Questions: Ryan, your character is one of the only ones sort of emotionally affected by the violence going on. Everyone else seems to be cooler and even happy about it. Were there conversations about that perspective?

Reynolds: No. That was just part of the story. I mean, he was the guy that was deeply affected emotionally by it, deeply and through the ringer by the end of this adventure. So, it was the focal point for me as the character. The climax for the character of Messner was the reason to do this movie, to really get inside of that guy and find out what made him tick. For me I haven't done a lot of films where I had to jump into something in this way. So, it was the least amount of me that I usually put in and oddly enough the most. It was the most effort and a departure from anything that I've been comfortable in, any sort of wheel house that I've established.

Questions: What's the boo-boo on your forehead?

Reynolds: Oh, I took a header on my set in New York on Monday. Yeah, you should see the table. I'm a cliché. I literally went down on the set and have five stitches in there. So, good times.

Questions: In terms of what Jeremy was talking about, not getting the same sort of acclaim that the others did, do you feel ostracized being the only Canadian on the set? Were the only Canadian on set, Ryan?

Piven: Absolutely.

Reynolds: They had something that they called a camp for me that they would put me in. No, I mean, I'm a Canadian. We're going to make a nice little state someday. No, it's fine. I think that Los Angeles is the fourth biggest Canadian city, is what I'm told. So they're around here.

Questions: Jeremy, I was wondering how long it took you to learn all those tricks and if you worked with a magician to learn them? Also, it's a very emotional film for you, all of your scenes. Can you just go in and out of that easily or do you stay in that mode for the whole day?

Piven: That's an excellent question. Paul Wilson was the guy that I worked with for the magic and the thing that he said that was the most important was to actually pull a trick off in front of people and he was absolutely right. I went with Common and Joe, Ryan wasn't invited, but anyway went to the Magic Castle [Laughs] and we got up there and I actually did a trick. It is addicting. It really is. I've been on the stage my entire life as an actor and it's a kind of another level where you pull this thing off and then to look in people's faces that are completely freaked out by something I could see why you could dedicate your life to that as I did to the stage, and so that was really informative for me. I had never really been around cards. I wasn't that guy and so I really had to work kind of extra hard and always have them in my hand, and they're kind of like worry beads for the character that I kind of incorporated. So that was really great, to always have them in my hand. What was the other question?

Questions: The emotion that your scenes had with the drugs and all of it. How did you deal with that?

Piven: Yeah. That's just what you live for as an actor, to get there.  Joe said to me when we met on this role, 'Do you want to go deep?' I mean, I've waited my entire life for that moment. I had been doing it onstage in Chicago for a couple of hundred people and so I always knew that I have an emotional instrument and I'm accessible in that way and a big cry baby, to be honest with you. So, I knew that I could tap into that. Also, even though a character like that is far from my experience there are a lot of metaphors there when you have a guy like that that's looking at himself in the mirror and wondering who he is and if he's a charlatan and what's happened to his life. I think that any one of us have had moments where we question ourselves. So these things are not too far from something that we can get into touch with and you just have to kind of make it real and go to that place. We had a moment where I had to get really, really emotional and I wasn't quite clicking in the way that I wanted to do. Joe asked me to put this little kind of twist into it that threw me off balance for a little bit and so I had to call upon some other stuff. It all sounds really cryptic what I'm saying here, but anyway I kind of connected on a very deep level that ends up being in the movie. I knew that it worked because I talked to Common afterwards and he said that he was in the other room and he felt something through the wall.

Common: Yeah, I remember that.

Piven: So it was like, 'Okay then.' It was confirmed that I was sort of onto something. So the whole thing was just a complete gift and Joe and I knew that if you didn't care about this guy, if he had no heart when everyone was trying to kill him and extract his heart or put him on ice for the money, whatever their motivations were – everyone was converging on this hotel room – and if you didn't care about this character, if he didn’t have some potential as a human being and if it wasn't a tragedy then all the hard work that everyone puts into it wouldn't mean as much because you needed to have that central character be tragic. It was just an honor to be able to kind of live fully through that guy.

Questions: What kind of character do you play in 'The Nanny Diaries?'

Keys: Well, basically her name is Lynette and she is tremendously in every way in every possible crevice different from Georgia which is another reason why I chose to do that film. She is way more bohemian. She is like the earth of the movie and is kind of the one person that has sense. I would even be inclined to say that in regard to the worlds that are described are just chaotic. So it's a very, very great film. I love it very much. Scarlett [Johansson], again working with Scarlett was fantastic, and being able to, again, take a character that wasn't precisely like me but still so different from where I just came was a tremendous experience. That's what I want to continue to do.

Questions: Jeremy, you've had a great year. Do you have a goal or a vision for your future, are you on a track of things that you want to achieve?

Piven: I never really got off too far ahead of myself, but there is a lot of stuff out there. For so much of my career I've been trying to find little things and make something out of it. This is one of those gems, this role. It's the best role that I've ever had in my life and was just a true gift to be here with this cast and to have Joe be at the helm was magical, no pun intended. As far as the rest of it, I started a company and I'm producing some stuff right now and got the rights to some stuff and I wrote a script and I've been whispering in director's ears for a really long time I'd love to direct. I know that everyone says that, but it's true for me. I just think that it's a really collaborative form and I want to continue on with that. I'd love to get the girl in something if that's possible. How about that?

Questions: Do you have any musical aspirations now since working with Common?

Keys: Yeah, he has an album coming out.

Piven: Easy, easy. I have been drumming my whole life, and so that's just really, really fun to me. So I would love to get onstage and mix it up someday with these five people live somewhere. You never know. It could happen. Stranger things have happened.

Questions: Do you know anything about season four?

Piven: I know a lot about it just because it's going to be twenty episodes and we've already shot eight of them. To me it's the best stuff that we've done because I get to do so much. See, that doesn't print right. Let that be a lesson to everyone. Irony doesn't print and that just makes me look like a bad guy. HBO does something that most networks don't do which is give a show a chance to find their voice and unfortunately with networks everyone is worried about their jobs and they pull these shows based on ratings and back in the day all of these great shows, 'Seinfeld,' and everything they never had ratings out of the gate. They just didn't and it was impossible to get it. So I think that the show is hitting it's stride and the best stuff is sort of in the season to come and Ari Gold will rise like the Phoenix. You can't count him out of it.

Questions: I started watching you on 'The Larry Sanders Show' and you were great in that.

Piven: Oh, thanks. Listen, there is a DVD coming out with the whole show, seven or nine seasons. It's a real comprehensive thing and I did this long interview and in it I said that all the shows that were doing now, 'Entourage,' all of this stuff, we're all chasing the level and the bar that was set on The Larry Sanders Show. That was the best show about the backstage life of the entertainment industry that's ever been done. I hope that [Garry] Shandling comes back and does more stuff.

Questions: Do you think that the boys were right to fire Ari?

Piven: It's interesting because one of the great things that you should never do that I learned from John Malkovich is to never judge your characters. So I don't have any distance to be honest with you because I'm so kind of in that Ari Gold space in terms of trying to flesh him out and give him as much integrity as possible. So I don't see the totality of it like you do. So, my view of it is totally skewed. I say that they were wrong.

Questions: Bringing on Lloyd has been great for Air's character.

Piven: Yeah, he is the best. Rex Lee is a sweetheart.

Questions: He loves to party. I see him at every event.

Piven: He's living the dream.

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