Seattlest Interview: Thomas Haden Church

You’ve played a lot of nice-guy roles in your career, but you’ve also played some murderous bastards, including the Verminator in this film and the Sandman in the upcoming Spiderman 3… What’s more fun? The nice guy, or the bastard?

The bad guy kind of gives you the opportunity to do some therapy with yourself. You can wander into the darker corners of your psyche. You know, I’m instinctually inclined to be forthright and have a good value-system, but whenever you play a villain, they tend to be nefarious scoundrels, looking to take advantage, or betray, or outright backstab. So, it just gives you the chance to do something that may not naturally occur to you.

This being a big ensemble cast, was there a lot of interaction with the other actors?

No. None. I think everyone was recorded individually. They’re very accommodating, and they really like to focus on the individual performances. And even though it’s an ensemble, and you would think that that ensemble energy was necessary, as it turns out it’s really not. And sometimes I think that energy can actually be kind of counterproductive.

Do you look forward to doing more movies like this one?

Yeah! I mean, you don’t want to over-saturate the marketplace by doing too many voice-overs because I think if you do too many, then your voice starts to lose whatever made it distinctive in the first place.

So, I’m doing this one, and I play a corn-starved crow in Charlotte’s Web. It will be out in November, and then I have another movie that will be out in a couple years by Disney. It’s called American Dog, with John Travolta. That one’s gonna be big, I think.

Regarding Charlotte’s Web… There’s some pretty deep social commentary in the book. Does that carry over well into the new film?

Yes, definitely. I think it’s a very faithful adaptation of E.B. White’s story. It’s funnier, but it’s faithful. Dakota Fanning is terrific in it. And Julia Roberts and Steve Buscemi and every one else are just did a terrific job.

Lastly... Spiderman 3. Your most physically demanding role?

Oh god yes. I mean, Sideways was actually pretty physical, because I was always running around and getting beat up. But Spiderman has been just grueling. It’s like nothing I’ve ever done, but it's been an amazing experience.