I began my interview with Uwe Boll by asking him to sign my ticket stub for In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. He was exited that someone had paid to see it. There may be some misconceptions about why Uwe Boll makes his movies and why they turn out the way they do. Though I have not enjoyed any of the films myself, even the intentionally comic Postal, I looked forward to a spirited discussion with the infamous director.

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CRAVE ONLINE: Was it time for a comedy approach to your movies?

UWE BOLL: Yeah, absolutely. I was so pissed off after BloodRayne, after the reviews, that I made a decision. I'd sit down and write on my own again, like I did before I started with House of the Dead, when I was more involved in the script and everything. I wrote something without any holdbacks. I felt like will write now in a way what I think is funny, and there are no rules or ratings in my head. Then Vince Desi, the game guy, they hated it. They told me, "Are you crazy? You should do a movie like Taxi Driver, like a guy runs amuck or something." I said, "No, I want to do that movie funny and I want to make it in the tradition a little like The Blues Brothers meets Naked Gun meets Monty Python's Meaning of Life or Life of Brian." So to have all the political satire in it. Then finally we didn't get any actors. All the agencies said, "We don't know what happened to you. We know In the Name of the King, BloodRayne, totally unpolitical genre movies and entertaining movies. Now you're completely out of your mind." We had problems to get actors. Sarah Silverman passed on the movie. David Cross.

CRAVE ONLINE: You'd think it would be right up their alley.

UWE BOLL: Even like harsh comedians. I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. I thought this is the movie they're all waiting for, to be in a movie like this. Let's say all the actors like David Cross and Sarah Silverman, they think they have a mainstream career. I think they found the niche, but they are overall eager to play in Men in Black V or something. I think the agents definitely said, "You shouldn't do that movie." Then we did casting and people popped up like Erick Avari or Seymour Cassell, known actors, J.K. Simmons. They were really into it and I think you see that in the movie, that they really went out there and wanted to do a harsh thing. So Dave Foley and Verne Troyer.

CRAVE ONLINE: Why were you pissed off with reviews? What do you care what reviews say?

UWE BOLL:  No, because I felt like the movies got better. The thing is if you don’t see a difference between House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne or Dungeon Siege as a reviewer, then you're blind. You're blind because they're totally different movies and totally different scripts, actors, acting, how the movies are made. Of course you still can dislike all four movies if you want, but the point is what's pissing me off was all the reviews got more and more personal. I read all the press of BloodRayne and I would say in over 50-60% of the reviews, you had no clue what the movie was about after you read the review. It was all about me and what an *sshole I am. They didn't even mention the cast, that BloodRayne was maybe one of the best cast horror movies ever. Nobody wrote about it and I couldn't believe it. I could not believe that reviewers go down that lane in a way that it's all about damaging a guy and nothing about anymore informing the reader about what a movie's about.

CRAVE ONLINE: So it's okay if you hate the movie, as long as you're talking about the movie.

UWE BOLL: Yeah. I think a good review should be, you can bash the movie to the ground if you have reasons to do it and you write a solid bad review, but you should at least inform what the movie is. You have to explain what the story is and who's in the movie and everything. If you don’t do that, if you start bashing me and you never stop bashing me and nobody knows in the end is BloodRayne actually a movie with actors, or you don’t even know that it's a period piece or that it's in Transylvania in 1700 or whatever… and there were reviews out there, in L.A. Weekly for example, also on Dungeon Siege in the L.A. Weekly especially, the guy must hate me. There was not one good line about In the Name of the King. He wrote nothing. Like "stupid actors in a completely piece of sh*t cheap made movie," so then you see it and you think, "I don't know. Is it really a totally cheap made movie or has no actors and no story or whatever?" Then you see The Golden Compass and because it's a big studio release, they are pussying out and writing, "Oh, it's not so bad" or whatever. I saw The Golden Compass. I think In the Name of the King is a better movie.

CRAVE ONLINE:  What about acknowledging the internet and your reputation in Postal?

