wife, the mother of his two children, and his true love.
    With his father, Izzy (Dustin Hoffman), a politically-incorrect retired cop as his faithful sidekick, Barney takes us through the many highs, and a few too many lows of his life, until Alzheimer's Disease takes hold.
    Barney is a delightful contradiction. Asked what makes us identify with him so easily, Giamatti said:
    "I think a lot of people would like to be able to be a guy like this who really doesn't care what anybody thinks about him. He just goes after people if he wants to."
    Giamatti said far from making the role more challenging to play when Barney later suffers from Alzheimer's, the actor admitted it freed him to portray some of the extremities.
    "No, the Alzheimer's [Disease] allowed me to actually enter into some of the extremities, sometimes, because you could just behave really outrageously and, you know, I would know that I didn't really need any cap on it because of what was happening to him," said Giamatti.
    Barney is not very successful at marriage, even though he finds the love of his life in Miriam. Giamatti said the film was not about Barney trying to find happiness in the perfect relationship.
    "It's not about everything going suddenly great, just because you happen to meet the right person. People are still difficult. He's still who he is. It doesn't change him that much," said Giamatti.
    Asked what influence Barney's dad had on his life, and what it was like having Hoffman playing his father, after Hoffman was said to be the original choice in the lead role, had the film been made years earlier when Hoffman was younger, Giamatti said:
    "I couldn't tell whether he actually was a lot like this character, or whether that was something he was doing, some, you know, kind of thing he was tapping into. But, you know, when you act with him, it is that much fun. I mean, he keeps it incredibly lively."
    Giamatti found having family and friends on set and starring in the film very useful, especially having Richler's son involved.
    "It's weird sometimes, you know, and it can be tricky. I was, essentially, in some ways, playing this guy's father, which is a little odd, but. No, they [Richler's family] were very nice and mostly it was nice having them around because they were so enthusiastic and positive about it, you know. It made you feel you were doing the right, you were doing it the right way. But I actually watched some footage of him [Richler], too, which was very helpful, 'cause it is sort of based on him, so some of the physicality and stuff as a character I took from him, and from his son [who] was kind of like that, too, so it was good to have around and study."
    Giamatti said there was a lot more political content in the novel that he believes would not have translated well, outside of Montreal, and that he was glad when it was not included, although some of it was funny.
    Barney is described as a 'true mensch' in the film's production notes, and when asked exactly what would make Barney happy in life, Giamatti said:
    "I don't know that there is much that's gonna make the guy happy. I don't think, again, I don't know it's a movie about a guy... He's a guy trying to be happy, but I don't know it's a movie about a guy who finds a way to be happy. You know, I don't now that there's a whole lot that would make this guy happy. I think that there's just some kind of bottomless dissatisfaction with things, with himself that I don't know he'd ever be able to fix."
    First published in 1977, Richler's novel is nearly 400 pages in length, written when the author was nearing 70 years-old and feeling intimations of mortality.
    A notorious satirist and political gadfly who hailed from Montreal's Mile End area, Canada, and passed away in 2001, Richler was a controversial social commentator who managed to ruffle a few feathers with his strong opinions on politics, religion and society; he even managed to be totally despised at one stage by all three communities in Montreal: French Canadians, the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Americans) and the Jews.
    It was Producer Robert Lantos' desire to bring his old collaborator Richler's 'Falstaffian' character to the screen, even placing Lantos in the novel - such as the reference to Barney's successful television company, Totally Unnecessary Productions. Lantos appears as himself in the film.
    Not only did Lantos play a part, but also many of Richler's friends, colleagues and fans make cameo appearances; Quebec's greatest director, Denys Arcand, appears as the maitre d' at Barney's favourite restaurant.
    Giamatti is known for his leads in "Sideways" (2004) as Miles, and more recently, in "Cold Souls" (2009), playing himself, Paul Giamatti, an actor who feels bogged down by his participation in a production of Chekov's play, "Vanya".
    "Barney's Version" is due for release on January 28, 2011.
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