Q: Do you ever take your characters home with you?
NC: I always talk about whatever I’m working on with my oldest son. We discuss ideas together in both ways. He will talk with me about what he’s working on, and I’ll share ideas with him about what I’m working on. Because I do value very much his opinion. That’s the core audience, 19.
And also, his own artistic sensibilities are fascinating to me and always have been. Even since he was very little, I was watching him. He was always fascinating to watch. I have even told him some of my best moves in like different movies. And I’d rip him off! I would watch him move, or talk or walk. It stays in my head, and I copy him. But he likes that, he doesn’t mind!
Q: How about your youngest son, Kal-El?
NC: I’m trying to keep him from really knowing that part of my life, as much as possible. You know, just try to keep it as normal as I can until he’s old enough to understand it. Which is difficult sometimes. But I don’t want him to think I’m just a dad like anybody else.
Q: What’s the secret to your approach in your craft?
NC: To improvise, and add that to the creativity of the scene. A lot of actors don’t like it when you improvise. It intimidates them, or they’re out of their comfort zone. But it’s a chance to really get more like a jazz approach in the true sense of the word. Like another musician to work with, or to riff with.
Q: Why The Sorcerer’s Apprentice?
NC: I thought, this is great, great for me because I know we’re going to make a big fun movie for the whole family. Which is what I wanted to do. And then we brought Jon Turteltaub in, and that was it. Because Jon and I had worked well on National Treasure 2, and Jon has a gift for comedy. You know, he has a gift for keeping me light and accessible, and in the fun zone. And I have I guess, an interest in the darker and more edgier things. So the two of us together make for a happy marriage, and we keep balancing each other out.
The question is what about the spectacle of the visual effects, of the magic. And Jon really dove into it. He was out of his comfort zone. It was a new world for him. But I believe he pulled it off in a big way. I’ve seen little bits of the movie, I haven’t seen the whole thing, but it looks great.
Q: You’re wearing some cool jewelry there. Is that one of your indulgences?
NC: I do feel that geology is fascinating, and I do feel that anything that nature has to offer is special and important. And has an energy to it, a vibration to it. So I have always responded to things that were, let’s just say, in the natural history pantheon, whether they be fossils or rocks in the raw state. But not in any way of like, “Oh this is jewelry or a status symbol.” Not jewelry, but more like God’s art. This is something that nature has to offer and what I can learn from it, or what can I enjoy about it. You know, how can it support me in some way.
Q: You’ve talked about midnight audiences being the core viewers of your upcoming movies, Season of the Witch and Drive Angry. Are they really for those insomniacs at midnight?
NC: Well, definitely Drive Angry. Season of the Witch, I think is more like an eight o’clock audience! Yeah, 8 p.m.