But thinking like that presupposes that I had time to stop and think, and I never did. There were always deadlines to meet, articles to chase. Critical opinions to sort out in movie reviews (and in this article). Even the way I started as senior Cadenza editor came on haphazardly. In October 2009, applying for senior Cadenza editor hadn’t even crossed my mind. We were in the middle of an editor cycle, Steph Spera (my co-editor this past year, and stay tuned, because I have more to say about her later) was senior Cadenza editor, and I was movie editor. That night in October, she sent me a Gchat, and in writing this article, I racked my brain for the conversation’s details, but they weren’t coming to me. Thank god that Google saves this stuff. Here it is, in all of its awkward glory:

Stephanie: hey perc

you know i’m going abroad in the spring

me: i think i knew that

Stephanie: so, future cadenza editor

right

right

:D

me: oh my

hmmm

i guess

will you tutor me?

Stephanie: haha

me: i need a tutor!

Stephanie: yeahhhh

obviously

i mean, i think sam might make you apply

*sam or percy

*Sam or perry

holy god

perry

me: hldn brb

“Hldn brb” should forever be known as the moment I jumped up from my computer, did a painful somersault on the carpet and blasted Weezer for half an hour. For some back-story, editors are traditionally chosen at the end of the spring semester, and the senior staff then works together for a full year. I was joining the party late, and I didn’t know most of the current staff. Things were hard for me at first; I wasn’t sure who to go to when I had problems, when I needed favors, when I needed extra space. But strangely enough, I was never overwhelmed.

I can’t stress this next point enough: I would’ve been lost up a creek if not for the immense kindness of Perry Stein. Perry was editor in chief at the time I became senior Cadenza editor, and she helped me every step of the way. She invited me to editorial board meetings, which helped me get to know my colleagues. Her criticism was always legitimate and reasonable; her praise was always measured. She’s heard me tell her this before, but more people should hear it: Thank you for helping me come out of my shell, Perry.

And this underscores the larger reason why it’s so hard to say goodbye to StudLife. I don’t want to say goodbye to all of the friends I’ve made. And that’s what saying goodbye to StudLife is. I couldn’t begin to list all of the adventures I’ve gone on with StudLifers. But it’s finally time to say goodbye, and in a few months we’ll be all over the country, and I want to put down on paper those memorable times we had when we were together in StudLife country.

To Matt Mitgang, Paula Avery and Michelle Merlin: I’ve never enjoyed anything as much as I enjoyed our trip to D.C. to cover the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. To Steve Hardy: We’ll always have “Island in the Sun.” To Nick Hawco: We’ll always have Burger King. To Nora Long: We’ll always have WUStock 2010. To Georgie Morvis: You threw a mean WUStock 2011. To Alex Terrono: I remember writing what was your first article together. You’ve grown into a great writer. To Davis Sargeant: I’m sad to see you leave Cadenza, but come on, you know you’re destined for greater things. To Michael Yang: You almost convinced me to buy “StarCraft 2.” Almost. To Craig Ostrin: “Portal 2” is our b—-. To Molly Sevcik: I’m “Drunk Again.” To Hannah Schwartz: I hope to run into you at Kaldi’s again. To Adam Rubin: Close the door when you shower, or someone might take a Pikachu. To Princeton Hynes: Where are you? To Alex Dropkin: You’re right. That’s a weird-looking owl. To Puneet: We should start a dance company where all we do is rock out to “My Name is Jonas.” To Kate Gaertner: Thank you for helping me analyze “True Grit” and for the brownies that came with our analysis. To Josh Goldman: You’re a super-bowler. To Shayna Makaron: You’re a scary-fast sledder, and your hot cocoa is the perfect compliment to “30 Rock.” To Andie Hutner: Cadenza is in good hands. And if I forgot you, I’m so sorry. Seriously, my memory is always disappointing me. So give me a call and help me fill in the gaps.

And to my co-editor, Steph Spera: You’re the greatest. Thank you for getting me through the stupidly rough times and enabling me further during my high times. We had a mantra all year long: “We’re on top of things,” and as cheesy as it sounds, we definitely ended up on top. Now log on to Gchat already, I have stuff to tell you!

Courtesy of Big Hassle

Edward Sharpe’s “real name” is Alex Ebert. You could say the band is a mixture of his two passions. The first is romance. He fell in love with Jade Castrinos outside of a Mexican restaurant a few years ago, and they began to make music together. Onstage, there’s an electric chemistry between Castrinos and Ebert.