UWE BOLL: Look, for me, I saw it like if I insult in Postal everybody, then I have to make all the fun out of myself and I portray myself as a Lederhosened idiot and pervert and everything. So to show that it's not about I blame other people or I insult other people, I wanted that Postal is an all sides offending movie and that you don't have a reason, that for example a Muslim cannot say later, "It's all against us." So that all religions and all races and everybody gets trashed to the ground in a way. We see the world as a completely absurd place where we're all running right now to an edge where we maybe fell down and then there is no way back. This is basically what I wanted to do, the reason also the movie has no happy end or something. So it's like kind of a hopeless, depressing end in a comedy.

CRAVE ONLINE: Do you direct the actors to be over the top or play it straight?

UWE BOLL: It depends. Like for example, with Soup Nazi, with Larry Thomas, I told him he should drop the accent, he should talk American English and play it totally in a way not so much over the top. But if you have comedians, like you have Richard (Chris Coppola), Dave Foley's right hand, he's like the Chris Farley guy basically. He cannot play not over the top. It's his personality, so you cannot stop him, for example. I tried in Postal that everybody plays, or should try to be a realistic character, like a real character in an absurd world in a way. I think the Dude, Zack Ward, is really pulling it off. He is really like a believable guy in a way, in a totally absurd thing. But then you have over the top characters like J.K. Simmons, the political guy, or you have that small part, the guy who blows himself up with J.K. Simmons, they are of course totally over the top characters and they play it over the top. Verne Troyer as himself.

CRAVE ONLINE: How about in the more serious movies like Burt Reynolds in In the Name of the King or Ben Kingsley in BloodRayne?

UWE BOLL: Yeah, for example Ben Kingsley was not received well in BloodRayne, I totally disagree because I think he plays in BloodRayne, I talked with him about it. I said, "Look, you are since 400 years, 500 years ruling the earth in a way. Why should you be upset?" So he plays the whole movie, he stays kind of cool and not flipping out like if you see Van Helsing, the guy flips out the whole time, totally extravagant. I think Ben Kingsley plays the vampire king very straight, calm and people said, "Oh, it's so flat." But how else should he play that guy? I think he nailed that 400-500 years old Kagan character with his performance. And I think also Burt Reynolds, of course, it is totally unusual that a Burt Reynolds plays in a movie like this, or Ray Liotta. But I think especially Burt Reynolds in In the Name of the King was very good as the king. It's the first movie where he died and he said this is something special, and he put a lot of effort into that dying scene also. I think it works emotionally and I like him as a character. What is a little sad with In the Name of the King of course is that the real long version is almost three hours. This will come out on DVD as a director's cut hopefully soon, and I think this has more fleshed out characters. Then you feel more if he dies later because there are more scenes with him before. You get a better connection to his character. Also to Ray Liotta, all the connections between the people are in the longer version better. Now it's kind of flashy, and Ray Liotta is over the top in the movie. But if you see him developing into that situation, because it's like 45-50 minutes longer movie, then it's also working better.

CRAVE ONLINE: If people didn't like it at two hours, isn't it asking a lot that they see a longer version?

UWE BOLL: Yeah, I agree. That's the thing. If people don't like it, maybe they will not like the long version also, but I think it is definitely at least interesting. If you are a film lover, it is interesting to see the different take on the movie. Normally, whatever they do, if a movie works, for the DVD they cut 10 minutes or five minutes on top of the movie and this is then the uncut director's cut. Here, this was the cut but the movie was too long. Nobody wanted to release it too long, so I had to cut it down to two hours and 10 minutes. I think the real version is the long version.

CRAVE ONLINE: Your boxing match was a great success. Would you engage critics in their territory of intellectual analysis?

UWE BOLL: [Laughs] So that I help them writing critiques? No, but I think the boxing match was a kind of direct communication between a director and the critics, and the insulting critics. If a Jay Schneider writes, "I'm proud that I never saw an Uwe Boll movie" and then he goes into the ring to represent Harry Knowles for Aintitcool.com, this was so stupid. It makes for me no sense. I had no clue. I was inviting him, for example, because of Aintitcool.com, that Quint and Harry Knowles trash me always. Then that he didn't even watch my movies as a fight preparation, just to know when he comes to Vancouver what is that guy about. That shows a little arrogance, because I think a good reviewer or a good critic should always bash a movie after seeing the movie. I think this is like as a sports guy writing about a baseball match or a basketball match and not even looking at it. Nobody would do that. It's totally absurd. They would always hire the guy who saw it to write about the football match or the hockey game. In the movie industry, it looks like it's not the case. They see 10 minutes of a movie and then they trash it to the ground, but whatever.

