If Vantage Point is a lot of action for Dennis Quaid, just wait until he does G.I. Joe. Vantage Point casts him as a secret service agent on presidential detail during an assassination attempt. The events are shown from eight different points of view, so Quaid had to do the scene eight times. G.I. Joe may be more linear, but sometimes tells us he'll have more than a stage dive and a car chase in that one.

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CraveOnline: Is G.I. Joe going to be fun for you?

Dennis Quaid: It’s going to be, I hope, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. G.I. Joe. I remember since I was a kid. The character is going to be fun to do, it’s General Hawk, and he’s the leader of the Joe’s. I think he’s a cross between Chuck Yeager, Sgt. Rock and maybe a naïve Hugh Hefner.

CraveOnline: Will you be getting an action figure?

Dennis Quaid: Yeah, an action figure, that’s right. I’ve already been an action figure. I’ll have another one.

CraveOnline: How are you prepping for G.I. Joe?

Dennis Quaid: The prep for G.I. Joe is to get buff. That’s about it, watch the cartoons and get buff. That’s about as deep as it gets. Take a bunch of steroids…[laughs]

CraveOnline: What is the tone going to be?

Dennis Quaid: One thing my character, my aide de camp is a Victoria Secret super model, Carolina Kurkova. How serious can it be? I would guess the tone would be more like Transformers, this big action type movie. It’s a Spider-Man type movie. That sort of tent pole, popcorn, action film. That’s what it’s going to be.

CraveOnline: Are they going to be able to keep G.I. Joe PG for kids with all the military action?

Dennis Quaid: Well, how do you do Spider-Man without blood? Basically, it’s the same deal.

CraveOnline: What is the story?

Dennis Quaid: I really don’t know what it’s about. It’s set a little bit in the future. The Joes are these international Special Forces type of group. They mainly fight these terrorist groups that spring up. The movie is more like James Bond. The group is like the Spectre with this evil mastermind behind it, and I think it’s going to be more like the old James Bonds. Believe it or not, G.I. Joe, will be like Dr. No, where the mastermind has his own private island and all these people are wearing magic coveralls.”

CraveOnline: Will you sport a flat top as General Hawk?

Dennis Quaid: No, I don’t think so. In Special Forces, I can do anything I want, so no flattop for me. I’m thinking about actually doing a little blonde, Robert Redford-ish type of thing.

CraveOnline: Are you having a good time making movies these days?

Dennis Quaid: I’m just going along and probably having more fun with my career than I’ve ever had. You go through different stages in your life, and in your career. The twenties and thirties, especially in your thirties, we take ourselves so seriously about this whole career-building thing. I just feel that I’m finally doing it again for the same reasons I started out, like an acting skill, the things I learned back in college. I really love to do it, and I’m having fun with it. I would like to do as many different types of things as possible. It’s not a real job for God’s sake. It’s just really wonderful.

CraveOnline: You don't take it quite as seriously as you once did, right?

Dennis Quaid: Yeah, I enjoy it more. I think I am better at it than I used to be. Certainly, I would hope that I am. If you are a plumber and you learn little tricks as you go along, it makes you a better plumber.

CraveOnline: Since there were so many points of view available, were you always signed up to play Agent Barnes?

Dennis Quaid: Yeah, it was always for the Barnes role. I was in Spain, actually, where the movie supposedly takes place, and I was actually down there for another film. [Director] Pete [Travis] and I met and I read the script. I thought it was fantastic, and then he gave me his film Omagh, which is a little Irish movie. It’s about this IRA bombing back in the ‘70s. I watched it and I felt like I was watching a documentary, only I knew the actors, so I knew it wasn’t a documentary. That’s what really brought me, as well as most of the actors on board, I think William Hurt, Sigourney (Weaver), and Forest Whitaker. The way he shot that film was very interesting. I wanted to be part of this one. This movie is interesting more than it’s told, being at Rashomon like it is, and so that’s why I said yes.

CraveOnline: Were you game to do the action sequences?

