Yesterday I was able to talk with Jeffrey Dean Morgan as he was in town promoting
P.S. I Love You.” Needless to say, while most of the room wanted to talk about
working with Hilary and the experience of filming in Ireland, I was the black sheep
that wanted to spend every moment talking about “Watchmen,” which he's in the
middle of filming.

If you didn’t know, Jeffrey is playing the Comedian in Zack Snyder’s movie
adaptation of the famous Alan Moore graphic novel, and while the movie is still a
long way from arriving in theaters, I’m sure you’re all just as curious as I am to hear
how filming has been going and what the experience has been like.

So when you read the Q&A below, just know that while I asked a lot of the questions,
I didn’t ask all of them. The interview was conducted in roundtable form and there
were about 8 or so people in the room.

As always, you can either read the transcript below or listen to the MP3 by clicking here. You can expect the full transcript of the interview next week.

For people who don’t know… you’re in “Watchman” and you play the comedian.
So have you wrapped your work on that film?

Jeffrey: Hell, no. I go back Monday. I came in yesterday and I go back Monday.

So can you give us an update as to how the filming has been going and what your
experiences have been thus far?

Jeffrey: Well, you saw it.

I can’t write about it.

Jeffrey: That’s awesome. It’s super huge, man. It’s just like this kind of mind
boggling—every day I go to work on that thing and it’s sort of overwhelming and
I don’t know if I’ve ever done anything that’s quite like that before. We’re shooting
on the New York set now. All I can say is it’s the most amazing set I’ve ever seen in my
life and we were doing this night exterior—the Keene Riots and seeing the graphic
novel come to life like I saw that night… it gives me chills just thinking about it.
It’s one of those things that I still—I was just telling somebody in another room
that it’s so much right now to be doing it, just showing up at work everyday and
getting into character and going into costume and showing up on the set and then
seeing what I’m seeing and how it’s all coming together. I don’t know that I have the
right words how to describe this experience and tell I’m well done with it because
every day it’s something else.

Can you talk about your character because I don’t know the franchise?
You play—it’s called the Comedian?

Jeffrey: Edward Blake is his real name and then the Comedian is the kind of
superhero character he is. The character I play is 180 degrees from anything I’ve
ever done before. A far cry from certainly William. A really far cry from Denny
Duquette, which is why I wanted to do it. It’s a whole other thing. He’s an animal.
But I think one of the reasons I got hired—the things he does, his physical actions
are horrendous. Certainly the most horrendous things I’ve ever seen much less
portrayed. But I think my job is to—you don’t hate him—so my job is to kind of
be able to do these fucking horrible things and yet have the audience not hate his
guts. Because you don’t, you read the book and you don’t hate the Comedian. There’s
a reason he does what he does and you know he just takes it maybe to a level that
most people wouldn’t but for him it’s normal.

Could you talk about putting on your costume for the first time and seeing
everyone else in costume?

Jeffrey: It was awesome to see everybody in their costumes. You know—mine is…
I got the coolest costume, I’ll say that. Like to look at, my costume’s insane but it
also takes the longest to get in and out of. Michael Wilkinson, the costumer who
designed the…again very true to the comic book, maybe updated a little bit but so
true to what you see in…and Comedian is spot on to the book. Spot on. His costume
is exactly like it is in the graphic novel. But seeing everybody in their super hero
outfits is well, I mean for one it’s hard to stop laughing initially because everyone’s
running around trying to be a super hero for God’s sake. How can you not? It’s
really cool that experience, I mean for me as soon as I put on the outfit and
stuck a cigar in my mouth, I’m him. You don’t even want to talk to me anymore.
I turn into the character.

Have you filmed the Vietnam sequences yet?

Jeffrey: No, not yet. That will be coming up after I leave here.

I was just going to say “Watchmen” is committed to Vancouver before the Canadian
dollar went up. Do you think they still would have committed to Vancouver?

Jeffrey: I’m not entirely sure now. You know, that’s a really good question. I’m not
entirely sure. I couldn’t answer that being that I’m not in that—that’s not my area of
expertise. I don’t know. I know a lot of stuff is still shooting there. There’s probably
benefits of shooting there of which I’m not entirely sure. I know for a while they
wanted to shoot it in New York because again they had to build this very elaborate
set of New York streets and it probably would have been easier to go to New York for
that but you know, they also got tons of empty stages which I know they didn’t have in
New York if we were to shoot there.

You need a lot of sound stages.

Jeffrey: Yeah, we’ve got a whole row of them.

And you, for one, like working there.

Jeffrey: That’s right. I can’t get enough of Vancouver.

I was going to ask what’s Zack been like. Has he been able to maintain
the enthusiasm every day?

Jeffrey: Yeah. You met him. He’s not only incredibly passionate in staying true to
the graphic novel but he’s also like a little kid. I don’t know where he gets his
frigging energy but we’re putting in some long hours and a lot of nights and God,
every day he’s running around and smiling through all of it and not only that
he’s just an amazing director. He’s drawn out literally every frame of this movie
before he shot it. I don’t know if I’ve ever worked with anyone more prepared. He’s
got a copy of the graphic novel in his hand all the time. It never comes out of his
hand. He’s constantly referring to it. He’ll set up a shot looking at the novel. It’s
insane. It’s crazy. I mean, again it’s one of those things that I’m going to have
to process when the whole thing is over and I’ll sit down with you and I’ll give you an
in depth interview because it’s just so kind of mind boggling right now that I think I
need to step away from it for a little bit and be able to kind of put into words because
I’m still kind of blown away by it.

I wanted to know if you’d had any scenes yet with Jackie playing “Rorschach”
and what that experience has been like?

Jeffrey: No, I haven’t. There you go.

When do you wrap on the film?

Jeffrey: Well, the schedule is changing right now all the time because of weather so
I think mid-February.

And are you prepared for going to Comic-Con next year?

Jeffrey: Someone else asked me that. I don’t think so. To be honest with you I don’t
think any of us are going to be prepared. I think we’re just going to do it.

I think Zack’s premiering footage at Comic-Con in front of 7,000 people.

Jeffrey: That’ll be it. That’ll be the first time everybody’s sees it.

So you’re definitely going though?

Jeffrey: Oh yeah, I’ll be there. I just don’t know if I’m prepared for it. Oh I’ll be there.