INT: Rick Hoffman

You all know who Rick Hoffman is. You
may not necessarily be able to put the name with the face but trust
me, you know him. He was the
dude on the cell phone in CELLULAR and for all you horror fiends,
you will remember him as the American businessman who wondered if he
should kill his victim fast or slow in HOSTEL.
Now you know this guy, and if you’ve watched any television
or movies in the past few years, you’ve seen him many other times
as well. He has appeared on
CSI: NY, MONK and recently in SHARK. And
now he changes his loud mouth a-hole character for the softer,
kinder Goldman in THE
CONDEMNED alongside such heavies as ‘Stone Cold’ Steve
Austin and Vinnie Jones. He’s
the guy that realizes watching a group of condemned killers and
rapists kill each other for entertainment ain’t all it’s cracked
up to be.

And lucky for me, I got to hang out with Rick at the Wizard World
Convention in

Los Angeles

a few months ago. And
truthfully, after watching him as the a-hole in CELLULAR and HOSTEL,
I found him to be as far away from those characters as anyone could
be. Rick is a very
down-to-earth dude with a seemingly gentle soul.
He is so far from his character that he even felt he rambled
too much and thought he may be boring me…far from it.

This is a dude that I want to hang with and just get to know because he
is just a class act. And for
that matter, he’s also one kick ass actor.
Anyone who can pull off those characters and still make you
dig them has to be great. Frankly,
my favorite moments in CELLULAR were his.
I was looking forward to hanging out with him and can tell
you that I was not disappointed. We
talked about reality television like “The Bachelor” and
much else, he also spoke of working with Eli Roth.
He even shared his impressions of HOSTEL 2, and if he is
right, horror fans have much to be excited about.

Rick
Hoffman

First
thing I wanna talk about… Goldie [in “The Condemned”], how did
they approach you?

To do it? Ah, Steve Goldman?
It started out with my relationship with Scott Wiper who…
it’s gone back through eleven years.
We came from a very close bunch of friends and… there’s
about five of us and Scott and I were struggling around the same
time, and then Scott got to do “A Better Way to Die” and threw
me a bone and asked me to come up to Ohio.
I just couldn’t get arrested eight or nine years ago.
And it started something good because within four months I
got my first TV series and things have gotten better ever since.
And now I was able to… he had me in mind for this role from
the get go but he wasn’t sure if it could work out to go down to

Australia

.

Just because they can only allow a certain number of actors from the
states for tax purposes, but it worked out.
And I love the idea, A… because I was going to be working
with Scott again and B… the part was different.
You know, different than things I’ve done recently.
I’ve been playing mostly a very hard edged, you know,
slick… kind of assholes. And
this guy is a very soft… he’s a softy and he represents the
moral, you know, just moral value in this film.
As I’ve said to the other guys, he’s the consciousness of
the film. He poses the
question, who’s more condemned?
The convicts that are fighting for their lives and killing
each other or the audience who is watching it and getting their
jollies off of that shit so… it’s a cool part to have.

Do
you ever watch reality television?

I have. You
know, I watch briefly and then I turn it off because I’m so
disgusted.

Exactly.
You watch out of curiosity and then…

[Vinnie Jones interrupts for a moment to
tell him]

Vinnie: You
need to hang yourself??? There’s
some curtains out there mate. [He’s joking, by the way.]

[Laughing]

That’s the humor I was talking about…
where no one laughs. [Needless
to say, I am] That’s Vinnie Jones by the way.
Thinks he’s hilarious.
[Laughing] As far as reality TV goes… you know what I mean,
like I used to, like in the first season I got into “The
Bachelor”. Just
because I’m a romantic when it comes to the idea of somebody
finding somebody in a very obscure way, I liked that.
But then it got worse and worse as the seasons ran on.
Let’s just put it this way, I was out before Charlie
O’Connell jumped on board to be the bachelor.
I was just like, “Oh, God no, no, no, come on.”

It’s
a weird thing because you are watching this pseudo reality and
you’re supposed to believe it, you’re supposed to buy it
but nobody is going to be “real” surrounded by cameras.

Right. And
somehow, in that particular setting… these people you could tell
were just so unaware… they were so green, especially the first
one. You could tell as
much as there were cameras around there was some real stuff going on
and this guy, he really… it’s kind of like watching… you know
when you watch a car chase and you really hate to watch it but…

You
can’t turn it off.