Interestingly, his second passion involves messianic figures. The character Edward Sharpe was going to be the messiah in a novel that Ebert eventually abandoned, but the savior comes out on stage. Ebert, with his tangled hair and beard, looks the part. Even his onstage antics have been described as “possessed.” Maybe I should’ve said, “Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are descending from the heavens at 8 p.m. Friday night.”

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. The band’s 10 members recently wrapped up their The Railroad Revival Tour, alongside Mumford & Sons and Old Crow Medicine Show. According to the tour’s website, the bands, traveling exclusively by Amtrak, set out to recapture the “experience of the journey” between destinations. The website, by the way, is designed to look like a dusty, beaten-up signpost. The point is that for all of the spiritual enlightenment game that Edward Sharpe talks, the band is surprisingly down to earth.

A quick flick through their discography leads to the same conclusion. Their music is earnestly folk, and even the recorded tracks sound like they’re improvised jam sessions. The band teems with voices, whistling, basses and trumpets. In concert, their produced tracks take on another dimension. Ebert described Edward Sharpe’s live shows as a “dialogue” to The A.V. Club: “The music is the glove, and the live show is us putting the glove on and moving around.” On The Railroad Revival Tour, the band was famous for inviting audience members who brought instruments onto the stage. I’m not saying you should bring your banjo to the concert—OK, yes, that is what I’m saying. And your harmonica, too.

The Wainwright building, located at 709 Chestnut Street in downtown St. Louis, was built between 1890 and 1891. It is one of the earliest examples of amodern skyscrapers.

This amalgamation of frieze and height are indicative of the historic transition the Wainwright building has gone through. The building itself was built to inflate the ego of St. Louis brewer Ellis Wainwright, but the significance of its design is still with us.

Before the Wainwright building, architects were unsure how to best use lightweight steel to build skyscrapers. Early attempts at high-rise office buildings were embarrassing layered affairs, resembling stacked books or, worse, cakes. In 1890, architect Louis Sullivan of the Chicago firm Adler and Sullivan received a contract to design the Wainwright building.

“[The skyscraper] must be tall, every inch of it tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line,” Sullivan later wrote in an article for Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine.

Sullivan accomplished his lofty goal by turning the horizontal structure on its head. For one of the first times in architectural history, the architect took full advantage of the strength lightweight steel afforded him. He built up, not laterally. Instead of building a cake, Sullivan built a column sandwiched between the top and bottom floors.

Sullivan’s choice to stretch upwards is what gives the Wainwright building its historical significance. A casual glance at any city block shows example after example of Sullivan’s innovation. In fact, if you were to replace the Wainwright building’s brick facade with glass, in your mind’s eye, it would be indistinguishable from modern skyscrapers. That’s what makes viewing the Wainwright building nowadays such a treat. It doesn’t just sit downtown; it sits in this place between two worlds—one of pre-sheen masonry and one of corporate superstructures.

Directed by

Thomas McCarthy

Staring

Paul Giamatti
Amy Ryan
Alex Shaffer
Melanie Lynskey

Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

Win Win is about struggling attorney Mike Flaherty, played by Paul Giamatti, who works as a high school wrestling coach by night. Flaherty takes his client’s runaway grandson under his wing, he’s caught up in an adventure he never bargained for.

Kyle (played by Alex Shaffer) represents untapped potential. He’s running from a troubled home led by a mom (Melanie Lynskey) who ducks in and out of psychiatric facilities. It’s too bad, because he was a fine high school wrestler, one of the best in the state, before he ran away from home.

Mike (Paul Giamatti) used to be an above-average wrestler when he was in school. Now he’s a high school wrestling coach and an uncommonly nice lawyer—with a few vices. He’s the kind of guy who buys a pack of cigarettes, smokes one, and then throws out the rest because smoking is bad for him. He’s the kind of guy who would provide a home for Kyle, even though the kid is a bit of an anomaly. But his children and his nosy, but well-intentioned, wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) warm up to Kyle’s blankness. As Mike’s assistant says, “He’s a nice kid. But what’s with his hair?” So Mike takes him under his wing and gives him something to do during the day: wrestle.

