B.L. Your role in The Banger Sisters was hysterical and quite the departure for you. It was so nice to see you in a comedy. Why do you not do more of them?
G.R. I don't know. It was a deliberate thing I could feel something bubbling away. I said that I really wanted to be in a story that's serious comedy, or a funny drama, because I like those tensions and things. I was looking for something in the Billy Wilder tradition, with snappy, sharp, crackling dialogue that bounces between people, but underneath it is really serious. When I read The Banger Sisters, I thought, this is sort of like that.

B.L. Harry, the guy who you play, is such a great character. How much fun did you have with that?
G.R. He popped out of Bob Dolman, the writer/director, who is Canadian, and smart! He said it poured out of his fingers. He knew that he had the premise. He had The Banger Sisters, he had the idea of two groupies from the sixties meeting up. But he thought when Goldie's character Suzette is travelling to Arizona to meet up with her friend, he said that Harry just popped out of his brain. He said that he stopped writing from the premise and started writing from the groin and the gut. So this weird guy in a down vest got spewed out of a Greyhound in the middle of nowhere.

B.L. And Harry was born, thankfully.
G.R. It was kind of useful to know that information because I thought, that's what the film's about. Wild cards keep coming into your life and where does that take you? Do you have to transform when a different wind blows in and puts your sails in another direction?

B.L. Your scene with Goldie is so wonderful.
G.R. We had a ball.

B.L. How generous was she?
G.R. She was super generous and I knew that this film was very safely in the hands of two of the greatest actresses of our time. Both icons, you know. And, they had never worked together before, so I thought, this is going to ignite. So I knew that I could be the naughty boy at the back of the school room and Goldie just kept going, "yeah do more, do more."

B.L. Did you guys improvise a lot, or was it mostly on the page?
G.R. We made it look like we were improvising, but it was beautifully written. There was not a lot to tamper with. We had material from a guy who knows how to write; heightened, rhythmical snappy dialogue that is very revealing of character and not just kind of gags. Mind you, I saw it with an audience who was on the verge of applause at certain moments because it's gut-bustingly funny.

B.L. There is a lot that hits home especially if you are a parent. You are a dad. How often, while you were making it or even after you were finished, did you think about how much should we tell our children?
G.R. Yes, it's revealing. But I think that it's a very vital part of it. We know that we have these two extraordinary, I don't want to say divas, because they are not "diva-ish", but they are prima donnas. They are the first women, the first ladies of the screen, but their daughters are equally important. One happens to be Susan's true daughter, who I think is the great discovery of the film. I haven't seen the turmoil and angst of a young teenage woman portrayed so funnily on screen for a very long time. There's a kind of genre around at the moment that is kind of teen comedy. Eva, if not her mother's genes, then she's got some of Judy Holliday's or Lucille's Ball's genes that snuck in. It's a stand-out striking performance.

B.L Yes, she is very talented and quite striking as well.
G.R. I hope that her peer group goes to see the movie because she deals with it very honestly and hilariously.

B.L. One of the many projects that you have coming up is a film called Intolerable Cruelty from those amazing Coen Brothers. How did you enjoy working with Joel and Ethan?
G.R. The Bangers Sisters, the Coen Brothers – I kind of like working with teams. It was fantastic because they are so disciplined and so literary. I was really honoured to be there because I know that they write about the American landscape. I thought I'd never fit into that and they have written this guy that I play as an Englishman and I asked if I could play him as an Aussie, I think it could work. And they said yes. They are so laid back, you barely feel like you are working and yet there is this intensity of detail and fun. They enjoy movie making and they enjoy the richness of ideas. They trust that entertaining can be enthralling, not just escapism. It can be engaging.