Weller is not really a curmudgeon. I think he's a guy that always had his own way. And I imagine as a husband he was the same way he is with Fonsia. He has to be the guy, he has to have the last say. I see him as a man who wasn't quite successful. But this gin game that he's so good at supposedly is the one thing he has left to hang onto. Everything else is gone. He continually points out these people in the old-age home sitting and staring, like dried pumpkin heads up and down the hall staring out the windows. And of course the gin game is his one salvation, as long as he can play that game and keep his mind going he won't fall into that dementia that the rest of them are suffering. It's a downer because it's a pretty good depiction of what happens to old folks.
When he wants her to play gin with him he's very charming - he wheedles her into it. That was something that was very hard to do because we didn't quite do it in sequence, and his rage has to build, you have the see the final breakdown coming. It's kind of difficult to gauge, because acting isn't my best thing. [laughs]
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