CHRIS NEUMER: Not only that, from the people that I've spoken to, it seems that when people actually get hit…
LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: It's not very dramatic.
CHRIS NEUMER: It's not very dramatic. It doesn't look very good. There was an actor I was talking to. I guess he's getting much bigger, both physically and his presence, Franky G. He was in The Italian Job, I don't know if you saw it. He's this big Puerto Rican guy, looks like a prison guy. He was in Confidence with Dustin Hoffman. There comes this point where Dustin is supposed to punch him. Dustin just hauled off and nailed him in the face. The guy is thinking, ‘Oh my God, did I do something wrong?’ Of course, Dustin Hoffman is quaking in his boots because he just punched this 6' 3" guy who weighs 230 and played D-1 football.
LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: I had a film, but I've been wondering when it's going to come out, if it's going to come out. It's very good. It's Stark Raving Mad with Seann William Scott. I'm the bad guy in it, with platinum white hair and a black goatee — this very quiet, lethal, mob boss type. It's actually very funny. I'm hoping that you will go see it eventually, but I'm doing a scene and I'm supposed to cut the guy off. And I turned to Dave and Drew, the two directors. I said, ‘I should just smack him.’ You can do it in a way that you make contact without taking the guy's head off. ‘That's a good idea, that's a good idea.’ So I tried to take him. ‘Is that OK?’ He's, ‘That's great. Don't worry about it.’ So six takes into the shot, four close-ups on my part, and he's getting walloped and the intensity was going up with each take. We do a few takes on Seann's close-up and he's like, ‘You can go a little bit more.’ Dave and Drew walk up to me on the last take. ‘On this one, bring tears to his eyes.’ I said, ‘Are you serious?’ ‘This is the last take. Bring tears to his eyes.’ All right. I hauled off and whacked him and sure enough, he welled up looking at me. ‘Oh God, why did I do that?’ ‘No man, it was cool.’
CHRIS NEUMER: Aw, man, that's funny. It's interesting when the director tells you to hit him and he's expecting something different. So he's playing with you guys, to a certain degree.
LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: Yeah, but sometimes you get the desired effect.
CHRIS NEUMER: Speaking of movies that haven't yet come out that are… you’ve got Hollywood Homicide in the can too. Now I've heard so many bad things about this. I haven't seen the screening of it yet.
LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: Really?
CHRIS NEUMER: I have not heard… Kilborn was bashing it. He was doing his movie poster thing and was just tearing it apart.
LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: I'm going to be with Kilborn on Monday. Oh boy, am I walking into a trap here?
CHRIS NEUMER: It was just kind of funny because Josh Hartnett was holding his gun like this. [Demonstrates] Kilborn's remark was something to the effect of ‘Freeze or I'll shoot your balls off.’
LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: Yeah, that's exactly right.
CHRIS NEUMER: Harrison Ford is calling this, and Kilborn's remark was, ‘Yeah, look at me. I'm nailing Calista Flockhart.’ Oh, that's pretty cool.
LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: I'm sure there's a little [truth] to that.
CHRIS NEUMER: Everything that I've heard from people, granted these might just be rumors, is that the ending has been tinkered around with and there have been reshoots and that testing audiences have just hated it. I hope I'm not breaking bad news to you but… Is this news to you?
LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: Yeah. I'd heard they had done some reshoots but they obviously didn't include me. Maybe they should have had more of me in the movie.
Chris Neumer
