Emile Hirsch Interview, MILK

MoviesOnline caught up with Emile Hirsch recently to talk about his new film, “Milk,” directed by Gus Van Sant. Shot on location in San Francisco, the film charts the last eight years of gay activist and politician Harvey Milk’s life.

In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay rights; he forged coalitions across the political spectrum. From senior citizens to union workers, Harvey Milk changed the very nature of what it means to be a fighter for human rights and became, before his untimely death in 1978, a hero for all Americans.

While living in New York City, he turns 40. Looking for more purpose, Milk (Sean Penn) and his lover Scott Smith (James Franco) relocate to San Francisco, where they found a small business, Castro Camera, in the heart of a working-class neighborhood. With his beloved Castro neighborhood and beautiful city empowering him, Milk surprises Scott and himself by becoming an outspoken agent for change. With vitalizing support from Scott and from new friends like young activist Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), Milk plunges headfirst into the choppy waters of politics. Bolstering his public profile with humor, Milk’s actions speak even louder than his gift-of-gab words.

When Milk is elected supervisor for the newly zoned District 5, he tries to coordinate his efforts with those of another newly elected supervisor, Dan White (Josh Brolin). But as White and Milk’s political agendas increasingly diverge, their personal destinies tragically converge. Milk’s platform was and is one of hope – a hero’s legacy that resonates in the here and now.

In 2007, Emile Hirsch garnered attention for his captivating performance in “Into the Wild,” directed by Sean Penn. Based on the best-selling book by Jon Krakauer and adapted for the screen by Penn, “Into the Wild” starred Hirsch as real-life adventurer Christopher McCandless. The portrayal earned him the National Board of Review award for Breakthrough Performance by an Actor; the Rising Star Award from the Palm Springs International Film Festival; Gotham and Critics’ Choice Award nominations for Best Actor; and two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, in the lead actor category as well as the ensemble category. Hirsch’s additional film credits include two more true-life stories, Nick Cassavetes’ “Alpha Dog” and Catherine Hardwicke’s “Lords of Dogtown.” Other recent features include the Wachowski Brothers’ “Speed Racer,” “Imaginary Heroes,” “The Girl Next Door,” “The Mudge Boy,” “The Emperor’s Club,” “The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys,” and most recently, Ang Lee’s “Taking Wookstock.”

Emile Hirsch is a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about his new movie, “Milk”:

MoviesOnline: How weird was it to work with Sean not as a director?

EMILE HIRSCH: It was fun because he wasn't in charge (laughs). No, it was a little bit awkward at first just because, you know, it's like being asked to play a basketball game with your coach. It's your colleague. "How is this going to pan out?"  It's like if Tom Cruise and Tom Skerritt ended up lying together at the end of Top Gun, what would that have been like, you know?

MoviesOnline: Did you feel that Sean felt awkward too?

EMILE HIRSCH: Um, I think we were both like, “What's this going to be like?”  You know, I'm surprised they gave me the part in the film. I'm surprised Sean allowed it. He must have been so sick of me after Into the Wild. Plus, he had to edit the thing too. I was able to just shoot the movie. He had to stay in that editing room and splice my face over and over.

MoviesOnline: You're such a different person in this. It's another total transformation. What do you do to alter your body so much in all the roles?

EMILE HIRSCH: It was more of just hanging around Cleve and just letting some sort of, you know, osmosis go on. Just getting to know him, being around him, and just kind of trying to understand his perspective on the world. He's had such an interesting life that it was very…the research itself was compelling.  So I had a good time getting to know him and understand how he came to San Francisco, how he got involved with Harvey Milk. How he got involved with kind of being more of like a militant activist. What it was like for him in Europe when he saw the riots, the gay uprising.

MoviesOnline: How daunting was it to play someone who was hanging around?

