Jim Caviezel: 'At Least I Had Thirty Years of Normality'

It looks like it was a pretty tough shoot, but you're no stranger to arduous shoots. Do you ever think, "Man, I'd really like a script where I hang out on the beach and play Frisbee for the whole shoot?"

[Laughs] It'd be nice! If that's the film that makes you famous, then in all your films afterward, you'd be throwing Frisbees. Trust me, in this business, it's like that. I used to do comedies, and now I'm the last guy they'd ever think of for a comedy. Before, I did a Neil Simon play that I was the lead in, and I used to get seen for that kind of stuff. Then I got famous on The Thin Red Line, and I "wasn't funny" anymore.

Would you like to get back to comedies? I remember you did a viral video with Will Ferrell.

Yeah, I was pitching him softballs and he was whacking them out of the park. He had the real fun in that; I was just going along for the ride. Most projects that I get are going to be dramas, and you can find funny moments in them if you've got a good eye. But what you get offered is going to be based on what your previous success was. You have to fight for every role you go after or create a role. I've had comedies offered to me, but if I go and do it, it could be like, "See? He can't be funny." [Laughs] You really have to go where the greatest material is.

There are some darkly funny moments in your rapport with Ian's character. What was that acting relationship like?

He's so immediate. He's been doing this stuff for so long and he's so good at it that it would be outrageous to think that I... well, I look at myself as a student of the game of acting. I kind of picked my acting up off the street from teachers here and there, I was accepted to Julliard, and I got a deferment and that didn't work out. But anyway, Ian is highly professionally trained, and my gift is that I'm a mimic, and I can look at him and see what he's doing and immediately know that, "Wow, I'm gonna have to go to a deep place here to joust with this guy." It's like a fencing contest in the sand: It throws you off balance, and the sand also sucks everything out of you. You try to stay balanced and not lose your wits, but he's very playful and he keeps things extremely light.

You and Ian are fairly different people in real life, too.

I enjoyed that. I came from seventeen years of playing basketball and I wanted to play in college and go to the highest level, but I wasn't good enough and I had injuries here and there. I wasn't born to it, I was born to do this, and I have great respect for Ian. He couldn't be more to the left than I am to the right, but at the same time, we were very close. We both have a great appreciation and love for acting. He's a good person and such a gentleman, so helpful. It's such a pleasure to see someone at his level treat other people with great respect and character. Someone would come over and say, "Can I get you some tea, Sir Ian McKellen? Oh, I apologize...should I call you 'sir'?" And he goes, "I'm just Ian."

Finally, what happened with Outlander?

The distribution money was gone. The distribution that was supposed to be there, wasn't. It wasn't that anybody did something wrong, it's that everyone was caught in that change, so the marketing wasn't there. There's a big change going on with the films that studios release. I don't know how much longer it's going to go on, but it's affecting everything. I know of other A-listers and when their films came out, they'd just lost distribution.

All right, Jim. I know you have to go. I'll try to find your money.

OK, good.

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