Director and co-writer Thomas McCarthy weaves the story around Kyle’s wrestling prowess. Rarely does the narrative delve into Kyle’s mind. For all we know, there could be a radio playing “Camptown Races” on repeat beneath his blond mop. McCarthy is telling us that it doesn’t matter what happens inside Kyle’s head. He’s guided by instinct. And the other characters start to resemble Kyle’s effortless demeanor as the film unfolds. Mike starts swearing to motivate his wrestling team. Mike’s friend Terry (Bobby Cannavale) hoots and hollers like an adolescent when he watches Kyle pin an opponent on YouTube.

When Kyle’s mom makes a gasping, dirty effort to recapture her son, the rest of the cast surrounds Kyle like a herd protecting its young from a predator. The shot is uplifting and a little funny, too, just like the rest of the movie. You realize that McCarthy has just directed the birth of a new family without having to explicitly address the symbolism, and his subtle touch is much appreciated.

Courtesy of soulsurferthemovie.com

In fact, there are no “characters” in this movie. There are only soundboards. They pop up to congratulate Hamilton’s resiliency every few seconds, whenever the word “resiliency” has left our short-term memories. The film is singular-minded from the start, and there’s no room for growth. Like a magician who reveals the trick before the show, there’s no secret, so there’s no room for the viewer to discover.

And while the script force-feeds inspiration down the viewers’ throats, it also works pitifully hard to drive a contrast between before the attack and after the attack. The script wants so badly to make its viewers know that Bethany’s life was perfect before the attack that it even has her say, “We are the luckiest!” while fireworks fill the sky.

I can see a resilient character in Bethany Hamilton, but the acting holds her back. AnnaSophia Robb literally giggles (“tee-hee!”) while bikini-shopping, but as soon as she loses her arm, her character loses its humanity. Robb is a robot out there. There’s a glare plastered to her face, and her voice never exceeds a monotone.

For some reason, director Sean McNamara misses this perspective and directs “Soul Surfer” as if the story isn’t as uplifting as it actually is. He fills “Soul Surfer” with unnecessary flourishes that try to compensate for an imagined deficiency, like melodramatic musical cues and a scene in which Hamilton, unconscious after the attack, is surfing toward “the light.”

But this imposition is indicative of the movie’s larger problem: it doesn’t trust its story. To see the human spirit triumph in such a young individual is nothing short of a miracle, secular and otherwise. The real Hamilton has this great ability to inspire people to do something more, to be dissatisfied with being dissatisfied. But the film is, oddly enough, not as inspired by Hamilton’s heroism, evidenced by the characters’ dull reactions to Hamilton. “Go you!” they say. “You’re so strong,” they say…but how are their lives affected? They aren’t. The characters are all talk.

We all heard the voice through our headphones at exactly 3:30 p.m. last Friday. It sounded a bit like a muffled Barney. Looking up at the chilly sky, I had considered skipping the event for a brief moment at 2:30 p.m. (and again at 3 p.m., 3:15 p.m. and 3:25 p.m.), but the ephemeral thought of “adventuring” kept me going.

We didn’t feel like adventurers or explorers, however, when we first gathered in the Village House for our communal, self-guided tour of St. Louis that had been prepared by an unknown source.

As we embarked on the Instill Adventure program, we felt like 16 or so strangers, with only the audio tour playing through our iPods in common. I swung my head around, trying to find a friendly face and a topic for small talk (“The weather today, am I right?”). Thankfully, Twain, our mysterious host, came up with a way to alleviate the awkwardness.

“Let’s go ahead and see who’s joining you in this experience today. If everyone would please start scratching their head…why don’t you go ahead and give a high-five to one of your new companions?”

MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” underscored the silliness of the moment, and visions of flashmobs danced through my head. Not that I’d actually participated in a flashmob before, but I had seen videos on YouTube of, for example, pants-less subway riders in New York City. But I quickly realized that Instill Adventure would be different. The program different from those run in New York by Improv Everywhere, a group that creates flashmob styled events throughout the city. In those events, a great amount of planning was put toward giving the “audience” (everyone on the street) a fun experience. However, the participants in Instill Adventure had not met beforehand, had not planned out a dance routine and had not a clue as to what to expect. In essence, the formula was turned on its head. We were the audience and Twain was our “flashmob,” or more conventionally, the performer.

So while Twain asked us to cheer for the Bon Appétit staff and wave at a security guard, he also had us do things for ourselves. We played Follow the Leader down the MetroLink ramp. Twain’s voice wouldn’t tell us who he was for the longest time, but he did begin to reveal his intentions on the ride down to 8th & Pine.