EMILE HIRSCH: It definitely added like a little bit of anxiety, you could say. But at the same time, he was so helpful. It's kind of like seeing the perfect blueprints to an amazing house and being able to look at them and having all the answers to a quiz right in front of you. And your anxiety goes, “Well I hope that I'm not going to fuck this house up that I have the perfect blueprint.”   I don't know. I mean, I felt spoiled as an actor on that film. I think that, you know, Cleve was also incredibly cool. He wasn't some raving lunatic. You know, this was a very cool, very savvy,  smart guy who everybody liked, who was just one of the staples of the film production who everybody loves. He's just got a wonderful charisma and he's just a people person. He's a good communicator.

MoviesOnline: Did you still feel the same amount of freedom?

EMILE HIRSCH: You know he would say things that would kind of encourage me. And Gus was very encouraging to just do what I was feeling. So I think Cleve, even though he was always there, he was cool enough to where he didn't put any weird pressure on me.   Although sometimes I'd do little things to annoy him. I do just like a little thing and I knew that he would notice it.

MoviesOnline: Did he ever take you aside and say don't do that?

EMILE HIRSCH: Yeah. (Laughing) But I wouldn't change. I'd just be like, 'Ha ha…'

MoviesOnline: In this movie there are so many ways to present gay characters. Everyone is different and they’re based on real people.  Was that a challenge to play a gay character with so-called gay characteristics and not go over the line?

EMILE HIRSCH: I mean, I played Cleve as a straight person. No, I mean I think that is interesting. You see the different types of people, gay people, in the film. I think that's cool.

MoviesOnline: Your character was really funny.

EMILE HIRSCH: I mean, that's Cleve. And he let it be known to me early on because it was one of those things where I was  like if I start to act really flamboyant is Cleve going to be like, “What are you doing?” Is everyone going to be like, “Why are you acting like that?”  I was kind of self-conscious about that. And then Cleve was like, YYou know, I'm a queen. You can play…that's who I am. I'm a queen.”

MoviesOnline: Was there a gay boot camp?

EMILE HIRSCH: No. Are you a graduate? [laughs]

MoviesOnline: Cleve felt he was pretty much in control of his life in the beginning and he did almost walk away when Milk made the offer to him.

EMILE HIRSCH: Yeah. By all accounts Cleve was perfectly content to just kind of party and live with this kind of gang of street kind of lost boys in San Francisco. They kind of had this wild existence and that sounded really kind of wild. He had like a gang of friends and they all lived together and had jobs together. They were kind of almost like a tribe. And then he finally got involved with Milk and started to educate himself more. And Harvey channeled him into having a purpose. I think one of the things that really was a big influence on him was he went to Germany…He went to Germany, but he went to Spain and he saw some riots in Spain. I think that he wrote a piece about it. 

MoviesOnline: It's powerful in the movie when he's talking about those riots.

EMILE HIRSCH: Yeah, it's very focused and it's kind of someone who has been trying to find a purpose.

MoviesOnline: What did you know about this before the film?

EMILE HIRSCH: Literally nothing. I thought the Castro, I thought that was the whale in Pinocchio. I did. I did! Well, isn't that Maestro?  I was like reading the script and I was like, “Castro? Isn't that the whale?”  I didn't know that much about it so it was a bit of an education process for me. And I read the book, The Mayor of Castro Street, and that's a really helpful book if you want to know about that time period and Harvey's life.

MoviesOnline: What made you want to do the project?

EMILE HIRSCH: I mean, as soon as I knew that it was going to be with Gus and Sean, I was in. And then what really made me passionate about it though was watching the documentary, because I read the script and I really liked the script and I kind of understood it but when you see that documentary and you see who Milk is and that environment of San Francisco and what was really going on, it just seemed more tangible to me and I was really moved.

MoviesOnline: What are you doing next?

EMILE HIRSCH: I did a little part in this Ang Lee movie called Taking Woodstock which comes out in I guess summer. It's a small part. I play a Vietnam vet who interacts with the lead in the movie who's played by Dmitri Martin, really good guy, smart guy, really funny. I recommend Youtubing his standup if you're bored. It's so much fun.

MoviesOnline: Ang Lee's an interesting director?

EMILE HIRSCH: So interesting. I'm so into him.

MoviesOnline: Ang Lee is interesting for being able to tackle so many different genres. What was it like working with him and how does it compare to working with the Wachowki Brothers and Gus Van Sant?

