Fancast: The Big Picture

Only recently has Jeffrey Dean Morgan hit his hot streak, after years of toiling in the thespian biz, with his role as Denny Duquette on Grey's Anatomy, and next week he's featured in a crucial supporting role in the Hilary Swank/Gerard Butler tearjerker P.S. I Love You as an Irish love interest for Swank's grieving widow. The biggest role of his life, however, is what he's working on now - he's playing The Comedian Edward Blake, a hard-edged and brutal bastard antagonist in the long-awaited film adaptation of one of the most acclaimed graphic novels of all time, Watchmen.

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Q: Did you do all the guitar-playing yourself?

Jeffrey Dean Morgan: I'm the most non-musical person you'll ever find in all your days. I always wanted to know how to play guitar. A week before we went to Ireland, Gerry and I were sent to Nancy Wilson and had guitar lessons from her, which was one of the highlights of doing the film. Come on, Nancy Wilson, Heart. I had a huge crush on her. I'm from Seattle, I had a huge thing for her as a kid. That was a highlight, and then we continued our guitar lessons in Ireland. If you can imagine Gerry and I trying to play guitar and sing, it was sort of ridiculous, but we had a good time. Gerry is able to sing better than I am. I think I played a better guitar, but he was the Phantom of the Opera, for god's sake, so he had a little singing background whereas I... it was sorta painful. I felt very sorry for the crowd that was gathered to listen to me sing, but during the course of that day, when we were filming me singing and playing guitar in front of 300 extras, I was drinking Guinness, so somehow, by the end of the day, I thought I was pretty damn good.

Q: How'd you like doing an Irish accent?

Morgan: I'd never done an Irish accent before. When we first went in for the movie, I went in for the role that Harry Connick Jr. did. They loved me for it, but then I got a call from the director saying “hey, what do you think about doing an Irish accent,” and I said “I don't feel good about it. I just don't.” I guess Richie (director Richard LaGravenese) was having some problems trying to find an Irish guy. Weird. So I went and worked for the dialect coach for a day in L.A., and did the whole big when-we-meet-and-fall-in-love sequence with an Irish accent, and they gave me the job, oddly enough. I thought I sounded like a leprechaun. Then when we went to Ireland, they put me with a real dialect coach and then it was a matter of finding what dialect – wherever you are in Ireland, it changes drastically. Trying to get Gerry and I on the same page, again – between getting the music and the dialect on the same page, because we had to obviously be from the same part of Ireland given that we grew up together. It was crazy. I think our accents changed three times in three days before we started doing. Finally, it was like "aw, shit, this is the one I'm doing and you'd better get on board with it, Scotsman.”

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"My ass knows how to act."

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Q: How do you feel about your nude scene?

Morgan: After the dialect and the guitar-playing, I'd show my ass in a second. It was fine. It was the first time I've ever shown any skin, and I kinda wanted to bring a stunt ass in, one that had worked out a little bit more than me, but it worked out fine. It wasn't nearly as horrendous as I anticipated it being. I actually felt kinda good running around naked that day. It was actually fun. I wasn't too mortified. I think we got it was a one-shot deal. We may have done two, but my ass knows how to act, so it was pretty easy. Thank you for bringing my ass up. I played the Pam Anderson role in the film is what I like to say. It was fine. Too much other stuff going on. I was already just nervous about working with Hilary and getting that scene done, so taking off the clothes, that was icing on the cake. That was all right.

Q: Why were you nervous about working with Hilary?

Morgan: Well, going in, you're working with a two-time Oscar-winner. The way my career has happened in the last couple years – three years ago, I wasn't doing anything. I was fighting for a job on Walker: Texas Ranger, for god's sake. So to be, all of a sudden, working opposite Hilary, I was a little bit intimidated. Now, mind you, there couldn't have been a better person to work with, because you'll not meet a more gracious and wonderful actor than she is. My intimidation was quickly put aside and we ended up laughing and having a great time. I could do every movie with her. She was fantastic.

Q: How'd you establish your chemistry with Hilary?

Morgan: It was kind of immediate. I think we were so comfortable around each other once we started working. We'd obviously met through the whole movie, go-to-Ireland, that kind of thing. Once I started working with her, we had a pretty good rapport, and the chemistry happened naturally. I can't speak highly enough about her. There's something really special about that girl, and I think anybody would have chemistry with her. She's that good, so I just hung onto her coattails and went with it.