“I’m sure you’re wondering who I am. Well I’m not Barney, and I’m definitely not Big Brother…I want to connect Wash. U. students with the city of St. Louis. Sounds silly? I assure you that I take it very seriously. You know, I don’t believe Wash. U. students live in a bubble…If you need proof, just look at your companions. It’s why we are all here.”

Twain’s speech was filled with polite words and phrases like “Please” and “I assure you.” It was his way of getting into our heads, and when he asked us to think about St. Louis in a different way, we shot each other accepting looks and listened. He hoped that two things would come out of Instill Adventure: that we’d grow a greater appreciation for St. Louis and that we’d continue to explore the city.

I’m a St. Louis-native, and I’ll admit that I nearly scoffed at that last part. What is there to explore downtown? Scenic, empty streets? Spacious, abandoned warehouses? I began to wonder if this would be a waste of time, but I’m happy to report that these smug thoughts are now gone; Twain, as he always has throughout history, opened my eyes to a new side of St. Louis.

He dropped us off at Culinaria, downtown’s only full-service grocery store.

“How important is a grocery store to an urban community?” Twain asked, and I thought, “Invaluable.” Next he took us to the Old Post Office, which I soon learned was modeled after the Louvre. We shuffled into main atrium, which opened up before a raised statue, Daniel Chester French’s “America at War and Peace.” A bald eagle sat between two reclining women—one was holding a sword and the other, an olive branch. The sight was unexpected, but far from unnerving. Instead, it made me wonder what other hidden art gems downtown might hold. Twain must have read my mind, because he soon took us to a park brimming with sculptures, eventually leading us into a giant triangle in the field.

“Soak in your surroundings,” he said. “These walls around you are unofficially known as the ‘Serra Sculpture,’ named after the artist who created it, Richard Serra. The actual name of this sculpture is ‘Twain.’ Welcome. I have been waiting for you.”

So there he was. We’d been listening to the disembodied voice of a statue for an hour, and he was offering us quite a view of downtown St. Louis. The Arch was on one side, the courthouse tucked underneath the curve. It occurred to me that “Twain” only represented St. Louis when people were inside it. It was just slabs of metal without us. It was up to us adventurers to give it significance from the inside.

We gave Twain a round of applause when the MP3 ended, but we weren’t ready to leave. It must have made Twain smile when he saw us linger in the triangle. People struck up conversations about the hieroglyphic-like symbols on the surrounding buildings. Most of us ended up staying behind to explore some more, since there was an art student’s opening somewhere close-by and Culinaria had a wine loft.

To find out more about Instill Adventure, visit instilladventure.com.

Directed by

Zack Snyder

Starring

Emliy Browning, Jena Malone, Abbie Cornish

Courtesy of Warner Bros. pictures

“Sucker Punch,” starring Emily Browning, opened in theaters and IMAX on Friday.

What could have saved “Sucker Punch”? A little thought would have gone a long way. If only Zack Snyder’s input weren’t so mindless and dull. You can trace my boredom back to his script, penned with Steve Shibuya, which treats the characters worse than action figures, because at least action figures can make different poses. They’re dolls. They’re all one-note characters, and, for the sake of convenience, they all hit the same note.

The protagonist, Baby Doll (Emily Browning), is unjustly thrown into a mental asylum. However, the fact that she imagines the asylum as a brothel does not help her sanity case. Baby Doll is tough as nails, but she’s made vulnerable behind bars. Her only friend, Rocket (Jena Malone), is a girl who is also tough as nails, but don’t let that fool you. She is quite vulnerable and also wants to escape so she can see her mom or dad or something. Alongside her sister Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and two more random girls who don’t factor into the story at all (except for being tough as nails and occasionally vulnerable), she sits down to hear Baby Doll’s escape plan. Except Sweet Pea stops Baby Doll before she can explain. Sweet Pea argues that it’s not worth it to let their thoughts get tangled up in bad escape plans. But the next day, Rocket finally thinks of a comeback:

“But what if it’s a good plan?”

Well, that changes everything! And so they hatch an escape plan so stupid that it doesn’t even exist. Baby Doll says they have to collect four specific items, but she doesn’t know why. The movie is starting to drag, and for the sake of the plot, the girls accept it at face value. Here’s how it works: Baby Doll is going to dance for men that make up their imaginary clientele, and while they are distracted by her unenthusiastic swaying, the other girls are supposed to pickpocket them. Of course, that plot would only last 20 minutes, so the film jumps into the dancing Baby Doll’s mind, where movie clichés can serve as filler. With their samurai swords gleaming, the girls slay faceless orcs, dragons, robots and any other CGI scrap that Snyder and Shibuya can mine.

