Vince Vaughn: It's Oz, Bro

Q: What's your character like in The Locusts?

A: I play a drifter in 1960s rural Kansas. I'm on the run and I end up with this kind of strange family. I get drawn into their problems. Kate is the mom and Jeremy Davies plays her son, who's been kind of mistreated by her for years. I try to get him out of there.

Q: Do you have a love interest?

A: Yeah, Ashley Judd.

Q: I've interviewed her. What a vocabulary on that girl.

A: Unbelievable. She gives you the big words. I gotta have a dictionary when I talk to her. [Lights up a cigarette]

Q: Have you smoked for long?

A: I smoked for The Locusts and since then, I've smoked steadily. It's no good, but there's something about it that I do enjoy, especially if I'm drinking.

Q: Do you do anything heavier?

A: I never got involved in any [drugs]. I never even tried coke or acid or any of that stuff. I came from a Catholic small-town background where I was always terrified of it.

Q: Were you a good kid?

A: Since I was a young child they said I was hyperactive, which I was. I had no attention span, so they had a special class one period where they'd send the kids with emotional problems or whatever they didn't understand. I felt like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when I first went in there. That's probably why it's my favorite film. I hated all these fucking kids because they were weirdos and degenerates. I didn't want to be associated with them and I was mean to them.

Q: How long were you in that group?

A: All the way through eighth grade. I refused to go in high school. After a while I started liking [the kids] though, and I started sticking up for them. One time a kid had to give a speech, a kid who doesn't talk at all, and he totally bombed and he started to cry and the teacher made him stay up there and I said, "Chuck, sit down, sit down." The teacher goes, "You can't tell him to sit down," and I said, "Look, fail him, but he's obviously not doing it. He's in tears. You can't keep him onstage." I went to the principal's office for that.

Q: How did Chuck feel?

A: Oh, he loved me. These kids loved me. And I really liked them because I associated with the runt-of-the-litter point of view. I was that guy, too.

Q: So you were a rebel?

A: I was never a goodie-goodie. I ran with the rough crowd and I drank and I drove cars before I was supposed to, but I didn't have a big rebellious stage. I was lucky that from the age of seven I knew what I wanted to do, so I had a focus. I did children's theater, then when I got into high school I stopped because I played sports. I got in a car wreck when I was 17 and hurt my back so I went out for the school play and I got a part and I loved it.

Q: What was the play?

A: A Chorus Line. I played Paul San Marco, bro.

Q: The drag queen who hurts his knee?

A: Totally. This is small-town Illinois and the director came to me and said, "Vince, I think you should play Paul," and I said, "Why me?" and he said, "Well, you're very popular and the girls like you. I think it would be hard for some kids to play this part-- they'll get picked on for it. But with you it could be interesting."

Q: What's the most trouble you ever got into while drunk?

A: Oh, I've had it all, bro. I've been arrested by the police and beaten up. I deserved it, really. I was a fucking smartass and they were hillbilly redneck cops who didn't want me to be a fucking lawyer with them.

Q: Is it true you were senior class president?

A: Yeah. The only reason I did that was I figured it's hard to fail the class president. I was always so terrified I wouldn't graduate because I hated school so much, man. I had nightmares about not graduating four or five years out of high school. I knew I just wanted to go out to Hollywood. It was like Oz to me. I thought somehow things would be better there.

Q: Now that you have gotten a peek behind the curtain in Oz, who has most impressed you?

A: Steven Spielberg, because he was so nice, and he included me. Plus, he's got a family and he's good to his kids. I was lucky to work with him on my first big film because he wasn't rude and he listened to people's opinions.

Q: Did anyone in your family have showbiz aspirations?

A: My grandmother wanted to be an actress when she was younger, so she was always encouraging me. Both my parents worked and my grandmother lived with us so I had a very mother/son relationship with her. She died recently.

Q: Did your family think your dream of being an actor was realistic?

A: I'm blessed because both my parents were mavericks who took chances and did well. They had that individualistic, pioneer point of view on life. My dad is first generation off the farm, and he put himself through college and is a self-made businessman. My mom was a stockbroker and real estate agent when it was very hard for women to do that.

Q: Did they ever give you the facts-of-life talk?

A: No, I just started experimenting. It was on-the-job training. When I was seven I used the word "fuck" and my mom took me aside and said, "That's a horrible word. It's called sexual intercourse and you only do that with someone you love." That was my big facts-of-life talk.

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