Doug Jones, Part II
May 18, 2007

VB: How difficult is it to show such a wide range behind all of the makeup and costume?

JONES: It does present some obstacles. When you’re wearing that much costuming and makeup over yourself, it can make you into a bit of a nursing home patient in that I can’t see very well, I can’t hear very well, I can’t walk very well. But when the camera rolls, I have to act as though I have super human abilities. Therein lies the challenge.

VB: I saw in one featurette that you even had to wear stilts for the Faun!

JONES: Oh yes! I was built up off the ground about six or eight inches, so I had a balance issue for the Faun character. Clomping around with those funny shaped legs attached to the back of my own legs. With little Ofelia too, Ivana Baquero, bless her heart, she was only about 4 feet tall. She being a 4-foot little girl and me in my costume being about 7 feet tall, every time we appeared on screen together and were in the same shot together, it meant Guillermo yelling, “Doug, can you squat down a little bit more?” It was testing my lower back and my thighs…

VB: They should have put her on stilts!

JONES: Exactly!

VB: Or platforms…

JONES: I was also having trouble seeing her because the Faun’s eyes were built way wide out on the face, so I couldn’t use my own eyes. I was looking through the tear duct area of the Faun’s face, which were really dinky triangles. And then with the mechanics, there were a lot of motors in my head going, vrrrrrr… So when the cameras rolled, and I started working, I had to get the timing down on how long she’d be speaking... And doing my thing with my English translation in my head. It was a lot to concentrate on.

VB:Oh right! Even though this is a Spanish-language film, you aren’t fluent in Spanish.

JONES: Oh no. I don’t speak it on the street. On the street, I sound like a 4 year old. A lot of people asked if I learned it phonetically, which I guess is a way that a lot of people learn a language that they don’t speak. But I found I’m not a learner that way. I really am more of a visual person so going to the page itself and having my English translation next to a Spanish version script, and comparing the lines together and seeing what words meant what, how to break that down, and see how their sentence structure was constructed differently… So I really did learn the language itself and memorized it that way. And it was able to give it some more meaning that way too.

VB: What do you find is the appeal of being a character actor versus an actor that doesn’t have to wear a costume?

JONES: I don’t really distinguish a difference between the two that much. I find acting to be a full body experience, which means when I take on a character, I take on his entire being. Communication is a full body experience. When taking on a character as an actor, I bring all that into play even more accented, which I guess is why I lend myself so well to taking on these characters with things piled on my back and face, because I do want to find a way to emote. Either way, it’s a character that I need to research into, find out what his motivations are, what makes him tick, what’s his soul all about? In that entire range, it’s all acting and all characters for me. —Cheryl Cheng

Posted by on May 18, 2007 | Comments (0)