There are times when mindless action is OK; this is not one of those times. The fact that the action takes place in an imagined land within an imagined brothel during a lobotomy cripples the stakes. If Baby Doll gets punched by an orc, does it mean she tripped while dancing? And what happened to her in the real world? Picked her nose, probably.

There is a bit of good news, though. Jon Hamm cameos in the film’s last 20 minutes. Sorry if that ruins the surprise. It’s just that in all likelihood, you’ll need a pick-me-up at the hour-and-a-half mark.

‘The Adjustment Bureau’
Type of lie: Hiding the truth

A blue hue. A rumbling soundtrack. Wide shots of the skyline. “The Adjustment Bureau” trailer reeks of “Inception.” The only problem is that dream-thievery has little in common with the free will vs. predestination debate, and it follows that “Inception” is nothing like “The Adjustment Bureau.” Matt Damon’s “thriller” actually has very few thrills. It’s a fairly straightforward love-story, and you won’t find a shred of Matt Damon and Emily Blunt’s infectious chemistry in the trailer. And despite what the trailer’s hard edge would have you believe, the movie has a quirky sense of humor.

‘Toy Story 3’
Type of lie: Compulsive

Pixar usually treats its trailers like animated shorts, so it was jarring to see them be so conventional. But this trailer is vexing in other ways. It’s hard to follow, filled with cheap gags and cultural references. Does anyone look back at “Toy Story 3” and think, “You know, that movie was so zany and over the top!” Of course not. It’s “Toy Story 3,” not “Over the Hedge 3.” All Pixar lies just seem pointless and counterproductive. The trailer managed to make this awesome, heartfelt movie look like crap.

‘True Grit’
Type of lie: Deception

Another case of a trailer upping the stakes beyond the movie’s scope. Jokes from the movie are made to look like dramatic moments in the trailer. In theaters, “True Grit” is a meandering tale of vengeance in the old West. In the trailer, “True Grit” is a moody shoot-em-up in the vein of “No Country for Old Men,” a movie that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Of course the Coen brothers would want to associate their newest movie with their award winner, but this trailer suggests similarities that simply aren’t there.

When the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing lizard walks into the town of Dirt, he looks about as out of place as water in this parched land. He bumbles through his introductions and back-story. In other words, he does not earn what he gets five minutes later: The whole town is convinced that he’s a gunslinger named Rango, and they immediately make him their next sheriff.

Rango isn’t a good actor. He’s a bad liar. His desire to act is a hollow plot point thrown in to bring on the action sequences, that’s all. In its own defense, the movie seems to realize its weakness and only brings up the fact that Rango is a liar one more time. Still, it’s a lost opportunity, as there is a lot the plot could have done with its…plot.

But someone mentioned action scenes, right? It’s best not to ruin the surprises, but rest-assured that there are plenty of them, and they’re all cleverly thought-out, like Rube Goldberg machines with explosions. Maybe I’ve said too much.

Besides the gun-filled scenes, Gore Verbinski’s direction has a light touch, which lets the jokes fly. Most of the best humor comes from Rango’s ineptitude, and luckily Depp is center stage throughout most of the movie. He fills the character with quick-witted charm, and the other characters can’t keep up. Unfortunately, this means that other characters feel like afterthoughts. Isla Fisher is completely underutilized as a stern lizard named Beans. When Rango puts together a posse of birds, toads and rabbits to catch the water-thieving moles, one has to wonder why Rango chose these animals in particular.

They’re interchangeable creatures, and it’s a real shame, since so much care was put into each character model. Rango’s lizard skin is pebbly. Other creatures look as if they’ve spent their lives covered in mud. Their eyes, in particular, are filled with astounding depth. But with nothing to distinguish one from another, the characters might as well be blocks of pixels. Or better yet, whoopie cushions that Rango can sit on whenever he pleases, because they add little but cheap laughs to the plot. For all the chuckles, there’s nothing beneath the surface.

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Left to right: Priscilla (Abigail Breslin), Rango (Johnny Depp), Parsons (Mark “Crash” McCreery), and The Mayor (Ned Beatty) star in “Rango.”

Question: Johnny and Gore, you guys have worked together a few times now, and I was just wondering if you could each comment on what you like so much about working with the other.