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"Gerry's a fucking nutball. Quote me on that."

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{At this point, Gerard Butler enters the room, bellowing and singing incoherently about Morgan's “stupid mustache” to crack him up laughing, then leaves)

That's my friend. That's my good buddy Gerry. What was the question?

Q: Anything memorably funny happen on the set?

Morgan: Every day. Every day. We laughed a lot. I don't think I've ever laughed more making a film. The whole cast is hilarious. I can't think of anything specific, because I spent so much time with tears coming out of my eyes, just laughing. Well, Gerry's a fucking nutball. Quote me on that.

Q: What's happening with Watchmen?

Morgan: That's why I have the sweet mustache. It's a far cry from P.S. I Love You, I'll tell you that. It's been an experience. We just got to the halfway point in the movie, and I've been there since August. I had two months of fight training before beginning the movie. Now we're knee-deep in filming. It's an amazing cast. Zack Snyder is crazy cool. His vision and how prepared he is and how true he's staying to the novel – it's a pleasure to be up there and doing it. It's unlike anything I've ever done before. The scale of it, the scope of it is mind-boggling to me. I walked onto the set the other night and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It's crazy. It's beyond anything I've ever seen before.

The character I'm playing is, again, a far cry from anything I've ever done before. It's kind of a tough character for me. It's just a hard role to play. Shooting some of the scenes and some of the things he does... I go home at night and it really makes me think. It's hard sometimes to do. I understand it's all acting and stuff, but there's a rape sequence in there, for instance. That was a brutal two days of filming. Just internalizing it all, and I'd sit and watch playback and just go “My god, what am I doing?” And my fan base of all those Grey's Anatomy fans are going to lose their shit when they see this. “What happened to Denny, man?!” It's a hell of an experience.

Q: Are you prepared for the kind of profile this film is going to have?

Morgan: I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure if I'm prepared for it. I think it's kind of learn as you go. Everything's happening, my career is rollercoasting and I'm so grateful for it, but I never would have anticipated it even a year ago. Everything's happening so fast, and I'm trying to be grateful and humble and hope it continues, and the shoe doesn't drop and I'm back wondering what the hell I'm doing with my life again. The Watchmen thing, I think it's going to be so big that I don't know that I'm gonna be able to breathe. Even up there shooting it, it's just like “oh my god, this is unlike anything I've ever seen or even heard of.” The pressure, already, from the fan base it has – scrutinizing it so much, every move we make. It's so secretive. The whole thing is new to me. You want to enjoy it, but at the same time you're feeling the weight of the world. Especially Zack. It's going to be a huge thing when this thing comes out and we want it to fulfill everybody's expectations, so that's what we're hoping to do.

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"My fan base of all those Grey's Anatomy fans are going to lose their shit when they see this. 'What happened to Denny, man?!'"

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Q: Anything specifically you're not allowed to talk about?

Morgan: The obvious stuff, I guess, but you know they're not releasing anything. It's all being spoon-fed through Warner Bros. But there's press up there. Last week, they had the better half of the world in, press from Japan, Italy, France, and every day I sit and I do roundtables with 50 people, so it's huge. It's not coming out until March 6 of 2009, and already I've done more interviews for Watchmen than I have for everything I've ever done combined. So it's a little nutty, it's a little intimidating, but hopefully on March 6, 2009, when all this comes to fruition, it's going to be a hell of a movie.

Q: They're sure taking their time with it.

Morgan: Time well taken, I think. You've gotta get it right. There's no second chance on something like that. You've gotta get it right, and I think Zack is the perfect guy for it. I'm glad he's doing it.

Q: How are you keeping grounded with this rush of success?

Morgan: Working so much. For the last two years, I haven't really had any time off, so I guess the way to stay grounded is to keep working and keep counting those blessings when you go to bed at night. There were so many years when I wasn't working. I was happy doing two or three guest-stars a month when I was lucky, a year sometimes. For the last three years, this working ride that I've been on hasn't had a lot of time to sit back and enjoy it and be an asshole about it. I don't have time to be cocky. I'm just so thankful. I'm 42 years old, so for this to happen when you're my age, it's the luckiest fuckin' thing in the world as far as I'm concerned. I thought I'd be waiting tables at this point in my life three years ago. I feel pretty damn lucky.