CRAVE ONLINE: There must be some people who saw the whole thing and had legitimate complaints. Do you engage them?

UWE BOLL:  Absolutely, and I learned from the critics. I read the reviews and I changed stuff. There's a reason why Guinevere Turner wrote BloodRayne and not a guy who never wrote a script before. So there is progress, and the In the Name of the King script. I think we all, the people I work with, really thought about the negative voices after Alone in the Dark was even worse than House of the Dead. We have to change and make major things. We cannot make a movie before the script is completely ready. We should really have something develop from people with credits. They did various movies before or whatever, so a different route basically we went. And I think the movies got better. Of course, there are some people, whatever, I met a few days ago at IGN and they said, "I love House of the Dead." Some people have totally different tastes. Then you think, okay, for me In the Name of the King is way better than House of the Dead in everything, whatever you do, from the props to the art direction to the production design to the camera to the CGI and music and story and actors. There is nothing where House of the Dead would win. But he said like for him, House of the Dead is a classic movie where he has a blast seeing it every time. So what should I do.

CRAVE ONLINE:  With this latest petition, what do you care if a million people sign it, if there are 10 million who'd still watch the movies?

UWE BOLL: No, I agree and it is also now kind of an absurd situation that the gum company is sponsoring with chewing gum if you're saying vote against me. So I wait for Budweiser now or somebody who goes for the pro-Boll petition and you get a can of beer for free if you vote pro-Boll. Yeah, and I'm not sure how many different people signed so far. There maybe everybody is doing 10 different identities and votes 10 times, so I really am not sure.

CRAVE ONLINE: What kind of movies do you like to watch?

UWE BOLL: I watch basically everything that comes out, but I enjoy also more, let's say, no so commercial movies. Like No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood. There Will Be Blood was my favorite last year. For example, a movie like Juno I think was great but was not SO good. People say like it's a masterpiece or whatever, but I think it was a good comedy, a small little movie like My Big Fat Greek Wedding or Little Miss Sunshine. These are good movies you enjoy but they are totally overrated in a way. Years later nobody knows anymore why they were so successful. I love also movies like Iron Man. But one of the reasons why I did Postal was I was tired from that kind of Hollywood movies coming out. Like I love Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey or Will Ferrell, but all the movies they do, they entertain me only 20 minutes. Then the rest is more sentimental kind of typical stories. Like the typical Hollywood story. You need the happy end and the family is great and weddings are great. In the end, they are all, the Ben Stiller stuff, very supportive of the status quo. They are not anarchistic like the Monty Python movies. This is what I really like. I like more like Ruthless humor where you have no holdbacks. In a Wedding Crasher movie or whatever or Meet the Fockers, there are always those moments where I laugh my ass off, or Superbad, but overall, the movies are more, let's say, conventional. I tried to do with Postal something else.

CRAVE ONLINE: Do you feel like Postal has something in common with Troma movies?

UWE BOLL: Postal is not cheap. It's like a $30-40 million movie with a lot of action, but in the way that satirical elements and the craziness of Lloyd Kaufman is of course in Postal. He actually called me where I shot it and wanted to be in the movie. I invited him to be part of the Little Nazi theme park. He wanted to do it but then he had no time to do it so he couldn’t' come. But I personally like him a lot but also a studio like Troma, their biggest time is over. This is the thing. I think there's a lot of manufactured Hollywood studio franchise stuff going on, what is not interesting, what is boring, and what only makes some money because they put more and more money into the releases. A movie like Jumper, if you would do Jumper out with $15 million P&A, you would not make $5 million box office. Nobody would see the movie. So they have to put more and more money into more releases to get any attention for movies that basically nobody wants to see. There is nobody who wants to see a B.C. 10,000 until you spend $75 million to release.