I believe you encouraged Christopher McQuarrie, who you worked with on "The Usual Suspects", to write and direct this film?
I don't want to take all the credit, but we did sit down and talk about what we could do. We talked about the movies we liked and the movies that he was trying to emulate in some ways. I wanted to emulate Sam Peckinpah and Warren Oates, so I was there from the embryo. Chris wrote the thing in about six days. He wanted to do something less about the plot, unlike "The Usual Suspects". We wanted to do something where the weapons were held the right way. It took about five years to do it, and I'd love to work with him again.
You were both coming out of difficulties at the time, right?
He was coming from some turbulence with the movie he was trying to get made on Alexander the Great, and I was coming from a weird experience after "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas" because of the lack of success. We were both like the characters from "The Way of the Gun". I think he was Parker, and I was Longbaugh.
Are you and Chris outlaws, like Parker and Longbaugh, to Hollywood?
I think we were feeling at the time that we wanted to do something more against what Hollywood puts out all the time. There are lots of outlaws and mavericks out there, but we had a romantic vision that we would do something different. Kinda like old school.
Read what Benicio's co-star Ryan Phillippe has to say about the film.
Read a review of "The Way of the Gun".
