Emmanuel Itier: Are you having a blast?

James Marsden: I shouldn’t get paid for this. I wish I could say I constructed it this way, but it just so happened that these two projects came about around the same time and they were very similar. But yeah, I am having fun. To me, it was exciting to do both these movies because it was so different than Superman or X-Men or something like that. It just shows you in a completely different light. And I get to exercise a different skill set that normally I wouldn’t have to call upon, doing all the singing and everything. So both of them really were like I was preparing for a Broadway show or something, just very different. I’m glad it looks like I’m having fun because I actually am having fun.

EI: Are you preparing for a Broadway show?

JM: I think it’s something that eventually I would do and would love to do, but it’s exciting and terrifying at the same time. I’ve never done it, so that’s the terrifying part of it. Hopefully I’ll find something that suits me, but right now I’m struggling with the commitment of it. It’s a year or year and a half of your life, and I have a six-year-old and a two-year-old, and getting them into school in New York and all of these little practical things you have to think about when you go do something like that. But I’d rather go and do some small little production for three weeks that nobody sees, just to get my feet wet.

EI: Are you ready for kids thinking you are the perfect man?

JM: It’s funny because my son just started going to a new school and it’s in the valley, but it’s a private school. Unfortunately, I would rather have him go to a public school, but unfortunately, where we are, the public school is not great so he goes to this private school. When we drop my son off at school, it’s like, “Oh, there’s Dr. Doom from Fantastic Four!” There’s Gary Oldman and there is so and so, so there are a lot of kids at his school. We have Cyclops’s kid and this person’s kid… I think the kids just become immune to it. But for now, I am aware of the fact that this movie is coming out and it does cater to that age group. It’s always very flattering. I remember the first day of school, a lot of the kids had seen Hairspray so you heard a lot of “That’s Corny Collins!” I didn’t have to sing. I think that would embarrass them more than me, but it’s always flattering and always really nice to have people digging your work and enjoying what you are doing. It makes it worthwhile.

EI: Could this character be a cartoon?

JM: I think that’s why we were cast.

EI: Do you think in 15 years there might be no actors?

JM: Oh, hopefully not. I’d be out of a job. I think about that a lot. What was the Al Pacino movie, Simone, where they take likenesses from John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe and then they animate them… But I still think…I’m hoping the technology doesn’t progress.

EI: Simone totally flopped.

JM: Hopefully that’s a good barometer for the future. It is something. You look at movies like Shrek or Toy Story where these characters are given a life, really, even though they are toys or monsters or whatever. But behind that, you still have the real actors doing the voices, I guess, but I hope not. I hope it doesn’t get to the point… To me, there is still…there is a life, there’s a soul missing to some of the… It’s amazing technologically when they can render a human being to act, but there is a lifelessness to the eyes or something missing that we hopefully bring to it. Maybe there is going to be a day when we are going to be like silent film actors. Silent film actors, as soon as there became talkies, were out of a job, unless you were fortunate enough to have a good voice. That’s what Singin’ in the Rain is about—funny. But hopefully not. Hopefully there is a place for all of us.

EI: Is there a threat to theaters with the Internet?

JM: Well, it’s more difficult to be able to control the content. You’d think that Steven Spielberg would have the… it would be like Fort Knox to penetrate that set and somebody got ahold of props and stole stuff. They are always very vulnerable because you open yourself up to the public, shooting on location and things like that, and you like to think that everybody is in the best interest of the movie, but that’s not always the case. Everybody is going online looking for rumors of what happened in the film and, to be honest, it spoils the experience. But then there is the proliferation of content. If everything gets digitized, it can spread a lot easier. So there is going to have to be new laws about controlling the content and controlling rights and all that. And unfortunately, it jeopardizes my livelihood, our livelihood. We get paid because people go spend $8 or however many dollars a ticket to go see the movie and they buy the DVD and all of that, so when people are out there getting it for free…

EI: Is this the end of the movie studios?

JM: Oh no, I don’t think so. I like to think of it as being more opportunities for everybody instead of a monopoly. I think there is room for everybody.

