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• Article on I Love Your Work
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Tavis: Adam Goldberg is a talented actor whose films include 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'A Beautiful Mind.' Next month, he's out with a new project he both co-wrote and directed, called 'I Love Your Work.' The film opens November 4th in Los Angeles, and early December in New York. Adam Goldberg, I love your work.

Adam Goldberg: Well thanks, I appreciate it.

Tavis: Nice to have you on the program.

Goldberg: Oh, it's an honor.

Tavis: If I had a dime for every time I've heard that phrase, and I say that with humility, but you - I mean, I think every one of us wants to be appreciated for whatever it is that we do in life. And when you're in the business you love and people appreciate what it is that you do, so we hear that phrase all the time. I love your work. And so I'm afraid to ask where you go the idea from, but I think I have some idea.

Goldberg: Well, yeah, I was gonna say, if I had a dime for every time someone said it, I might have $1.50, but so I have kind of exaggerated the character a little bit for the purposes of drama. But you know, the seed of the idea was definitely rooted in my kind of reality as an actor. Just to the extent that - initially this idea occurred to me many, many years ago. I had gotten a very generic kind of fan letter. The - just the kind that asks for your like autographed headshot, or whatever. Nothing that was that effusive.

And I noticed that the return address - from the fan, if you want to call him that, wasn't far from where I was working at the time. And I thought, oh, it would be funny if I hand delivered this headshot to this guy. Just to see what - how big a fan he really was. And then I kind of - this seed was sort of planted, this idea of - an actor who becomes obsessed with a fan. But then I - just kind of filed that away. And then some years later, started to really contemplate the idea of why it was that maybe this guy would be obsessed with - a fan.

And started to really explore the similarities really between those people who are up on the screen and those people who are sitting in the - audience, and how there's a kind of almost sort of mutual sycophantism. You know, how they both sort of need each other in order to survive and to exist. And in this case - I made this guy a very troubled character who is probably pre-inclined to be very susceptible to paranoia and delusions.

But here he is actually having people mention his name, having kind of strangers come up to him on the street. And who I think finally realized he wasn't prepared for that, and wants his old life back. So the film, in a very damaged kind of way, he attempts to kind of regain the sort of purity that he's lost. And he attempts to do that sort of vis-à-vis this Joshua Jackson character, who's sort of this kind of, he views to be this kind of pure, pre-fame version of himself, in a sense.

Tavis: So he - wants some of his life back, and thinks he can get it back by trying to emulate or certainly...

Goldberg: Exactly. It's - the Mark Chapman thing, just kind of almost reversed in a sense. You know, where this guy thinks that if he kind of usurps the existence of this kind of video store clerk, that he'll have somehow regained his purity. I think that, and Giovanni and would talk a lot about like, you know, the idea that this character played by Giovanni had - begins to feel that he's made a sort of Faustian deal, and he wants out. And that's really kind of the basis for it.

Tavis: I think - it's fascinating because I suspect that there are probably a lot more people than you or I know who are of the celebrity ilk personality, who would love nothing more than to find some normalcy in the city.

Goldberg: I'll tell you, while I was writing I - had already begun writing the movie, and some months later I was - it took me - I don't know how long, but definitely over a year before I finally finished a draft that I wanted to kind of go out to the world with of the script. And - during which time I was working on 'A Beautiful Mind' which was also interesting, of course, because it deals with paranoia and delusion.

But I'm working with Russell Crowe, and just to see what his life was like at that moment in time, you know. And he had - literally won the Oscar the night before our first day of shooting. And it was really wild, and a bit scary. And you could really - well he expressed it to me quite literally and verbally. But you can sort of just see this kind of - 'What have I gotten myself into' kind of situation. Again I think it's important for me to emphasize that that's not ultimately what the film is about.

I really - explore this world of kind of celebrity for a certain part of the film, but really it ends up becoming what I'd like to think is a more universal concept, which is this 'grass is always greener on the other side' thing. That everybody assumes that what somebody else possesses is going to be more - is more romantic, is more perfect, more pure or whatever, than the life that they're leading. And so I kind of used this kind of idea of celebrity in a sense - as really a metaphor for that kind of very common cliché in a way.

Tavis: I suspect anybody, Adam, anybody who has a chance to write, co-write and direct a project is obviously gonna be connected to it, and invested in it in a real serious - maybe even - an emotional sort of way.

Goldberg: Oh, yeah. Maybe even financial.

Tavis: (laughs) But - but then on top of the writing and the directing, when the story line itself mirrors your own life, you've got a real investment in this thing. So how connected to this are you?

Goldberg: Oh, well, you know (laughs), I don't have any blood left, let's put it that way. You know, - I'm extremely invested in it. And what I - even as an actor, and I'll do a job that is kind of strictly for the money, and there's certainly plenty of jobs that I'll do just in order to kind of - make a living. I'm just a kind of a slightly obsessive type, so that once I get invested in something, it doesn't matter really what it is. I'm - I put kind of 100% of myself into that. So yeah, I guess you can imagine in this case that - it went very, very deep.

Tavis: Speaking of other roles that you play, is it just me, or are you drawn to characters who are a little bit quirky?

Goldberg: (laughs) No, that's just you. I don't know what you're talking about. That's just some kind of weird projection on your part.

Tavis: Yeah - I didn't mean to project that way. I just, yeah.

Goldberg: You know, I - the thing about that is that often times I'll read interviews - or I'll see interviews or whatever where I see actors kind of talking about how it is they form their career, or how it is they've shaped their career. And really - unless you're, I don't know, unless you're literally Tom Cruise, your career kind of shapes you.

Your career kind of dictates where it is that you're gonna go. And I think that obviously there's a - certain something about me that lends itself perhaps to those sorts of roles. Would I love to do something that's completely against type? Of course. You're not - oftentimes given that opportunity to fully express yourself as an actor.

Tavis: So Adam, just write it and direct it yourself.

Goldberg: Well hey, I think I might do that.

Tavis: And I'm sure he will. I know he can. For the moment, though, the new project is 'I Love Your Work.' Indeed, I do love your work Adam.

Goldberg: Hey, a pleasure.

Tavis: Nice to have you on the program.

Goldberg: Thank you so much.

Tavis: I'll be right back with some personal memories of the mother of the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks. Stay with us.