Did he mention any kind of weirdness attached to it?

James: I can’t without giving things away, really.  I start to think of descriptive things that happen in the movie that don’t seem very mainstream.  A lot of it does but, to me, it’s a lot more intelligent than just your regular, mainstream genres but I guess you can call it a supernatural thriller.

Is it a two hander with just you and Cameron?

James: Cameron and I play the married couple that are basically put through this morality test.  Frank Langella is playing the gentleman who presents us with the box. 

Is it safe to say your part is less over the top than your last two movies?

James: Yes, I would say so.  If ‘Enchanted’ and ‘Hairspray’ are like a nine, I would say this is probably around five or six-ish.

So have you heard when the next Superman movie might be happening?

James:  No. I have no idea. 

Frank Langella was told a start date.

James:  I don’t know.  They haven’t told me anything.  I’ve learned not to even speculate about these movies. Everything changes and really, the actors are usually the last people to know.  I go online to get my advice.

You’ve got this comedy coming up with Katherine Heigl. Can you talk about that?

James:  Yeah, that’s about an eight [laughter] but I get the girl!  It’s a romantic comedy with Katherine that I would liken to ‘When Harry Met Sally’.  A girl is described as a compulsive bridesmaid.  She’s obsessed with love and weddings and going to weddings.  She’s been a bridesmaid 27 times and she keeps every one of her dresses.  I play a journalist who has tried to get out of the commitments or vows section of the paper to get into the more legitimate newsroom so he writes these what most women think are these beautiful sections in the paper but he’s a very cynical guy and thinks it’s all crap.  He just does it to make money. He meets this girl and discovers she’s this perpetual bridesmaid and thinks it’s very interesting so he’s planning this expose thing about her for it to be the article to put him into the real newsroom and, in the course of that, they sort of become friends.  It’s a very complicated and very twisty plot.  But, that’s sort of the premise of it.

What about dancing in this film.  Were you up for that?

James:  I was up for it.  I wouldn’t say that I’m that comfortable doing all of the dancing.  I’m more comfortable singing.  The dancing in ‘Hairspray’ was the same thing.  I didn’t have to do that much in ‘Hairspray’ or in this movie but we treated it as though I was going to have to do a lot of dancing so there were extensive rehearsals with John O’Connell, the choreographer who did ‘Moulin Rouge’ for ‘Enchanted’ so we had to learn the proper Viennese waltz and he’s Australian and he said [in Aussie accent] ‘James, the prince is gonna know heritage.  He’s just gotta know how to do the perfect Viennese waltz. So, you have to be perfect’.  So, I actually had more lessons than Patrick but, at the end of the movie, it’s Patrick and Amy doing the dancing.  I love that man by the way.  That’s why I can do this Australian…

You were talking to this Chipmunk that wasn’t there.  Was that Kevin running around squeaking?

James:  It was Kevin running around squeaking.  First of all, a lot of times, there was nothing there so you were acting to nothing.  When I grab him, you sort of have to imagine there’s something there.  But, they also had a little stuffed chipmunk on the end of a stick. 

Did you see a drawing of what it was going to look like?

James: Yeah, they would come to the set with a laptop computer and show us like a ten second test of the chipmunk and what he would look like so you’d think ‘okay’ and you would just call on that.  But, it’s standing there acting to nothing.  The prince doesn’t really understand what he’s saying most of the time anyway.

You sent a tape to the director to show you could sing.  Why Sinatra and which songs?

James: They were Sinatra songs mainly because they were the only recordings I had, recordings of me singing those songs for ‘Ally McBeal’.  So, David Kelly, I did like I think thirteen episodes of that show and he had me singing in the bar a lot so I was doing Dean Martin and Sinatra and I had the recordings on a disc and I just sent them to Kevin because it was the only thing I had that was recorded.  What were the songs, ‘The Lady’s a Tramp’ and ‘I’ve Got the World on a String’ or something.  I can’t remember.  But, very different than this style of singing.

Would you say you are a romantic like your character or more practical?

James: Kind of hard to pick.  I think I’m somewhere in between.  I am pretty practical and I can be fairly cynical but I also like to think that I can be romantic [he laughs] because I’m disillusioned but I guess when I describe it, my romantic acts don’t take the form of rose petals on the floor and chocolates; all of those things that seem romance 101.  My wife thinks I’m romantic if I get up with the crying baby and let her sleep in. Thank you ladies, that’s a good one.  But, to me romance is thoughtful acts for someone you love. That would be filling her car up with gas or making her coffee.  But, very early on in our relationship, there was lots of serenading on the beach and things like that but once you have kids… [laughter].

Anything planned after ‘The Box’ for you?

James:  I’m scheduled to do another film after that called ‘The Sex Drive’ with Josh Zuckerman and it comes right after it.  It’s another comedy but it’s in the vein of ‘Superbad’.

Are you the guy with the sex drive?

James:  Well, my younger brother actually, has this online relationship with this girl and he misinterprets what she writes to him so he thinks she’s saying ‘if you drive to where I am, I’ll have sex with you’ and I play his older brother who is kind of a redneck, drives a classic car and makes fun of him. Remember ‘Weird Science’? Like Bill Paxton’s role, Chet.  It’s something very different.

Another eight or nine?

James: Yeah, back up there where I’m comfortable. 

Is the writer’s strike effecting that?

James:  At the moment it’s not effecting that but we’re all going to be effected by it if it becomes a reality and, at the moment it looks like a reality.  I just keep my fingers crossed.  I’m not in on all these talks and negotiations and, hopefully it will be ironed out and everybody will be happy.  [Note: everybody, I just got a call from a guild picket captain so it’s on as far as the guild is concerned unless the producers suddenly give us all the ancillary market money we deserve]

You’ve had an action figure before but have you seen your doll for this?

James:  I haven’t seen the doll for this. I don’t know if they have one.

They do.

James:  Oh, really?  Okay. Well, having gone through that with the X-Men films, it was exciting when that happened and being on the side of Dr. Pepper cans, very surreal.  Buy, honestly, I thought that was going to be the last of it.  When am I going to get to do this again? I wish I could describe it.  I’m just so honored and it’s very flattering.  But, I’m always thinking ‘how am I going to top this?’ I’ve done the superhero and the iconic Disney character.  I just feel really, really, lucky.