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: That is an awful lot to process, then add to that a long, miserable plane ride.  How did you cope?

Pucci:  Yeah… six hours.  You know what the funny part is?  And I don’t even understand this one myself, I don’t know how I wasn’t crapping in my pants… but I didn’t read the script, or the sides, or anything on the plane.  I had read the script before, but I didn’t try to immerse myself in it and try to like, learn all the lines.  When I got there, I didn’t even know the lines.  It was just retarded.  I don’t know wh…  it was just perfect, though.  It was perfect for exactly what he wanted and, it’s just because… I didn’t know I was this… it’s funny because I was really confident and I don’t know why.  I don’t even know if I’d be that confident right now, know what I mean?   It’s just something like, I never like to know all the lines because I don’t feel like they were mine anyway… I’m gonna make my own anyway.  So why not read it over with them once and then… I have a really good short-term memory, not a long-term (laughs), so after I read it once, I remembered what the reactions were and remembered why it was going on and everything, so the whole scene was very easy to do for the second time, and I remembered most of the lines.  And the third time I completely remembered the lines and then, now it’s time to play with it.  I feel like that if I went in there with all these… intentions… and like, “Oh, I should say this like this because that’s what he’s thinking then.”  I would’ve just… failed.  It would’ve been just too… fake.  I think that being spontaneous was the one thing that worked out really, really well with working with Mike in Thumbsucker.

: It sounds like your instincts with the character in Thumbsucker were dead-on.  Due to your work in that film, you’ve received the award at Sundance, the award at the Berlin Film Festival… that’s got to be fucking fantastic.

Pucci:  (laughs) It was really sick.  The Sundance one was the sickest, even though Berlin meant more to me. I think Sundance was just sick because I didn’t know.  Berlin I knew beforehand because they had to send me all the way back to Germany (laughs).  They needed a good reason to tell me, and I guess they couldn’t think of one, so they were just like “Eh, ya got it so you gotta go” and I was like “Holy shit!”  At Sundance, I just stayed with Mike because I thought he was going to get something for Thumbsucker.  I just stayed there ‘til the end, and Mike knew but he didn’t tell me.  And so, we’re sitting at the awards and, I didn’t even know there was an actor award, so I was like…I was completely freaked out.

: What was your Sundance experience like?

Pucci:  Oh man, it was a… strange ride.  It really was, it was like a weird… I don’t know how to explain it.  It was the most overwhelming time because everyone is giving you shit and everybody knows you… sort of.  It was the first time that anyone had ever ‘recognized’ me outside of a show, after a theater show.  People come up and get your autograph or something like that, you know?  But at Sundance, outside, just like walking around, people go, “Hey, I just saw you in Thumbsucker.  That’s awesome.” And I’m like, “Whoa. (laughs) That’s really weird.”  So Sundance was like that.  It was one after the other after the other, it was interview after interview after interview, and then go get freestuff at some house.  And you’re like, “Holy crap, where the hell am I?”  Then you go to the premiere, and it’s interview after interview after interview on the red carpet, then you walk in and you’re sittin’ there and you’re like, “Holy shit!  This is actually gonna be in a huge theater.”  And you watch it and everybody is like, (makes cheering noise), and then you have to do a question and answer and it was awesome, and you’re just so happy.  The coolest thing that happened there was watching other people watch the movie.  That was sick.  That was demented in so many different ways.  I couldn’t believe it.

: When does Thumbsucker release?

Pucci: Thumbsucker will probably be in September… in the fall.

: That’s a great time.

Pucci:  Yeah, I think so because it’s gonna be the biggest friggin’ blockbuster summer I’ve ever seen.  I’ve never seen it like this before.  It’s huge… it’s immense.  War of the Worlds, Episode 3, Willy Wonka, another Batman, Fantastic Four… you’ve got all that shit.  There’s so much of it.  There are so many coming out at the exact same time, it’s gonna be kinda ridiculous. 

: Empire Falls, when is that coming out?

Pucci:  May 28th and 29th on HBO.  I actually don’t have HBO… my Dad has it upstairs, but I don’t have it.  (laughs) That’s kinda funny.

: At this point, I think they should hook you up with a free lifetime subscription.

