Austinist Interviews Donnie Darko's James Duval

I remember seeing the original trailer for Independence Day in the theatre—the one that doesn’t reveal any actors or story or anything, but where they just blow up the White House. And the trailer ended, and my friends and I just looked at each other, speechless.

What’s incredible about that is that trailer was written by the director. He and the producer knew exactly what they were doing the whole time with that film. They came up with the whole idea [for the movie] on a whim, looking up at the sky and going, “you know what would be a great Friday night movie? A movie about spaceships covering the sky. And not like V where they’re three miles wide, but the WHOLE sky. Fifteen miles wide”. So they flew to Mexico and started writing the story, and three weeks later came back with Independence Day. They just had a good time writing it, and in the end it was a good, fun movie.

I’ve had a lot of people tell me it’s the worst movie ever, and with a movie like that I was just like, “Hey, that’s allright”. People also say things like, “You know, it’s not realistic” and stuff. And I say, “You’re right—but it’s also about aliens coming down to earth. You understand that, right?”’

Independence Day was one of your earliest movies—this huge, blockbuster movie. And yet when people describe you in the press, you’re often referred to as a sort of “indie loyalist”. Do you have any concept of that, or does it just work out that the people you want to work with are often indie filmmakers?

I don’t think there’s really a conflict there. But [my career has] certainly lent itself more toward the independent world. Most of my work comes from there as opposed to the studio world. But I think of myself as more of a thorn in the side of the studio world—they’d like me to go away, but I won’t (laughs).

I imagine there are more interesting things happening in the indie world as well.

There certainly are. That’s what it’s so exciting to be a part of; these voices that people don’t want to listen to or pay attention to, but that certainly have things to say. And Donnie Darko is one of those. And to be a part of that really is an amazing thing. I’m as excited now as I was the day that I read it.

I don’t know if you know this or not, but originally the part of Frank the Bunny was written for a six-foot-tall blonde person. I’m five-nine, and I’m certainly not blonde, as anybody can see. So it was great in another sense because I really didn’t expect to get that role when I went in, but I loved the script and I loved the character so much—it made so much sense to me.

And now you have a toy! They made a toy of Frank, which has to be a pretty cool thing.

Yeah – I can’t believe it! Coming from the world of collecting Star Wars toys when I was a young child, it was mind-blowing to be presented with the idea and to see it sort of come to life. And I’m actually friends with the guys who make it over at NECA, Randy Falk and Nicole Puzzo who does all the photographing and everything.

Especially with a movie like Donnie Darko where so much of it is visual, is it frightening knowing that so much of a film’s success depends on things that aren’t in your control? Does that ever make you nervous, or do you just not work with people who you wouldn’t trust with those things?

I never really think about who I’m avoiding working with so much as who I’d like to work with. Since I’m a big fan of film in general, and of the moviemaking process, I always figure there’s something new I can learn, or something new I didn’t see before in a genre that I could be a part of and get something out of.

You’ve spent some time here in Austin before, right?

Oh, I’ve been there quite a few times. In fact, I was just there about a month and a half ago. I was supposed to be there for two days and I ended up spending four days there. I couldn’t leave. It’s hard to leave A-town, it really is.

[At one point] I spent two weeks there prepping to shoot a film called Stamp & Deliver that ended up falling apart. I heard they were gonna make it a couple years later with one of the Wilsons, and I guess it didn’t happen for some reason. And whether I was in it or not, I was disappointed that they weren’t going to shoot it, because it’s still one of the best scripts I’ve ever read. But it’s so timely, that there’s just no way to do it today.

When we were getting ready to shoot it was in 96 or 97, and people were starting to get fax machines in their homes, but certainly not cell phones, and certainly not email and PCs for everybody. It was still a limited thing. And the film is centered around the arrival of technology versus regular mail—snail mail. Taking the time to write down what you though or felt on a piece of paper, rather than sending it through a machine in the blink of an eye.

Do you have any favorite things to do in Austin?

There’s a row of bars on [Red River], and we just went to town there. People started buying me rounds there and welcomed us to Austin and everything. So we went back the next night! I mean, you can’t beat that. You’ve gotta love a place with people like that. If you don’t you’re a moron. Or you’re evil.

You’ve lived in California for a long time, so it probably wasn’t a huge transition for you to be living the LA, actor lifestyle, was it?

No. Interestingly though, because I’ve grown up here I don’t have any illusions about the city that people who move here to become actors have. I’m kind of bored with the city in that sense.

I mean, I think I’m allright. I try to be balanced, living in a city as corrupt and as jaded as this. And a few friends have told me, “You know what? I think you’re not fucked up Jimmy. And it’s because you’re from here, and you’ve always known what it was”.

Being a California outsider and watching a movie like Doom Generation, it seems like LA is the only place that that film could take place and still make sense.

That movie is very Los Angeles. It’s centered around that. I think LA inspires Greg [Araki]. He’s inspired by the grandeur. To us, we do see it as this big colorful cartoon, where all the most outrageous things happen right in front of your eyes. It’s surreal – it’s hard to believe that people would do what they do right out on the street, in public, right in front of your eyes. I can’t believe it sometimes. This place is full of the strangest characters I’ve ever seen in my life.

That’s both cool and….

And frightening, yeah.