EI: Which prince qualities do you have yourself?

JM: [Laughs] Well, I don’t know. I’m very different than the prince that I play in the movie. That was one of the reasons it was so much fun to play. I like to think of myself as not being very naïve, but I probably am. But this prince is very innocent, very naïve, and therefore it sort of excuses his conceit so he’s not just an arrogant, egotistical… He is, his arrogance comes from a place of innocence. His world is a simple world and there is a lot of clarity to it. Boy meets girl and they fall in love. But it was important to me to play the guy. I always talk about him having an innocent narcissism about him. He’s very full of himself, but somehow in a healthy way or in his mind in a healthy way and an inoffensive way. Like, his intentions are always good so it sort of excuses his ego.

EI: Did you go on more than one date with your wife before you got married?

JM: We knew each other for almost two years before we started dating. We were friends. It was very controversial. She was dating a friend of mine, so the date was…we knew each other for a long time and she was dating a friend of a friend of mine and they broke up, and then over the course of knowing each other for one and a half or two years, we got very close and very personal, and it just became like a light bulb. All of a sudden, I was attracted to this person regardless of what they looked like or whatever. If you ask my wife what she thought when she first met me, she’d say, “Nice guy.” And I thought the same thing of her, “Nice girl.” And then you have this friendship, this foundation of getting to know each other without having to go on dates where nobody really behaves like they are normal. I think it’s counter-intuitive. So we were fortunate enough to be friends before we ever officially got together.

EI: How do you describe true love?

JM: I think the nice thing about the movie, it says that, for some people, they might see somebody and they might say there is love at first sight and they live together happily ever after. I don’t know that it happens too often in this world, but I think what the movie says and what it achieves, and what it sets out to achieve is to say that a fairy tale or true love is all depending on what your definition is of it, and that sort of true love and those fairy tales and happily ever after and all that may come to you in a different form than you might have expected it to. It can come to you very unexpectedly. It can take the shape of something that you would never have conceived of and it can still be true love. It doesn’t have to take the form of classic birds singing, beautiful colors…

EI: What is your definition?

JM: I just think it’s somebody that you want to spend every moment of your life with if it were up to you. I think of my wife and I never don’t want to be around her. It’s somebody you can laugh with. That sounds so corny, it really does, but it’s true. When I think about humor, to be able to make fun of all of the sucky things in life, because there are a lot of bad things that happen, to make each other laugh, to really just want to be within the field of gravity of each other at all times, I think that’s true love. And I think to be able to persevere through difficult times, because it’s inevitable that you’ll have difficult times and there’ll be knocks and ups and downs. It’s never this. It’s always about this. And it’s actually down here that defines and tests your relationship and defines who you are as a couple. Of course, the tape recorders aren’t going to see me doing this!

EI: Growing together would be an ingredient?

JM: Yes, you said it better than I did–growing together. As someone said to me when we got married, be a soft place for the other person to land. You are there to catch your loved one when they need it and they are there for you when you need it.

EI: How would you describe the prince’s definition of love?

JM: I describe him, well, his definition of love, yes. But I always thought of the prince as being in love with being in love, if that makes sense. He’s in love with the idea of being in love. And to him, he would probably equate that with Giselle because he’s singing at the beginning, “I need to find true love, I’m sick of battling trolls, I want true love and someone to finish my duet,” was a line that I sang. I don’t think it’s in the movie now, but…so I’m looking for my love to finish my duet. And he hears her singing and it’s like, okay, an angel singing, okay, true love, this is it. But I like the idea of the prince being in love with the notion of being in love. I think that really fits him more than specifically Giselle. She takes the physical form of the object of his affection, but beyond that, I think he’s in love with being in love. There is a very small moment in the movie when Edward does allow himself to change, because if you look at him compared to Giselle, Giselle is more curious and open to her evolution in this real world, whereas Prince Edward just wants to get home. Things don’t come as easy to him in the real world. He’s getting dirty. He’s getting knocked over by bicycles, and he just wants to get back to the real world where it’s all very simple and very clear and very easy for him. But towards the end of the movie, his little journey that he goes on towards the end is what it feels like to put somebody else before himself. And that realization comes with the understanding that it might not be him and it might be this other guy, and that was the big change for him. It wouldn’t have worked: “What do you mean it’s not me? This is preposterous!” But that was his evolution, and in learning about that himself, about what it feels like to put someone else in front of himself, he opens himself up to being in love with somebody he might not have expected to be in love with and not thinking of himself.