EMILE HIRSCH: Well, each great director that I've been able to work with is very uniquely different. Sean has this kind of poetic fury and passion and Gus has this relaxed kind of grace and Ang has this kind of very elegant attention to detail and kind of very keen sense of nuance and creativity. They're all so much fun working with all these different personalities.

MoviesOnline: What about Catherine Hardwicke? There’s another underrated director.

EMILE HIRSCH: Dogtown. Yeah, Dogtown was a lot of fun. I loved working with Catherine. We had this really great kind of contentious relationship where we would kind of play with each other and kind of toy with each other, make fun of each other and yell at each other but it was all a lot of fun, in a fun way. We just had a great time.

MoviesOnline: Did you see her downstairs at the Twilight press junket?

EMILE HIRSCH: I know, I saw her yesterday.

MoviesOnline: There are a lot of movies gearing up for production in February. Are you looking for anything in particular?

EMILE HIRSCH: Yeah, I'm reading, I read, for the past couple weeks I read like five or so scripts, trying to read a bunch right now. It's interesting, there's a period piece, there's a western, there's a thriller, there's a small indie drama. You know, I’m just trying to figure out what would be the right fit, not just with you in the part but with you and the director, you and whoever.

MoviesOnline: Does indie vs. big Hollywood feature factor into the decision you make or is it all about the character you’re going to be playing?

EMILE HIRSCH: It's all about the character but it's also about the director. In a big way it's about the director. First time directors, a lot of them are amazing, but I get excited working with people that I know have made films that I already like.

MoviesOnline: When you're reading a script, do you know after a few pages that it’s good?

EMILE HIRSCH: Sometimes you have a feeling. Yeah, you kind of have that oh, this is good feeling or kind of a dread but I always like to finish a script. Because if anything, sometimes you realize maybe this isn't the one for me but you can always just finish it as a story and as a movie, as a fan of film. You want to see what happens in the story.

MoviesOnline: Would you do anything as big as Speed Racer again?

EMILE HIRSCH: Yeah, sure.

MoviesOnline: Are you reading any scripts like that now?

EMILE HIRSCH: No, no, not right now but I would consider it. I would be hesitant to do maybe an iconic superhero like Speed Racer for a little while just because Speed's pretty cool.

MoviesOnline: How was the premiere of Milk at the Castro?

EMILE HIRSCH: It was intense and there were some protesters for No on 8 and I imagine there'll probably be a lot more protestors this week at the LA premiere.

MoviesOnline: You filmed in Berlin for a long time. If you had one day to go back to Berlin, what would you do?

EMILE HIRSCH: It's funny because I told this story a million times on all these friggin' talk shows I went on about how when I was in the hotel, we'd go in the spa and there were all these naked German men in the spa, so I thought you were going to bring that up. "You were in Berlin this summer. Tell me about the spa with those…" That's one of those, I get asked that so much. "So, the spa?" Do you guys ever get into the bad habit of like when you guys are going to do a piece on someone, you just download their stats from their IMDB and then that's like half the sh*t you bring up? So literally, there's a couple really obscure quotes about me that literally are bullshit and every time I sit down with someone, they ask me. There's this thing, I went karaokeing one time at this place in Hollywood and Lindsay Lohan was there that night. So was this girl Beau Garrett. So literally almost 90% of the interviews I do, this is how I know there's a lot of people who get kind of lazy, they go, "So, you go karaokeing with Lindsay Lohan?" And I'm like, "What's up, IMDBitch?" It's so funny, you know what I mean? This person just like…

MoviesOnline: I was serious about Berlin. It's an amazing city.

EMILE HIRSCH: It is. It is a Mecca of arts for all over Europe. There's a lot of different galleries and things that I have a good time going to.

MoviesOnline: Where's a better place to find out about you than IMDB?

EMILE HIRSCH: I don't know. I don't know.

MoviesOnline: You should update it with stuff you want to talk about.

EMILE HIRSCH: I'm like writing my own articles then.

“Milk” opens in theaters on November 26th.