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Interview with Paul Giamatti
HBO
What is "American Splendor"? What is it about?
PAUL GIAMATTI
The movie, "American Splendor" is based on comic books written by a guy named
Harvey Pekar, who lives in Cleveland. He writes them, doesn't draw them, about his own
life as a file clerk in the VA hospital in Cleveland and he's written them for thirty
years. And they're very much about his mundane, depressing, existence in Cleveland.
HBO
What attracted you to this role?
PAUL GIAMATTI
Well I kinda knew who he was already; I read his comic books when I was in college and
I'd seen him on the Letterman Show so I knew who he was already. I knew he was an
interesting character to begin with and then I thought the script was good. I mean,
it's one of those bio-pic scripts, but it's sort of interesting in the way they're
dealing with his life and his stuff.
He's an interesting character. Harvey's a kind of difficult guy to describe. He's a
complicated guy, he's a very sweet guy, a very smart guy. I mean, I think he's pretty
much a self-educated guy. He went to high school and he went to college briefly but
he's really basically self-educated and he's extremely smart. He's extremely obsessive
about things, he's, he's difficult. He's not an iconoclast but he's, he's got a kind
of rebellious streak in him, you know, he likes to fight with people. But he's very
sweet. He's a complicated guy.
HBO
Why did you think he chose to work as a file clerk?
PAUL GIAMATTI
He worked as a file clerk, I think mostly because he has a horror of
unemployment. So he figured he would get a steady, civil service job and also something
that it would just be a mindless 9 to 5 job that he knew he could make a living
off of so that he could then be free to do what he wanted to do, which was collect
records or write comic books or read books or do whatever.
He says that he had a horror of losing work from watching his father's grocery store go
under. So he just had this terror of being out of a job. So he just got a crappy,
low-end flunky job just because he knew he'd be able to keep it.
HBO
Harvey's relationship with Robert Crumb -- could you talk a bit about that?
PAUL GIAMATTI
Robert Crumb lived in Cleveland for a little while right next to Harvey and
they had similar interests in old music and record collecting. But I think it was an
important thing for Harvey because it sparked his interest in actually pursuing comic
books. I think he kind of was intimidated by him a little bit and very impressed by him
and I think he really looked up to his abilities. And so I think there was that kind
of thing.
HBO
And with Toby?
PAUL GIAMATTI
Toby Radloff worked with him for twenty years. He's an interesting character in
his own right. I feel like Harvey has a kind of a paternal sense towards him. I'm not
sure why but I think he feels protective of him a little because he's an odd ball. I
think Harvey feels protective of a lot of odd balls I think a lot of his friends are
odd balls. And he definitely feels a kind of paternal thing. I think he's amused by
him, I think he enjoys him. He's a smart guy and so they connect on that level too but
I feel like there's a kind of protective element to it.
HBO
Maybe like attracted to the underdog?
PAUL GIAMATTI
Yeah. Definitely, there's an attraction to underdogs and odd balls. And a guy
who's gonna get a lot of crap because of what he looks like and stuff. I think Harvey
was probably a guy who got a lot of crap in his life, so....
HBO
As an actor playing Harvey, why do you think Harvey writes comics?
PAUL GIAMATTI
Well Harvey would say he writes comics because it makes his life more
interesting. Because if he didn't do it he would have nothing in his life. It's the
reason I guess anybody does stuff: it makes you feel like you have a reason to be
alive. I mean, I think it's nothing more than that. I mean, that's a lot but, I don't
think it's a whole lot more than that.
HBO
Was there a moment in the script where you thought that there was a
life-altering moment taking place here. For example, the Jewish lady in the
supermarket where he just shouts out 'wake up and smell the coffee!'
PAUL GIAMATTI
Well, in this movie they try to literalize the idea of him finding his voice
because he's had a problem with losing his voice on and off throughout his life. And a
lot of the time those problems, losing your voice and stuff, are psychological.