EI: Any stories from growing up?

JM: Look, I’ve been really lucky too. I did the X-Men films. I grew up wanting to be a superhero. I think every boy does. I got to fulfill that. I think, for me, Superman and Spider-Man were the two that I was really into, but just the notion of having something super powerful, all those macho things that appeal to young boys… And then, in a fairy tale sense, I remember seeing…because I did grow up seeing Snow White and Cinderella, and all these classic Disney fairy tales. And as much as I enjoyed them, the girls are going to like the Cinderellas more than the guys are. So when I saw Sleeping Beauty for the first time, the prince in that film actually got to wield the sword and carry the shield and slay the dragon. So there was a little bit of testosterone. Maybe when I was young, I liked the idea of being the savior of something, of going and saving the princess. I wasn’t that crazy about wearing the outfit, and I can safely say that I’m still not that crazy about wearing it.

EI: You had to walk in tights the whole movie?

JM: Yeah, I did, but I remember the moment when I was on top of the bus in Time Square, and these are all tourists, they are not extras–those are all people from all over the world who came to see Chicago on Broadway and they just happened to stumble upon a production. I remember standing there with thousands of people watching, because you can’t control the crowd. They didn’t shut it down. I kept hearing people like, “Is that Cyclops?” I thought, I can be just completely red-faced and embarrassed and think of this as a nightmare, or I can embrace it and enjoy it and think, when am I ever going to get to do this again? And that’s really what I did. I thought, I’ve really got to have fun with this because, first of all, my character has to have fun with it. And second, again, who can claim this? Who’s done this before? I’m stabbing a bus with a sword in puffy sleeves and tights in the middle of Time Square.

EI: How many takes?

JM: There were lots of different set-ups, so each set-up has a certain number of takes, but I think we did four of the moving bus where I was actually harnessed in and attached to the top of the bus so I didn’t fall off. That was actually my biggest fear, that I was actually going to jump off the bus and slip and fall on my face in front of thousands of people.

EI: How do you know what to do?

JM: They do section it off and there are boundaries. They do get the NYPD to help stave off people and set boundaries for the shot, but it’s a big area, and outside of those boundaries, anybody can linger and watch as long as they want. So you were kept at bay and there was a good distance between the production and the general public. But that doesn’t mean they can’t yell at you. We were never accosted or anything like that, but there were a few times when we would walk back to our trailers and we would have to walk through the general public. But for some reason, in NYC, they didn’t really give a shit. It’s true. I think most people just kind of chalked it up to some Broadway show. That’s Broadway central there, and a bunch of cops were there. But again, it’s also a lot of tourists. It was me and the Naked Cowboy. He was there. But somehow, if you are in certain places…if we were shooting that movie in Des Moines, Iowa, it would be different. People would be wondering what we are wearing. But in New York, it was like, excuse me, I’ve got to get to work.

EI: Are you in the Wolverine story?

JM: No, not that I’m aware of. This is for a movie I’m getting ready to start with Cameron Diaz, called The Box. It’s a psychological thriller based on a Twilight Zone episode, directed by Richard Kelly, who did Donnie Darko. I start that in two weeks. It takes place in the mid ‘70s, so Richard said to just grow out as much as you can and we’ll see what we want to keep. He’s a good guy. But to my knowledge, the Wolverine thing takes place before the X-Men movies. I could be wrong. I’ve learned not to speculate on these movies because I’ll always get it wrong and it will be all over the Internet. It’s an origin story or something like that, so it wouldn’t make sense unless he could see the future.

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