screening

Close-Up: Joel David Moore

Alternative Press - Rachel Lux on 12/14/09 @ 1:56 PM - altpress.com

Last year, JOEL DAVID MOORE was wooing Paris Hilton in the cinematic gem The Hottie And The Nottie. This year, he's getting his geek on with director James Cameron and the long-awaited fantastic epic Avatar. Man, what a difference 12 months can make. For those of you who don't speak "fanboy," Avatar is the tender tale of a trio of scientists--Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver and Moore--who are sent to the planet Pandora to encroach the jungle moon's mineral energy sources but, in turn, must also deal with the possible displacement of Pandora's indigenous humanoid species known as the Na'vi--or "blue people," as we like to call them. Confused? Us, too. Allow Moore to explain, well, more.

INTERVIEW: Leslie Simon
PHOTO: Eric Blackmon

How hard has it been to promote a movie that's been kept under such lock-and-key?
This has been locked behind a door for a long time and even we weren't able to talk about it for a while. To get to the point where [the actors] are able to share more about what's going on is great. It's freeing, actually. I booked it in December 2006, shot it in '07 and' 08, and they've been putting it together in '09. I actually went in this year and shot some more stuff. They're covering their bases, man. Having [director] James Cameron at the helm of this means that no stone will be left unturned--and that is in every way a good thing.

During that time period, did you have to keep your "look" consistent?
Yup, but I kind of always look the same. [Laughs.] I keep that tall, quirky, character-actor look. But for the motion-capture side of it, it didn't matter what we looked like because we were wearing these weird-looking wetsuits and helmets. We did have to be shaven, though, and I don't shave so I hated that.

Your whole body?
No, no, no... [Laughs.] Wouldn't that be awesome? No, on the motion-capture side, the suits that we're wearing have little balls on them and that's what the infrared cameras are reading so it's how they're making our avatars. There are three avatars in the movie--Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver and myself--and those avatars are motion-capture, as well as all of the indigenous people over there. All the blue people are on the motion-capture side.



For those who don't already know, can you tell me a little about your character in the movie?
I play Norm Spellman and he's a xeno anthropologist so he studies the plant life and animal life on the planet. It takes place in the future and we've run out of energy on this planet so we have to go to another planet to mine their energy source and bring it back to our planet. We found this indigenous species on another planet and the scientists and anthropologists are in charge of communicating with these people. We do that by using these avatars, these cloned versions of ourselves that look like the Na'vi and we can remotely control them with our consciousness.

All of that is very hard to understand, but when you see the movie, it'll make total sense.

When you first read the script, were you like, "WTF?"
I think it was only just yesterday that I figured it all out. [Laughs.] I was in shock for a while, like, "Really? I'm about to do a James Cameron movie? I'm a quirky character actor. How did this happen?" But that's the nice about being a character actor. Sometimes I get to play the romantic lead and sometimes I get to be the goofy guy and sometimes I get to be in a James Cameron film.

Well, you are an award-winning actor. Do you remember where you were when you got the call that you won the Golden Raspberry for being half of the "Worst Onscreen Couple" in The Hottie And The Nottie?
I didn't win!

You did, dude.
Did I really? I thought [co-star] Paris [Hilton] was nominated.

Well, she won a few categories.
Look, we were happy with our little movie. Not a lot of people saw it, but it's actually a decent movie.

You can still brag about being an award-winning actor. You just don't have to say which award.
Exactly.

THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE


"I'm definitely a music fan. It's the soundtrack to life," says Joel David Moore, who also admits to having some pretty questionable musical taste back-in-the-day. "It used to be a lot of rap and hip-hop when I was a city kid back in Portland and now it's Damien Rice, Ray LaMontagne, Lisa Hannigan and a bunch of other singer-songwriters who are easy to listen to and have beautiful lyrics." alt

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