What were you doing in Hong Kong?

Josh: Doing a movie called ‘I Come With the Rain’.  It’s a Anh Hung Tran. Do you know who he is?  He’s a Vietnamese director who directed a movie called ‘Xich lo’ [aka Cyclo] and ‘The Scent of Green Papaya’ and a movie called ‘Vertical Ray of the Sun’ and he’s only made those three films.  He won, I think, the Golden Lion for Cyclo at Venice and won, I don’t know which prize.  It wasn’t the Palm ‘d Or but the other big prize there, first jury prize there for ‘The Scent of Green Papaya’.  So, he’s really well-regarded all over the world except nobody really knows him here.  So, he’s written his first English-language film.  He’s been working on it for about six years, the script.  And, it’s 2/3rds in English 1/3rd in Cantonese and all set in Hong Kong about an American looking for a man who has gone missing.  He follows him from L.A. to the Philippines to Hong Kong and I get to play his lead which is incredible.

A thriller?

Josh:  Kind of. There are certain supernatural elements to it, not really supernatural but a little bit skewed, a little bit off of the natural path of life.  My character is incredibly empathetic in the way he finds people by kind of living like them.  The guy I’m trying to find has the ability to heal by touch and, aside from that, everything’s very real.  I think it’s sort of Hung’s exploration of Catholicism in China these days.  China is becoming predominantly Catholic which is odd.  It’s that wild?

Are you speaking Cantonese?

Josh: No Cantonese for me.  I mean I’ll try but not for the film.

Is the whole crew Cantonese? Does the director speak English?

Josh:  He speaks English.  Most of the Asian actors, most of them are from Hong Kong, there’s one woman from Vietnam. There’s a couple of guys from Korea and a couple of guys from Japan.  But, in Hong Kong, it was a British Colony for so long, I guess not a colony but it was under British rule for a long time, so people speak English.

Was it fun to work with Terry Hatcher in those scenes in this film?

Josh: [big grin] Terry’s a fun girl.  She’s cool.  She was only on set for a few hours and she had to go back shooting her TV show.

You didn’t got to Vegas to shoot that?

Josh:  No, we shot in Calgary in a casino just outside of town.

Have you had a chance to explore Hong Kong?

Josh:  Well, I’ve only been there for a couple of weeks so I haven’t been able to explore too much.  I’ve been out a few times. You should go.  It’s amazing.  There’s an area called Kowloon that’s the older section of town that’s more Chinese, more people speaking Cantonese and then there’s Hong Kong Center which is where all the business people work and that’s where all the clubs are and stuff like that, the nightlife.  I’ve been kind of all around the city itself just checking out the different areas and getting to know those.  I would like to get outside of the city and the parts of Hong Kong that aren’t actually the city before you get into mainland China and just see the beaches. I’d love to go to Mong Kog.

Do you get recognized over there?

Josh: I’m six foot three and white so people do take notice.  I set myself up there.  No, but at the same time, people are amazingly respectful over there and I haven’t had any run-ins.  People don’t really bother me except for one night I went out on my birthday and I was taken out by some of the crew to this club where there were a lot of Western people, a lot of white people and I got mobbed and it was like ‘I think I’ll just walk down the street.’

Are you attached to anything after that?

Josh: I’m kind of not sure as to which one I’m going to do so I don’t want to talk about it but there are a couple out there that I’m looking at.

What about ’30 Days of Night’?

Josh:  ’30 Days of Night’ is David Slade directing, Sam Ramie producing, Danny Huston and myself, Ben Foster, Melissa George in the film.  It’s a vampire film, plain and simple. 

Are you one?

Josh:  I can’t tell you.  But, it’s a re-imagination of a vampire film based on this graphic novel and I have actually, always had a fascination with vampire movies. For me, it’s about picking projects that I think are new and exciting and also ones that have great talent involved.  I think David is an amazing talent and this film will scare the pants off you.