Gore Verbinski: I like the way he smells. (Laughs)

Johnny Depp: I’ve been told I smell good. I mean, I don’t look like I smell good. (Laughter)

GV: What’s great about Johnny is the trust that—you know, neither of us are going to make the other one look like an ass. I have to—he has to trust that at the end of the day, we’re not going to use that stuff where we’ve tried something that didn’t work, but we’re going to try it because…we’ve got this sort of pursuit of finding the truly awkward moment, you know, which is—you’re only going to get there by not knowing, and sort of venturing into the unknown. And so, I just think he’s incredibly brave on top of being incredibly talented. It’s like you’ve got to kind of cross that threshold.

Q: Johnny, you’re a very physical actor, and I’m wondering how this process, where you actually acted out the scenes, was different from the other animated films you’ve done where you had to record your lines in a booth.

JD: I mean, ultimately, it was everything. Though, there were times when you didn’t feel that, when you were doing it­—you’d rather have been—because you know, well, we’re lazy. (Laughter) At least I am. And I’d sort of rather just sit in front of a microphone and do the thing. However—

GV: That’s exactly the point.

JD: Gore created this sort of atmosphere that was really, truly ludicrous. I mean, just ridiculous. It was like just regional theater at its worst. (Laughs) And somehow, because of—not the idea of motion capture, but emotion capture, you know; certain gestures, body language, movement, something you might have done with your eyes—all those guys, you know, these animators took it and put it in there. So, I mean, it was very strange. I mean, for Harry Dean Stanton to walk up to me one afternoon—because I’ve known him for a million years—and he walks up to me and says, “This is a weird gig, man.” (Laughter)

Q: How do [your kids] feel about their dad playing a lizard?  

JD: They actually call me the Lizard King. My children—they do. I’ve forced them to address me like that since they were tykes. (Laughter) No, it was an odd sort of thing, you know. “Where you going, Daddy?” “Ah, I gotta go to work.” “What are you doing?” “Well, I’m playing a lizard.” “Okay.” You know, it’d literally be that kind of thing—you drop your kids off at school, you know, give them a kiss and it was, “Oh, yeah—now I’m gonna go be a lizard.” Or, you know, the things that I’ve done that my kids have been sort of privy to, Willy Wonka and all—it doesn’t register. They’re far more interested in you know, “Family Guy” or Justin Bieber. (Laughs)  

Q: Are you a Belieber?

JD: A Belieber? Wow. I’ve actually never heard that one. And you know what? Yes. I am a Belieber. (Laughter) I am. And I shall remain so.

Q: Rango’s character tells lies to get through the story. Johnny, when have you lied?

JD: I actually tell lies for a living. Exactly. I mean, that’s what acting is, really.  

GV: That was a lie. (Laughs)

JD: Yeah, I was lying. I’m sorry. Yeah, there are certain—I mean, you know, I felt having kids and stuff like that, I had horrific guilt for many years, playing along with the Santa Claus thing. Do you know what I mean? And waiting for that moment to arrive where you—they—because you’re never going to bring it up to them. They’re going to arrive and say, “Hey, you’ve been telling me a lie for my entire life. What are you prepared to do about that?” I mean, it’s like that kind of thing. So yeah, I had horrific guilt. And we’re now kind of just on the outskirts of that, so I feel okay. But no, these are lies that society tells you—you must—you must keep these lies, you know, going —these kind of myths. Yeah, and I feel guilt about it; I still do.

Abigail Breslin: Santa’s not real? (Laughter)

JD: No, no! He is. He is.

AB: Thank God.  

Q: In the past you’ve said that you’ve always chosen characters that you had a personal connection with. What’s your connection with this character?

JD: You mean a lizard. Yeah. I always had an affinity for lizards; I’ve always felt somewhat close to them. They’re reptiles. I’m feeling somewhat reptilian myself at times. When we were doing “Pirates” one, two and three, there were times when Jack Sparrow had to run—there was this very specific run that I wanted. And it was from seeing this footage of a lizard running across the water. And it was like the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. And so I said, “Gore, he’s got to be the lizard running across the water,” and he’s like, “Oh, yeah, absolutely. Okay, it’s time to…you know, let’s…”

GV: Get in touch with the lizard.

JD: Get—yeah, get in touch with the lizard. And we did it. So I actually think that Rango was somehow planted in Gore’s brain from that run, from that lizard run, you know. And when he actually called me and said, “I want you to play a lizard,” I thought, “Well, God, I’m halfway there.”