Yeah, you just can’t turn it off.
Like watching that guy, just make so many f*cking ridiculous
mistakes, it was just like, “Oh, that’s so… what an idiot.”
And I keep watching because Trista was just too damn hot and he
passed her up man. You
know, look what happened. That
kind of shit… the girl is still married to the guy Ryan and they
are having a kid. And
it’s been what, four or five years?

Yeah.

So that kind of stuff I don’t mind.
It’s the things, I think I mentioned to you earlier, like
“The Littlest Groom”, for the purpose of ratings… it’s so f*cked
up. Why not have a naked
bum on the street playing the banjo or something, like really
offensive…

We’re
getting there. The more
they want an audience the closer we get to that point.
They just get more and more
ridiculous.

Yeah, I mean the guy’s small, is that
supposed to be funny? I
find that to be insulting.

I do
to.

Ah, and believe me, I have a kind of,
sometimes I do, maybe by accident say offensive things or I’ve
done things in the past with my friends that are ridiculous.
But, when you’re showing it on the air to millions of
people, it’s like… enough.

And
there’s a difference in telling a joke to a friend or just f*cking
around then trying to get as many viewers as you can to
see this person humiliated in all sorts of ways.
It’s a big difference.

Yeah. And
I also think the news nowadays does some really… it’s not the
same news anymore, you know, they keep showing this shoot out,
whether it be Columbine or any weird shoot out.
You know, they know they’re gonna get viewers by keep
repeating the episode over and over and over again.
And I find that to be sickening.
That’s something I can’t watch.
And that’s what this movie; I think it’s the closest to
what this movie represents. It’s
the direction that so easily we can get into.

I
agree. And you know, the
thing is with your performance in the movie, there is one part where
you
can’t watch anymore and you
back away. I bought it,
completely. It was a
very believable performance for
this kind of film.

That’s what brought me, the combination of
Scott being the director and the character… that is what really
attracted me to doing it. Because
I felt that this guy is a real human being. It
wasn’t just an action picture to me, even though it is, and it’s
f*cking tons of that. But
I was glad to be a part of that and also at the same time
representing something else in the film.

Well
it’s not a bad thing to have a moral or a point with the action.
You can have the best of both
worlds with that.

Yeah, yeah… and also I think that’s what
makes, if it’s easier to believe and coherent and makes sense
there is nothing better than an action picture that has a little bit
of that. It’s in
many… “Blade Runner”, which I find to be, I mean, I’m not
comparing this film to “Blade Runner”, I’m just saying,
that’s the one extreme. I
mean, would we consider that an action picture?

Nowadays?
I don’t even know.

Back then…

Well,
yeah. Back then,
absolutely. A thinking
man’s action picture, I guess…

Yeah. I
can’t really think right now, but there are tons of them that have
that combination.

Even
like, “Deliverance”…

Yes! Yeah,
exactly. I’m thinking
more of like fighting films but anyway… we could go on thinking
for a long time.

Talk
about movies all day.

Yeah.

Now
the first thing I saw you in was “Cellular” and I was…

Depressed.

Yeah.
Well, no…

You were very offended.

No.
I…

You walked out as soon as you saw my goofy
face.

Yeah.
Basically. No,
you stuck out to me. Me
and my wife were watching and we both were like, “that
dude’s funny.”

[He Laughs]

And we
were watching and it reminded me of a lot of people I’ve met.

Yeah… Thanks. [Laughing]

What
happened with that film…

That was sort of… it’s basically what
has transpired in most of the jobs I’ve had since, where you have
a great director like David Ellis who sees the script and says,
“You know something man.
I know your work, I’d love for you to just sort of go to
town on this.” So my
first day was working at the Impound with Sherry where she’s not
giving me back my car. So
there’s a whole other scene written and to David’s credit he was
just like, just whatever you want to do, just go wild.
And that started, I don’t know why but, I just went off on
a kind of a really f*cked up tangent.
And all the people from New Line are sitting behind this
thing and they’re like, this is working.
So from that point on, that’s all I did in that movie.
You know, with the Porsche and I spent a few days driving
that fantastic car…

Yeah.
That’s not your car?

