What attracted you to do Hancock?
It is something you read that just sticks with you. I like the conflict that the characters found themselves in and that is what drew me. It was the same when I did Monster. There was just something really interesting about this story.

Doesn’t a big superhero flick have its own commercial appeal?
Yes, Hancock is a big studio film, but I can tell you this, I think Will Smith is going to break the conception about independent filmmaking and the big blockbuster world with this movie. People are so quick to categorize that better acting is in the independent world and that the big blockbusters are all about action and effects and are mainly fluff. Those are how you pay your bills. An actor is only doing the big films for the paychecks. Will is going to change that misconception single-handedly because the material he is tackling is definitely not compartmentalized from independent filmmaking. He works with really talented people and so that is what struck me about this one. I knew it would be him and would be a bigger film but at the same time it was this beautiful complex piece.

Hancock is a superhero who makes mistakes, but traditional superheroes are supposed to be perfect.
We thrive on that, don’t we? We see how many magazines and newspapers thrive on mistakes and it has almost become the ‘in’ thing. We like to see famous people wearing no underwear, getting DUI’s (Driving Under Influence of drugs or alcohol) and getting arrested. I like the idea of taking a quintessential hero, and putting him in humane conditions. Hancock is this guy who has been saving the world a long time. He is somewhat tired of the routine and so he drinks and likes to grab young girl’s asses.

Do you play the damsel in distress?
In fact I play a complex character. Anyone who consciously decides that they are going to make a specific suburbia life usually have a dark secret they are hiding. That is my character, Mary. She lives in a bubble where everything around is sacred to her. People who tend to do that, tend to hide an inner characteristic that scares them.
Her husband is trying to help a superhero get the better of his life and it so turns out, Mary has a great chemistry with Hancock. That throws her supposed perfect life upside down.

Is your role in the film more glamorous than perhaps your recent portrayals in Monster, North Country or Battle In Seattle?
There is a lot of fantasy in this movie. There is a lot of mystery and fantasy. All is not what it seems and people know that. You can’t say on one hand that this is a complex movie and then say it is only material about a super hero that comes into a family’s life and throws it upside down. It is really complex and so it lends itself for me as an actor to do some great things. As an actor, you are supposed to dive into an emotional and physical world.

Were you involved in a lot of action sequences like in Aeon Flux?
We did everything from wirework, one day to a four-page monologue the next. Then the next day we did this Lucille Ball - Desi Arnaz type of slapstick. It was crazy and funny. Each day was so different and we never knew each day what type of movie we were making.

Most comic book heroes are flawed and although they have special powers common men do not share, they have fears and insecurities just like the rest of us. How much of this is portrayed in Hancock?
We have taken that fact to the extreme. We have never seen a superhero live a life that is so uncomfortable to watch. It is so conflicted to watch him in the first act because he is not a nice guy. He is not a superhero that is just tired of saving people. He has no social skills and he drinks all the time. You cannot have a normal conversation with him. It leads to great humor but allows a real truth to come out that we see in the second and third act. It makes a real human story. At the end of the day, we are all the same. We all hurt the same.

Did comic books and superheroes always fascinate you?
I was never a comic book fan. I am not one of those people to go be the first to stand in line for Batman or Superman. So for me to be interested in this material really says a lot. There is a real human condition in this story that really attracted to me.

Will Smith brought Times Square while making I Am Legend and you and your team did the same with the streets of Los Angeles?
I live two minutes from one of the locations we used in Hollywood for over a week. I have done that on two other films and it is never fun, because your friends end up being the ones who are most annoyed because they know it is your film. You come home to about twenty messages of them bitching because they couldn’t get home. But the crowds were amazing. We live in a town where films get made and the crowds just loved it. Here we were on Hollywood Boulevard and the crowds loved it. Will Smith was there, joking around and giving people high-fives. He was throwing trucks around on set and so if you were a tourist there that week, you really lucked out.

How is Will Smith as a colleague and co-star?
This is the second time we worked together. We were both in The Legend Of Bagger Vance maybe eight or nine years ago. When I read the script for Hancock, I knew he was involved. The material was good but a bonus lay in knowing that he was involved. I wanted to tap more in to the working relationship. He is a rare breed. He is incredibly smart and is always inspiring me to do more. What makes me fall madly in love with him is his willingness to go anywhere he needs to go to get what is needed.