Eva Mendes Interview

Working with him has been a dream of mine for a long time. He’s a cinematic god to a lot of us actors because he is completely outside the box -- he’s an iconoclast. He does gritty films that actually mean and say something, not to even mention his documentaries. He’s one of the very few out there who I would eat a shoe for. When I found out it was him collaborating with Nick [Cage], I knew it was going to be a match made in heaven because these two people are crazy, and I love crazy, and I want crazy, so I was in.

I keep my backstory pretty private and personal. I work with my acting coach Ivana Chubbuck. I’ve worked with her for nine or 10 years, since I pretty much started in the business. What we do with ever story and every script is that we have a process on how to break down a script and how to breakdown a character, and then we work backward to create a history. That part I keep pretty private because sometimes I intertwine my own history with my characters. But for Frankie, my number one thing was not to judge her because she is a prostitute who happens to be hooked on drugs. I thought this doesn’t have to make her bad or good -- it doesn’t have to make her anything -- it just makes her a survivor. Although I’ve been blessed enough in my life where I haven’t had to make extreme choices like that -- to take extreme action -- I still understood how a person, how Frankie, could get to that point and find herself in that situation of being a prostitute.

The good thing about being my age [is that] I grew up watch E! True Hollywood Story. The biographies are very enlightening because you realise, “Oh my God, all these people I’ve admired -- and tried to emulate even -- when I was younger died tragically from substance abuse. So when I’m a part of a film that totally takes the glamour out of it and totally makes it look as disgusting as it is... I like the light this film puts drug use in.

My acting coach breaks down what happens to people’s bodies when they do drugs. She breaks down what happens physiologically to you. There’s a certain inflammation of the tongue that happens. Some people are eye people, and that’s when they get double vision, and some people take it in their knees. She breaks it down from the inside out.

The one thing I never want to do is act drunk or act high. You don’t do it from a mental kind of place because then you’re just acting. We start internally with what’s going on with the body, and there are some breathing exercises too. It’s pretty cool. Sometimes when you’re done, you really feel so out of it.

That I don’t know. I’ve always tried to ponder that. I guess it’s because we still have those puritanical views that we started this country on. I’m not sure. I just want people to know -- and I love AskMen.com -- I really do because I feel you guys don’t exploit women. That’s my issue. I’m very free with my sexuality, but not everywhere all the time. I pick and choose when I do nudity, and who I do it for when I’m working, and when I’m doing it. I’ve done nudity twice in a film. One time was opposite Denzel Washington, which he won the Oscar for Training Day, and the other was opposite  Joaquin Phoenix in We Own The Night. To me, that’s what it was about. It was about the character, it was about the scene, and then I go for it. When I bared it all for Italian Vogue, it was for Steven Meisel in a 22-page -- what I call -- “art catalog.” And when I was a part of the amazing Calvin Klein campaign... I loe that you liked it!

I know! You know what’s funny is that normally I don’t pay attention to that stuff because -- whatever -- but because I like you guys and because I’ve been doing interviews with you guys from the beginning, and I like what you do, I thought, 'thank you'. I was really excited about that.

I like a mysterious man. I like a man who reads and is knowledgeable about the world, but who doesn’t have to brag about it. And I really like nice forearms -- nice strong hands and forearms. I love that because then they can wear a watch really well. I do like a a nice watch on a man, [but] not flashy. I like a Rolex, but not a modern Rolex -- more like a vintage 1970s Rolex, or a ‘60s. It has to be vintage. I don’t like my men to be too ornate. I like them to stand back and let their women shine, and they should really wear the pants in the relationship. I’m going to get killed for that comment by women, but that’s what I like. Next >>