Well, actually I have one in my garage.
[Laughing] No, yeah… hell no.
But so I got to really have fun.
And that’s what’s happened… I’ve been lucky.
Directors I’ve worked with tend to say, just do it, which I
find to be very unique. When
I did the movie “Blood Work” with Clint Eastwood and this is not
to go over my resume, but this is what gave me the confidence to do
it, is when I had this one dialogue scene with Clint who was
directing the movie as well, he loved improv and I asked him,
“Well are you just a fan [of improve].”, and he’s like, “Why
would I not allow an actor to come in a bring what they have.”
And I’m like you know what man, that’s Clint Eastwood.
He’s saying that, and I’m like, well I don’t give a
shit from here on in… you know, it gives you as an actor,
empowerment. It makes
you feel like as an artist you should be able to bring, I think,
something of yours to a role. I’ve
been lucky, because I know that there are a lot of people that have
not had that experience. And
also by the way, besides acting, I love rambling…

That’s
okay…

I can tell you’re falling asleep.

No,
not at all man.

Well , that’s what I also do as a
profession so…

No,
it’s awesome dude. It
makes it so much easier for me.
Now, I’m coming from
Arrow
in the Head.com
and
JoBlo.com
so I cannot, not bring up “Hostel”.
Let’s talk a little bit about that.
How did you hook
up with Eli [Roth]?

I think at the time they were trying to
figure out whether or whether not Quentin Tarantino was going to
play that role and then they chose not to.
I think Quentin decided and they all decided that maybe
it’d be a little too much to have him in there because he’d be
too recognizable. So
they were like, let’s go with somebody who is completely
unrecognizable. And my
friend Chris Briggs who was producing it, and also came up with part
of the idea, with Eli in this film, he showed Eli “Cellular”…

I knew
it.

And Eli said, call him up.
And they flew me to

Prague

within two days. And I
had, for the life of me, had no f*cking clue how I was gonna do this
thing. Because reading
the script on the plane, and then I read it again on the plane, the
script was awesome, I thought the script was awesome.
The script was just so well written and just really… very
few horror films are coherent and make sense and have an interesting
story line and this did. And
the character, to this day, I don’t know exactly what I did to…
Thank God the first day I spent blow-torching a girl’s eye out,
cuz that to me, is so out there.
To me, I was just like, “I’m blow-torching this girl’s
eye out of its socket.” It
doesn’t take much when I see that make-up and think, that’s
gonna pump me up. That’s
just gonna pump anybody up.

That
was fantastic. And your
expression man, you’re like, “WHAT!”
[Laughing]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah… so then I had to
figure out the next couple of days what has lead me to that point,
you know, in the locker room. And
that gets a little more muddy and I somehow, I think just taking the
nervous energy and the energy from Eli, all that stuff.
Because there is nothing in my history that I could bring
back and say, “Hey, how do I get psyched to blow-torch a girl’s
eye out?” So I just, I
don’t know, just a combination of somehow trying to keep it real
and at the same time, if you’ve lost your life completely and have
no direction, what’s that like?
So… being in

Prague

by the way, insane, as far as the experience, beautiful city,
beautiful women…

How
long were you there?

I
was there, I had a friend there, made friends immediately there and,
ah, two three weeks. And
it was phenomenal. Phenomenal…
and you can tell… I had a feeling then that that movie was going
to do well. Just
because, I saw Eli’s execution, he just really had it together
man, you know. He’s a
wild guy and he may say some outlandish stuff but I think he’s a
genius.

He’s
a fantastic director.

Yeah.

And
the thing is, he speaks to the horror fans, he doesn’t just…

Oh,
no, I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival, the midnight show.
He got down there, and he may be slightly long winded but
boy, he talks to his fans. And
I find that to be… it’s just a rare quality in most of these
directors. I think he
really takes enjoyment. Because
he was one of those people, that’s a horror fan. That’s
what’s really special about Eli.
And he’s gonna be making a lot more to come boy.
This is just the beginning for him.

No
prequel action for Hostel 2 for you huh?

I
think they talked about it at one point but it’s just impossible.
But this is a very interesting story this next one by the
way. It’s actually…
some people are saying it’s better than the first.
And I have nothing to gain by saying it.
But I’ve heard that it’s actually more twisted, and not
just for shock value. Just
as far as the story line happens, I think it’s supposedly, either
just as good or better.

Let
me know what you think. Send
questions and comments to [email protected].