Pucci:  (laughs) Yeah, I know, right?  C’mon, let me watch the movie!

: And The Chumscrubber?

Pucci:  It’s coming out in either June or August.  So I’m hoping that they pick a good time.  It is distributed by DreamWorks, so it’s like; I don’t think they’re retarded.  They know it’s going to be a huge blockbuster summer and I think they know when will be the best time to put it out.  If they put it out in June, there will be a whole summer for people to see it and if they put it out in August, maybe it gets a bigger release because everybody has already seen all the bigger stuff.  I think either way, it will be a good release, but I don’t know… I think it’s going to be a little scary.  There will be a lot up against it.

: You know, you have a really big year.  That is going to generate a lot of its own buzz, too.

Pucci:  Well, maybe.  That would be kinda cool.

: You know, I was looking over the casts lists from the different films you’ve done...

Pucci:  Oh yeah dude, they’re sick!

: ...you are getting to the point where, forget Kevin Bacon, you are going to have your own “Six Degrees of Separation” game.

Pucci:  (laughs) Oh dude, it’s sick, it’s sick.  I couldn’t believe it.  That was the luckiest part, probably, of most of these things was the cast.  They were huge. 

: Oh yeah, the names are just amazing.  Do you ever feel any intimidation working with some of these other actors?

Pucci:  A lot of people ask me that and I always answer it a different way.  I don’t think so.  I’ve always kind of, um… like I walked into all these things not knowing who the people are most of the time.  I walked into Thumbsucker not knowing who the hell Vincent D'Onofrio was, or Tilda Swinton… no idea.  Didn’t know exactly who Benjamin Bratt was.  I knew who Keanu Reeves was from Bill & Ted and The Matrix, so the most intimidating one there was Keanu because I’ve known his movies.  Walking in knowing that Tilda was going to be my mom, and she was just this lady… you know, I had never seen any of her movies, and Vincent D'Onofrio was gonna be my dad and he’s just this… guy.  So it was really unintimidating, and I think I did that to myself.  I made myself not see any of those movies so that it would be easier.  And that’s kinda what happened on all the rest of them too.  I mean, Empire Falls… no idea who the hell Paul Newman was.

: Wow.

Pucci:  No idea.  I had no clue.  He actually walked up to me and he just looked like this old guy. (laughs)  He asked me some questions, made a joke and walked away and I was like, “Holy shit, I think that was Paul Newman.”  (laughs)  He was the only old guy in the place. 

: So do you ever look back, after you get a realization of who some of these people were and see some of their work, and just say to yourself “Oh my god!”

Pucci:  Yeah!  Yeah.  It makes no sense to me.  I don’t know how I got cast in any of that.  No really, I mean like completely.  Because I’ve watched a lot of their movies now… like a whole shitload.

: How was D'Onofrio?  After seeing Full Metal Jacket, I’d be so petrified of the man from his work in that alone.

Pucci:  Not at all.  He’s so great, so funny.  He’s amazing.  He’s out of his mind. (laughs)

: Have you worked with anyone that you didn’t like?  Anyone who treated you poorly?

Pucci:  Um…. no, not really.  I don’t think so.  There was always times during certain movies, like The Chumscrubber or Empire Falls, where I was the smaller character in the movie, there were so many other stars in the movie and sometimes like the schedule would be shifted around not in my favor at all.  But never really treated badly, no.  I mean, Empire Falls was slightly hell with scheduling, because I think I worked for like sixteen days, but I was in Maine for three months just to do that.  So there was a lot of off days and a lot of rescheduling because of the different big stars who are in it that can only do it for this week or their plans changed so now they can only do it another week, and our whole schedule changes.  So that was really the biggest thing, but nobody actually ever treated me badly, ever.  There was no actor or actress that I didn’t like.

: On the flip side of that question, was anyone really great to you?

Pucci:  Vincent D'Onofrio was like, the best person ever.  To learn from, he was the best because he just taught you so much with anything that he did.  He’s the most giving actor I ever met… he just gives you everything.  He makes it about you, instead of about the two of you in the scene.  It’s very strange, he does the most when he’s off camera and you’re on camera.  That’s when he just makes you feel a certain way.  And… he’s out of his mind.  He can, if he wants to, manipulate you because he’s a big guy. 

