B.L. This is one of the best performances of your career. It's such a gritty role, and I was wondering what did it take for you to get into Nick's skin?
J.P. I hadn't worked in a few years. I was rusty and I was worried about it but I just tried to concentrate on what his needs are and what he is trying to do. What are the obstacles in his way, and I find those places in myself that are broken and regretful and just try to mix it up.

B.L. As I was watching this movie I was thinking, why would anyone, especially if they have a family, want to be an undercover narcotics officer?
J.P. Right, it's tough.

B.L. You and Ray Liotta play off each other very well in the film for such diverse characters. What was it like working with him?
J.P. He's created a real force of nature in that character. He's real specific and he commits to a scene and just rolls. He's not worried about making mistakes, or screwing his dialogue up. He just wants to get there. It's nice to watch and react to.

B.L. Dealing with this character's excessive rage must have been difficult. How do you go home at the end of the day and brush off a character like this?
J.P. You have some laughs and you have a couple of beers and you have fun. But I don't really want to brush it off because it's too hard to get there so it remains and since the parts of Nick are real parts of myself that I just brought up, it resonates anyway. It's part of your bones.

B.L. You mentioned earlier that you had taken a bit of time off from acting and you felt rusty. How did you get back into the groove for Narc?
J.P. I don't know, but yes, I was worried about it. I had no choice but to get into it and I was frustrated. I think it helped that Joe Carnahan, the director, was also the writer because I physically like to get into my roles and I thought that we could do a lot of things in the scenes physically and change dialogue a bit. So being involved in that kind of process was getting me back to wherever I needed to be.

B.L. Where are we going to see you next? I hope you're not planning on taking a long break again?
J.P. Yeah, it's actually been over a year since I shot Narc, so I'll find something to do pretty soon.

B.L. You also have your own production company, so is there anything in the works with that?
J.P. There are a few things going on, but nothing that I'm ready to talk about yet. I'll definitely do another film -- it felt good working on Narc so don't worry, I'll be back soon.