A. To play a warrior, in the mythical sense, appealed to me. In studying this text, I realized you could have placed the journey of Behrani, and his meeting with this beautiful, narcotized witch [Connolly], two and a half thousand years ago, and it would still be the same story. That gave it a purity. The purity of that myth fed into the purity of Behrani, inasmuch as he is a warrior. He's a warrior without a battlefield. He had a king; he had a landscape, which he once called Persia. He watched his king disappear, then watched his rank, country and son disappear. He was on a cross, wrenched from all directions. He was a warrior who shouldn't be provoked in certain areas of his authority, his manhood, his relationship with his family, his rank.
Q. One quality of an enduring film seems to be that sense of being in a present moment. Are you discovering as you go?
A. I'm given credit for my preparation, but it's an intuitive process. After Behrani has struck his wife, he brings a glass of orange juice into his son's bedroom. I say to him, "I know I'm your role model, but don't do what I do." That's an enormous thing for that father to say to that son. A lot of the energy of that scene comes from Jonny [Ahdout, as Esmail], the way he molds that moment for the camera. What a performance by that young man! Jonny had such a deep understanding of that predicament, the acting became invisible. The camera captured that trust and admiration, that need to please his father.
No preparation in the world would equip me to walk through that door with that glass of orange juice if I'm not engaged with Jonny. If I'm bringing something that I've practiced in the trailer -- "oh, I'll do this!" -- it'll be crap. I honestly try and start from zero. I do this with all the technique at my command, I promise you, but if I can start from zero outside that bedroom door, and honestly allow myself to be vulnerable to seeing Jonny in the bed, the scene becomes about Jonny.