Crave Online: You're one of the most human characters among psychopaths and energy forces. How did you play that?

Patrick Wilson: You know, it's funny. I thought it was, whether this was a big, huge comic book movie or whether this was just a little play, he's as much of a detailed character with the biggest arc of I would say anybody that I've played. So I never really got caught up in the genre aspect of the film because so much of it was very organic. Even when Billy was there and all his LEDs and dots and things, it's still Billy Crudup who's a fantastic actor. So I never felt like you were in some crazy CGI movie because for most of it, at least with [Dan and Lori], you didn't get that feeling of sacrificing acting because of effects. That's something that I think you don't get that in this movie.  

Crave Online: How did you come to your voice?

Patrick Wilson: My voice, that's interesting. Well, there were moments that I felt like there's just a real eagerness and earnestness to do right and to be correct and to do the right thing with Dan. There's a lot informed by even the pictures and the way he sort of talks and the language that he uses. It's really sort of more '70s than '80s. He's a very old fashioned guy so there was a Jimmy Stewart sort of model there, specifically with the younger stuff, with the Comedian at the riots, playing it a little more eager before he felt lost so by the time you find him in '85, it's a little more sluggish.

Crave Online: The goggles looked cool but could you see out of them?

Patrick Wilson: You know, you're the first person to ask that. Actually, that was a real problem early on in the fight. The first fight sequence that we did was in the jail and they had made them so sealed to my head almost. Not really sealed but the suction on them, and I was so hot, the only skin that was showing was here and my eyes, you'd get about 10 seconds into the fight and the goggles would fog up and then you couldn't see. So you're sort of thinking, "Okay, what would Dan have done?" You're sort of cutting little slits in the goggles to let the air get out and doing all this. So there the goggles became a real work. It became very difficult to try to figure out how you could wear them.

Crave Online: Like putting the goggles up above your eyes?

Patrick Wilson: Well, that's what we were shooting for. Any scene that I could find, and also in the comic, down here. We had I think maybe one scene, I forget what's in the movie now, but down here, cowl back. I wanted all that stuff, cape off. I was trying to find as many of those as I could to really show wow, never seen that, wow, not used to seeing that, to make it as organic as possible. Seeing the zippers on the suit because you have to imagine like how do they get into this costume? I can't imagine Dan had a bunch of people sitting around downstairs helping him out. So they tried to make it look as practical as possible for that reason because that's such a big part of the comic, to see him putting it on and stuff.

Crave Online: Was it hard doing those scenes with Billy because he’s in this blue Tron suit?

Patrick Wilson: I remember the first day, because I’ve known Billy for a long time and I honestly remember seeing Jesus’ Son in the movie theater and just going, “I don’t know who that guy is but he is an unbelievable actor.” So I say this with great, great respect. I think he is one of the best actors around. That being said, the first day, my first day of shooting was the funeral so Adrian gets his umbrella and poor Dan has to sit out there in the rain just covered. Of course he forgot his umbrella. I remember getting out of the car and he’s just staring at me in this pouring rain trying not to blink and he has 150 dots on his face and this little helmet on and trying to be, “Hello Dan.” I just started laughing. This is ridiculous. Any time you have an experience with someone else that you’ve had a history with – me and Billy, me and Jackie – anytime you see them on set and you are in your costume you go, “What do we do for a living?” That was that moment for me and Billy. I’ve played golf with him for years now I look at him in this big LED suit, pouring down rain, trying to keep a straight face and play Dr. Manhattan.

Crave Online: What does it mean to your life to play these characters that the fans go nuts over?

Patrick Wilson: If they like it. I think we all have a tremendous amount of pride in what we set out to do and of course there are cuts that come in the translation from the comic to the script, then from script to the cuts of the movie. So yes, by the time the film is finished there are scenes that are missing that we can’t wait to look forward to in the director’s cut and then when they put in the Black Freighter. I feel like it is going to be the gift that keeps on giving for us just selfishly to keep watching what Zack does with this movie. The thing is there is such passion from the actors and the designers and Zack that we feel a sense of wanting to tell this story as faithfully as you can so with that I feel like you can’t go wrong, because honestly everyone has the greatest intentions to tell the right story. Any changes that have been made have been made in their minds for the good of telling the most faithful story.

Crave Online: It seems like everyone was on the same page all around. Why was that?

Patrick Wilson: When you have a director like Zack that has the energy of a teenager and it was a hundred and something day shoot and every day the guy was like, “Alright, awesome let’s go.” Everybody wants to be like that is your captain. The producers had such faith in him not only creatively, but obviously because of the success of 300. I remember meeting with Zack long before 300 came out so they had such faith in him. When you have a guy who knows exactly the story that he wants to tell, I guess that is what I’m saying. When you have a captain like that of your team who knows exactly what he wants to do, everyone is moving forward. There is nobody going, “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” You never had that conversation you have on movies. And you had such faith from all the producers who would come up to visit or when the heads of Warner Brothers would come up to see us, you really felt like we were shooting this great little movie. It was a long movie, but it didn’t feel like this huge epic thing. It was like a bunch of people getting together. You always look to your captain because there can be other elements, but if your director is that head strong and focused and positive there is no time for anything else because it is like “Why are you complaining? This guy has the hardest job here and he’s the happiest one around.”

Crave Online: What physical training did you have to do?

Patrick Wilson: We were up there I guess about a month before, doing all the fight training and being really specific in the style that we wanted. Definitely my character is coming at it from a much different place in his life. So I certainly wanted to, it wasn’t any grand mystery or nobody asked me to, but I wanted to gain the weight for it. I had never done anything like that, but the problem is, honestly, all joking aside, I couldn’t just sit around and eat hamburgers or anything and not work out, because then as soon as you put on the suit and try to do anything, you’re dead in the water. So I had to find a balance of doing a very specific actual workout with the trainer to have it not burn as many calories as everybody else, so I wasn’t being counterproductive and losing the weight. So I actually would do a lot of heavy lifting to gain muscle and whether it was fat or not, to gain muscle mass so that I didn’t have to burn it all off doing cardio. It was actually sort of a weird dynamic to gain weight and to still play a superhero.

Crave Online: And the action is more violent and brutal than most superhero fights.

Patrick Wilson: That’s the material. I don’t know how you do this movie and make it PG-13. Then you’re just not doing the book. It just happened to be violence, whether it’s Tom & Jerry or Batman or whatever, violence has always been prevalent and prone to this medium, to comics and to cartoons. It’s just that you never see the blood when the anvil falls on the coyote. It’s not even reality, it’s sort of a surreality, that sort of heightened yes, that’s blood and that’s a lot of blood and it’s an adult movie. As a parent, I would like there not to be as many violent films, but it’s okay when it fits the purpose and this is a movie about extremes and about an alternate reality. So everything has got to be pushed to the limit. Yeah, you’ve seen violence in other comic book movies, but have you seen it like this? No. Yeah, you’ve seen maybe a random love scene, a very sweet, innocent, sexy, and yes, have you seen it like this with a fetish aspect? No. But that’s what the comic is. So you cannot do the comic and not do the violence, I think. Just like any other side of it, or not make it political or not make it relevant in the ‘80s. It’s all part of the same tableau, it just happens to be a very hot topic because of Hollywood’s influence of violence and their position on it.