Speaking of Angelina, your wife recently donated $1 million to the Afghanistan relief fund. Were you aware that she was going to do this and what is your feelings on the state of the world after the terrorist attacks? ^ That’s true, and yes I knew she was planning on doing that. As for my feelings on the state of the nation, it’s good to see the way New York and Washington reacted and the way people are doing things right now. It’s a hard time and a very surreal time for everybody– nobody knows how to act right now and it’s tough. But the country has come together and we are waking up to a lot of different things that are going on in the world. I really hope that we continue this. Once it’s all over– if it’s ever over in a sense, cause terrorism, who knows? At least when things calm down I hope that we don’t. I hope we still stay focused and unified and everything like that. One thing that my wife wants to come out of this, and I do too cause I do some work on this stuff with her and I have my own stuff too– we have foundations together that we don’t really talk about too much, we try to be serious and not get too mixed up with Hollywood and charity balls and stuff, not that there’s anything wrong with that, we just try to do it in a different way– is we just hope that people will recognize the rest of the world a little bit. The people who were killed in New York were innocent people– they had nothing to do with whatever the terrorists who did this gripe with America was. They are a bunch of innocent victims and their families are suffering. But there are also a lot of innocent victims around the world. We just hope that people will try to give money to those people too, cause they are just as innocent. They don’t want to live under the rule of the Taliban– they are the ones who suffer at their hands all the time. So we just hope that people will recognize that.
Granted you were in Japan on business, promoting your CD and Angelina’s movie, but how do you manage to find time to travel and do other leisure activities with four films coming out? ^ It’s a little deceptive because it seems like I’m really busy but all those movies have been done already. So we actually haven’t been doing anything lately. This (the interview) is the most I have done. We have been home for several months and don’t do much of anything. We watch the game show channel and we’re having a lot of fun. We aren’t gonna do anything really until next year.
Do you have any projects coming up outside Bandits, Monster’s Ball, The Man Who Wasn’t There and Waking Up in Reno? And what about your wife? ^ She’s got a movie that she is possibly going to do that starts at the end of January and I have several options for movies that start around the same time. But we’ve decided to do from now on, cause she’s coming on tour with me, is that when she’s doing a movie I’ll be with her and when I’m doing one she’ll be with me because life is pretty precious.
Are there any plans for the two of you to do another movie together in the near future? ^ We’ve got something up our sleeve. Not right now, but it’s something we’ve been talking about.
Now I recall seeing trailers and posters advertising Waking Up in Reno this past summer, all of them saying that the film was going to be released in August. Why was it pushed back to a March release? ^ It’s pretty much my fault. I had too many movies coming out and Miramax just didn’t want to get it lost because Bandits is a pretty big movie. They just wanted to wait to put Waking Up in Reno out for a couple reasons. One, they didn’t really want to put it around all these movies, some of which may get some recognition. The other reason is that I have three movies that are going to get recognized coming out, so if they wait until after these are released it puts the heat on me a little more. It’s a really funny movie though.
Since Waking Up in Reno got pushed back, it will be released in theaters right after February, which is the love month with Valentine’s Day and all. Did you ever have a movie star crush when you were a kid growing up, and if so, who was it? ^ It’s actually a television star. I didn’t have crushes growing up, I really didn’t. I never had actresses and singers that I liked. Angelina and I were actually talking about that one night and I told her the only real person I could think of was Barbara Eden. I had a crush on Jeannie. But that was really a kid crush– it wasn’t some sexual thing. It was more like, ‘That’s cool. I wish I had some woman who took up for me like that. Who would pop out of a bottle and change stuff.’
Back to the current love of your life. One of the many moments you and Angelina have shared with the press was when you admitted to wearing her underwear… ^ It’s not easy to wear her underwear. I kind of wore it more on one leg. That was just something I did a couple times which was just a little funny thing that was made into some big deal as usual, just like everything is with us. That was really not that serious.
So you aren’t wearing her panties now? ^ No, I am not wearing any now. (Laughs)
Do you wear anything else of her’s frequently? ^ She more often wears my things. She wears my T-shirts and stuff-like old ones that are really ratting and soft, she’ll wear those to bed. That’s probably closer to what our reality is.
You two really seem to share a special bond. ^ Yes, we have a foundation. We were best friends from the time we met. She’s the only person in the world who I can just look at and she’ll know exactly what I am thinking and vice-versa. That’s really difficult to find in this world. The thing that I hope people will say about her, I won’t even get into me, is that she is a real kind person. She’s a good friend to have and that’s the main thing. Forget any kind of vials of blood we wear around our necks — if that was put in a movie it would be romantic, but you do it in real life and they think you are weirdoes — we are actually a couple of regular people who love each other and are best friends. And eventually as time passes there will be someone else who will come along– we’ll have a president who will sleep with an intern or something– and then that will be news instead of us.
Finally, the term soul mates get thrown around these days without much thought on what it actually means to be someone’s soul mate. Given the actual definition of the term, would you say that you two are soul mates? ^ Yes, definitely.
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