JOHN CUSACK Interview to TISCALI about Serendipity

John Cusack's on a rom-com roll. After the huge success of High Fidelity and America's Sweethearts, now he stars alongside our own Kate Beckinsale in Serendipity, a tall tale of two young people trying to find each other, years after the briefest of encounters. The word Serendipity, coined from the title of an old Sri Lankan fairy story, means "an aptitude for making fortunate discoveries accidentally", and that's just what the couple have - in spades. Without ever getting too slushy, the film's a rush of smart detective work and crazy coincidence that really does get you rooting for the increasingly panicked protagonists. It's very Christmasy, it's set in a sparkling New York untouched by the hand of fear - it's a fun waste of an hour and a half. Here, TISCALI gets the lowdown from Mr Cusack himself

Your onscreen relationship with Kate Beckinsale is very natural, very convincing, as if you'd known each other for a long time.

JC: "I'd met her once before, but I didn't know her. I think sometimes you meet people and you feel like you've known them for a long time. And I think good actors can sort of see into people and immediately you have a chemistry with them or not. It's like an affair with no mess. You don't actually consummate it, but you get to pretend, imagine what it would be like. And you get to have a great time with that person - if you like 'em."

One person John HAS known for a long time is co-star Jeremy Piven. As a kid in Chicago he attended Piven's parents' theatre workshop and the pair, great friends ever since, have appeared in nine movies together. In Serendipity, Piven plays Cusack's best buddy, who joins him in the search for Beckinsale and is gradually changed by the experience. The banter between them is always easy, and hugely entertaining.

JC: "We just have a good time. A lot of acting is about developing shorthand with somebody. So, if you're working with somebody you've known for a long time, you already have all that history".

Cusack's finest and funniest scenes, though, are those he shares with Eugene Levy, star of Best In Show, who plays a neurotic and hilariously controlling shop assistant.

JC: "Yeah, he's like a bulldozer. You have to step back and get out of his way. Those scenes had a lot of ad-libbing, and they were so good they ended up being much longer than they were in the original script. And they added a scene so Eugene would reappear at the end."

Having co-written Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity, and started his own New Crime production company, Cusack is something of an artistic Defender Of The Faith. Like his friend and mentor, Tim Robbins, he likes his movies to be deeper than the norm. Serendipity, though, is very simple.

JC: "Yeah, it has a light and romantic feeling. You know what's gonna happen - boy's gonna meet girl, they miss each other and they're gonna end up together again. It's a piece of entertainment. You buy the ticket and take the ride. You try to make it as good and enjoyable as you can along the way, but you don't want to make it too complicated. That would be like trying to get blood out of a turnip."

After starring in Con Air, Cusack said he took the role because the money, fame and consequent power would allow him to concentrate on his own New Crime projects. Is this also why he chose to make Serendipity?

JC: "Yeah, but it's not just about New Crime, it's about doing things I find interesting."

Cusack found himself promoting Serendipity in New York, shortly after the September 11th catastrophe. Was that problematic?

JC: "That was very difficult to do. I didn't want to do any talk-shows or do anything for the film, but then we had everyone, including the Mayor, saying 'Please come to New York'. Then I talked to the people at Miramax and Harvey Weinstein and he said 'We're a New York company, the film's set in New York - we should come and do this for the city.' I was OK with that, as long as I knew the movie was positioned right, as long as we were SUPPORTING the city. Most of all, the city WANTED us there. They wanted their baseball games back, and their movies, and this movie had a nice, romantic vision of New York that people want to remember, and will be again."

Serendipity makes New York look truly beautiful, a real wintery wonderland. Incredible really, as it was filmed throughout a boiling August, with shooting shut down on several occasions due to Central Park being sprayed for mosquitos. It's great to see, a real change from the grim pictures we've endured in 2001.

JC: "I think people were really glad to not see those images in their head any more. They'd got to the point where they wanted to feel something else. So people seemed to be drinking the movie up, really glad to see the city in a different way than as the home of a mass tragedy. Which is true, it IS much more than that."

Did any shots have to be edited out, in the wake of the attack?

JC: "I guess there was. I didn't see the edit before they made the cuts, but I guess there was a shot of the World Trade towers."

Did the events of September 11th have any impact on Cusack's choice of future roles. Did it see him shying away from violent movies?

JC: "No. My perspective on that was well formed before all that happened in America. It just made me more resolute in doing stuff that I like. Though I do think there's gonna be more opportunities to do stuff that looks at things in a more complex way, rather than giving very simple answers to very complex questions, like most films do. Those films just don't seem very helpful."

Does he think the movie industry is over-reacting to the attack, maybe even cashing in on the current burst of patriotism?

JC: "I haven't seen any of those movies yet. But I think any time you stop looking at evil as a black and white thing, it's helpful. So the fact that there won't be any of your obligatory Islamic terrorist stereotypes in movies any more, that'd be helpful."

Is that why Cusack chose his next project, Max (formerly known as Hoffman), where he plays an art teacher who ends up teaching the young Adolf Hitler?

JC: "Well, it doesn't at all condone or sympathise what Hitler did. It looks at him as a complex human being. An evil one, but a human being nonetheless. He's not a cartoon, he's a 31-year-old corporal who was a racist, who wanted to learn about modern art."

The next time we'll see Cusack onscreen will be in Spike Jonze's Adaptation. John, of course, starred as puppeteer and weirdo Craig Schwartz in Jonze's brilliant Being John Malkovich.

JC: "Yes. It's an insane script, obviously, because Charlie Kaufman wrote it. There's a point in the movie where Charlie - I mean his character - goes to visit the set of Being John Malkovich, which he also wrote. So the Escher maze just keeps going. So I'm an actor playing Craig Schwarz in the film Being John Malkovich, in the film Adaptation."

He's also signed on to make White Jazz.

JC: "Yeah, that, Being John Malkovich and Max were the best three scripts I've read in the last six years. In White Jazz, I play this guy called Junior Stemmons in Fifties' Los Angeles. It's typical James Ellroy insanity, very dark, very dreamscapey. I think it's starting up in January, maybe February, as soon as the finances are in place."

Serendipity is directed by Peter Chelson, British helmsman of Hear My Song and Funny Bones. Does he have any plans to work with British directors or actors again?

JC: "Well, the British keep employing me, and that makes me like them. It also makes me think they're very intelligent.

And is he aware of the campaign to get him to run for president?

JC: "Yeah".

Is he supporting it?

JC: "No."

He doesn't fancy the pay cut?

JC: "Hah! No, you couldn't say what you wanted if you were president."


from tiscali.co.uk