Dennis Quaid: It was fantastic. They really did it well too, the car chase. I guess this is my car chase of my career that I got to do.

CraveOnline: How much did you drive yourself?

Dennis Quaid: I did just about all the driving except for the actual forty-mile-an-hour crashes. I didn’t really want to submit myself to the G-Forces needed for that.

CraveOnline: When you did the different perspectives, did you have to play your character different ways?

Dennis Quaid: I just played it the same way the entire time. I think because it’s from another persons point-of-view then the audience has a different perception, even though I’m doing the same thing. You get to see this fifteen minutes, then the next time you shoot that same fifteen minutes, you might catch a different angle of that character that you couldn’t see before, what that character was thinking. You see them go around the corner and what really happened, from what they said. It’s what is interesting and what is so exciting about this movie. As an audience member, it’s a puzzle really, and you are trying to put this together, within this time clock of fifteen minutes. It’s a very compressed time, this assassination, trying to find out who did it, and why it happened. As an audience, you are putting together this puzzle along with the characters in the film.

CraveOnline: Did you ever think this concept might not fly?

Dennis Quaid: You never know. It just read so well. When I read a script it’s the only time I get to be an audience member. It’s the first time I experience something. It really read so well that I felt if they could just put this on screen it was going to work. Pete not only did that, but he really elevated it as well, in the way that he shot it.

CraveOnline: What was an extras crowd of 5,000 people like for you? Had you ever experienced that before?

Dennis Quaid: Oh yeah, I’ve done sports movies with that, down in the midst of it, and they were there everyday for ten weeks. We were shooting in that square. It was quite a complicated process of shooting it, and I think that is a tribute to Pete when you actually see the movie, everything makes sense. It doesn’t come out as complicated.

CraveOnline: What's going on with your band?

Dennis Quaid: I haven’t played with the band since July. I am going to, I just took a break for a while. I’ve been at work for an entire year. Then, we were pregnant and having the babies. So I just wanted to take a little time off and do nothing. I have done that since June. This is
my first time back at work.

CraveOnline: Your movies are always on cable

Dennis Quaid: They are always on cable, it’s amazing. Once you have done sixty of them you are on somewhere.

CraveOnline: Do you ever stop and watch them?

Dennis Quaid: I occasionally see things, but I don’t really watch them all. I like a scene or two, whatever, you kind of go on to the next. Except The Right Stuff. I still love to watch that movie.

CraveOnline: Do you miss the Hollywood that you started your career in?

Dennis Quaid: Yeah, I do. Even back when we were doing movies like Badlands or Bonnie and Clyde or Five Easy Pieces, you also still had all the Burt Reynolds ones, too. It’s a little distorting, we have selective memory in a way, but I think that tradition is actually being carried over. I feel like there is this change that has happened, especially in the last five or six years. Independent films are taking over. Most of the films that are nominated are smaller independent movies, from Miramax and whatever. They really remind me of the ‘70s. No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood are very much ‘70s movies. These are films that remind me of the kind of filmmaking we used to do. They are not structured, there is no real hero to them, and there is a rebel hero, or an anti-hero, or no hero. It’s tearing apart the structure.

CraveOnline: Are there any maverick filmmakers you’d like to work with?

Dennis Quaid: I would still love to work with the Coen Brothers. I still consider them to be mavericks, and I really admire them. It’s like with every film they reinvent themselves.

CraveOnline: Would ever consider doing a TV series so that you don’t have to travel?

Dennis Quaid: Maybe later in life. I don’t know, I just like doing movies right now. I wouldn’t be opposed. What is really happening in places like HBO and Cinemax, and all those outlets right now is what happened with cinema in the ‘70s, but it really is what’s kind of happening there now. You feel like it’s torn apart. It has gotten to the point where people are used to things that are revolutionary. That’s because how many Friends episodes can you make? That three-camera sitcom is over, the cop shows and the realistic dramas are tearing it apart and giving people what they really want to see. I wouldn’t mind being a part of that.