: Right, it seems like he could be real intimidating.

Pucci:  He can be.  He can be extremely intimidating.  He could scare the shit out of you, with just a… look, and just freak you out because you thought it would never come out of him and you’re just like, “holy shit!”

He was really awesome to work with, so he's one who really stands out in my brain.  But there were a lot of people that I really liked… a whole shitload of them.  I mean, almost all of them, to tell you the truth.  Even Keanu, which is a funny story, because I only worked with him for two weeks on Thumbsucker.  I really got to know him afterward, when we were doing the press for it, at Sundance and stuff.  That’s when I really got to know him.  While he was on set, I was so ‘in the character’ that I was playing, because we were already doing it for a couple of months by then, and I was so just kinda like, tired… every single day I worked, you know?  I had no time to really like, think.  And so I got to know him afterwards, but he’s such a nice guy.  He’s such a regular, joking guy.  He has the sickest sense of humor. 

: I heard when Keanu is on set, he is very meticulous in his preparation and can come off to some like a prick.  Did you notice that on Thumbsucker?

Pucci:  I don’t know… I didn’t notice that.  I don’t know what you mean… like I know he cares a whole shitload.  But I don’t know if I saw him completely like preparing for it.  I know there was this one time where we were doing this scene in a mall that got cut out of the film in the end, but we were doing this scene in a… no, it was a hotel lobby or something like that, and (laughs) it was just really funny because, to get into his character, for some reason he was just cursing.  He was just like randomly cursing, from across the room, in this huge hotel lobby.  There’s nobody else in there except for us.  But I mean, you’d sit there, you’d be talking to Mike and all you hear is “Fuck!”  And you’re like, “That just sounded like Keanu screaming ‘fuck.’” (laughs)  You know what I mean, just to like, get into his mind.  And everybody that I’ve seen kinda does something like that… so it was just funny because it was him and I realized it was just random. (laughs)

: Is there a “dream list” of actors or directors that you’d like to work with?

Pucci:  My favorite directors… I wish that some day I could work with Terry Gilliam, because I mean, I love Terry Gilliam.  He’s friggin’ awesome.  Not only was he in Monty Python, but 12 Monkeys is probably one of my all time favorites.  I just love so many of his movies.  I'd like to work with Johnny Depp, just because he seems like one of the coolest and strangest actors out there.  The things that he chooses and the way that he plays his parts is just completely random, every time, it seems.

: Depp is amazing.  He had the whole TV teen idol thing down and could’ve just coasted.

Pucci:  He just scoffed at it!  He just said, “No, I’m not gonna do crap” and that’s just awesome.

: Would you like to model your career after Johnny Depp’s?

Pucci:  I would hope so.  I hope that I will have the confidence to say, “hey, this is not going in the direction I want it to go” and to change it if it does go in like that ‘teen idol’ crap thing.  I don’t want anything like that.  I would really rather not, no, you know what I mean?  But I don’t know… I’m not really sure.  I'll just go with whatever happens.  I’m not really trying for anything.  Today, I was playing a videogame for most of the day.  (laughs)  You know, I’m not trying too much.

: It looks like you are building a body of work that is really stressing quality and characters… good roles in good films.

Pucci:  There’s some strange characters, yeah.  Empire Falls is one of the weirdest ones but Thumbsucker is one of the most complicated.  Every single one of them so far, and that’s why I did them, is because they are completely different and completely strange to me.  That’s kinda what I look for, just for it to be completely different and completely strange. 

: Have you noticed an increase in offers since the recognition of Thumbsucker at Sundance and Berlin?

Pucci: Um, yeah… slightly.  I think it’s a little too early yet, but I did get a script sent with an offer attached to it and, uh, that was kinda weird.  I never had that happen before.  I was like, “"Huh... (laughs) they just wanna give me the part?".  Strange.”

: Did you take it?

Pucci:  I said noooo!  But it was like, you know, very strange because that has never happened before and it was right after Sundance.  It was just one of those weird things, but there are a whole shitload of scripts waiting for me and there’s a lot of people who have called wanting me to read something.  So I think that probably has a lot to do with Sundance and Berlin.

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