NYGossipGirl Exclusive Interview: ‘The Last Station’s’ Paul Giamatti

NYGossipGirl had a chance to sit down with Paul Giamatti, whose new film The Last Station is in theaters now.

The movie follows famed Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) and his wife Sofya (Helen Mirren) who disagree over the rights to Tolstoy’s literary legacy.

Giamatti plays Vladimir Chertkov, Tolstoy’s chief disciple, who convinces the writer to sign the rights over to the Russian people.

“It was a well-written script and I like the period thing,” said Giamatti. “Americans don’t get to do a lot of period stuff so that was nice. And the Russian stuff was interesting to me. I was interested in Tolstoy, even though [the movie] is not really about Tolstoy, it’s just a love story that happens to be about him. [My character's] kind of an ambiguous bad guy, which I thought was sort of [appealing]. I don’t know what to make of the guy and hopefully the audience doesn’t either.”

To prepare for the role, Giamatti did some research and looked at photographs and read books about Chertkov. He was already a fan of Tolstoy’s and read several of his books including those filled with religion, but found it was a tough read because he’s not a religious person himself. He did, however, like the mustache that he sported for the film.

“That was in the script,” laughed Giamatti. “The idea with this is somebody that you can laugh at too. He’s an ass in some ways and he’s pompous and when you see pictures of the guy, he was a very wealthy, high-born guy. There’s a rumor that he was an illegitimate son of the Czar. And he’s very vain. So part of it was to look very silly and vain, but it’s also a robotic thing that I do when I get nervous. Hopefully people get that that’s funny. My mustache wasn’t real too, so it was really hard not to pull off the mustache – it was tricky.”

(More after the jump!)

Giamatti loved working with the cast, including Plummer and Mirren, but praises James McAvoy, who he says did an amazing job.

“The two of them [Plummer and Mirren] are amazing. I’ve always particularly had a thing about [Plummer]. I’ve always thought that he was great in anything that he was in. What’s great about him is he’s completely unpretentious,” said Giamatti. “I think McAvoy is kind of amazing in this movie. They’re great, but he’s remarkable in it. He’s incredibly charming, a really great actor. What he does is really hard – to play the innocent guy like that and not seem stupid or vapid.”

The film is set in Russia, but the actors speak in English accents. Giamatti says that it’s always a tricky thing, but it worked in The Last Station.

“When you see things written out, they’re written in Russian, which is odd,” laughed Giamatti. “It’s always a weird thing in these movies, but it always ends up being English. I was the only American in this. I wanted to do a little something, but not too much. Christopher Plummer is Canadian and he doesn’t exactly have a British accent. James is Scottish, so he was having to do something that wasn’t totally [different]. Kerry Condon’s Irish. Except for Helen [Mirren] and Anne Marie [Duff], everyone was doing an accent. We couldn’t do Russian accents, not with this, it would have sounded ridiculous, but sometimes [in other films] it works.”

In his long career, Giamatti has played several villian roles and found that he’s more attracted to those parts, but wouldn’t mind playing a hero, although he’s not sure those exist in films anymore.

“I mean sure, I guess. But, the kind of pure, good guy thing, I don’t think people do that anymore,” said Giamatti. “I don’t know where you find that anymore, maybe an action movie. Sure I would do it if somebody wanted me to, but I don’t know what that part would be like.”

He does however, love to make period films.

“When you do theater, you end up doing more period stuff. I think I’ve always been interested. It’s just more funny and imaginative,” said Giamatti. “You get all these wonderful props and things to work with and it just feels like you’re going somewhere different – much more different. It definitely stretches your imagination more.”

Posted: January 18th, 2010 under Celebrity Interviews, Movies.
Tags: Paul Giamatti

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