And so I think they took that and tried to turn that into the idea of a guy
who's literally trying to find a voice. I mean, the idea is that this guy is an
Everyman and he presents himself as an Everyman in Everyman situations. He's us when
we're frustrated in the line at the supermarket. He's us when we're frustrated because
we've lost our glasses or something. It's mundane things like that become huge to him.
HBO
How did you research for the role?
PAUL GIAMATTI
I watched him on tape. I mean, to a certain extent we wanted me to be as much
as I could be like him but not, not so literal minded. I watched him on tape and I read
his comic books, that's mostly what I did.
I didn't wanna do a whole lot of other stuff and get too loaded down with
stuff, I never wanna get too loaded down with stuff because it'll confuse me and I'm
not that smart. So, I try to keep it simple for myself. But reading his comic books
was kinda the best way of doing it.
I mean, I got here and I'd already seen Cleveland in his comic books exactly as it is.
I saw the hospital exactly as it is in those comic books. His books were the best way
of knowing him.
HBO
Harvey has been described many times as neurotic, depressing, obsessive, yet as
an actor I don't think you can play these things.
Was it difficult wiping these characteristics away and simply going for
truthful behavior?
PAUL GIAMATTI
I didn't wanna play depressing. I mean, you wanna somehow try to keep it positive, that
these things are always toward some positive event. There definitely were moments where
I would think to myself 'who's gonna watch this guy be so goddamned depressed all the
time?'
So we'll see, I mean, he's depressed a lot of the time. And as much as I'm trying not
to play depressed, it's still depressing.
I think he's a guy who wouldn't be happy unless he was depressed and wouldn't be
creative unless he was depressed. I think he thinks way too much about everything and
he says 'you know when I was talking about being a circular thinker and everything's
just constantly going around and around.' I mean, he just doesn't know how to be happy,
has no idea how to be happy, you know. And I think, like I say, that is why writing
comic books and stuff like that -- the guy would go nuts and kill somebody if he didn't
have that.
HBO
[LAUGHS] There'd be mysterious deaths in Cleveland.
PAUL GIAMATTI
Yeah, he'd be a dangerous guy if he didn't have something like that in
his life, I think.
HBO
Do you think Joyce is Harvey's soul mate?
PAUL GIAMATTI
I guess if there is such a thing as that, yeah, it seems like it. They
definitely have a very complementary relationship. They're very different in a lot of
ways, temperamentally. I think there's similarities too, but they're very different. I
think they have a contentious relationship, but I think that it's one of those kinda
classic things of these two people not being able to be with anybody else.
HBO
How's it been working with Hope Davis?
PAUL GIAMATTI
It's been great working with Hope Davis. She's great. She's excellent, thank
God, I'm working with her. Because if I wasn't I would be worse than normal in this
movie. She's great.
HBO
What do you think Harvey wants in this story? What is he searching for?
PAUL GIAMATTI
I think Harvey's biggest fear is of being alone, actually. And I think that's
part of his thing; part of the reason he had that job and part of the reason he hung
onto that job for so long was that that was his world, that was his family. And these
were the people he related to and these were his friends.
I mean the other day he was here and they were gonna put him in a trailer, you
know, to hang out and he got really freaked out and he was like 'I'm not gonna have
anybody to talk to.' He's like 'is there gonna be anybody around I can talk to?' He
just wants to talk to people, he's gotta be talking, he's gotta be relating with
people. So I think he's just intrinsically lonely.
HBO
That's why Joyce goes to Jerusalem.
PAUL GIAMATTI
Right, he goes bananas but I think he is that kind of guy. I think he just
goes, he's just deeply lonely in some way.
HBO
The moment when Robert Crumb says 'could I take some of these stories home and
illustrate them?' Could that be one of the best moments in his life?
PAUL GIAMATTI
That would seem like one of the happiest moments in the movie when Crumb
offers to draw them. Harvey is a little embarrassed. And Crumb looks at them and Crumb
says they're good and then Crumb offers to illustrate them.
And Harvey, you know, it is probably the happiest moment that the guy
has in the whole movie because it's affirmation that it's good, it's the possibility
that it's gonna happen, it's all this stuff, it's, it comes alive for the guy finally.
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