Spike Jonze received an Oscar nod for his directorial debut, the oddball fantasy "Being John Malkovich". He later co-starred with George Clooney in war satire "Three Kings". Picking up the megaphone once again, Jonze re-teams with "Being John Malkovich" scribe Charlie Kaufman for "Adaptation.".
How did you get involved in this project?
Charlie and I were making "Being John Malkovich" when Charlie was going through all this torment about how to adapt "The Orchid Thief". Every time he came by the set or we talked on the phone, he'd be telling me about his despair. Then suddenly he came up with this idea of writing himself into it. From that moment, I had complete faith that he was going to succeed. It was suddenly this whole new idea.
Why was Nicolas Cage right for the [literally] twin roles?
We did talk to a lot of different people. It was tough finding someone who could actually play these two brothers. Then we realized that Nic had the qualities of both brothers. On the one hand, he can get very worked up and anxious. And on the other hand, he can be a goofball and be really laid-back.
How hard was it for Nic to play these dual roles?
Nic was really working hard. The technical side of playing two characters was difficult because there was a lot of green screen. He was half approaching it from the outside and half from the inside. On the one hand, he was listening to his own voice in his ear through an earpiece and acting to an X on the wall. But at the same time, from inside himself, he was making the character real and true and actually being the character.
On the set he would stay in character. He wouldn't make people call him the character's name or anything. But he would stay in the mindset, which was hard because he would have to be in the mindset of one character for an hour and then, at the drop of a dime, he'd have to be in the other character's mindset.
