If you’re a film nerd, you know and love Luis Guzman.  That’s because since the 80′s, Guzman has been in countless roles, often going from small budget indies, to huge Hollywood blockbusters.  He’s also done a lot of TV.  Guzman is one of those actors that you might not know his name, but you definitely know his face.  I first noticed Guzman in Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpiece, Boogie Nights.  He played the nightclub owner where Mark Wahlberg worked.  While I’m sure I must have seen him on a TV show or in a movie, it was after seeing Boogie Nights that I learned his name.  Since then, I’ve always enjoyed his work, but I’ve never seen him talk about how he got into acting, or how he got connected with Anderson.

So when I found out he was going to be at the Arthur junket (he plays Arthur’s driver/assistant), I put in a last minute request for an interview and Guzman was kind enough to give me some time.  We discussed how he got into acting, working on Arthur, the Robin costume, how he got connected with Anderson, what’s his criteria for choosing material, who does he play in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, and he tells me that he’s developing a comedy and drama with the goal of producing them himself.  Hit the jump to watch.

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most talented and most frustrating of the artists to emerge from the mid-90′s boom of next-generation film school brats. Though his first film was shuffled and recut, his sophomore effort was launched like the second coming. That film is Boogie Nights (1997), which – without setting the world on fire – became something of a cult hit, doing well enough to launch Anderson as a serious director. His follow up – 1999′s Magnolia – was viewed less favorably, though it too had its staunch defenders. With his cadre of returning players (Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzman, John C. Reilly, Melora Walters, Phillip Baker Hall, Ricky Jay, and William H. Macy), and stars like Tom Cruise, and Mark Wahlberg, Anderson was both one of the most successful (critically) and least successful (fiscally) of the new auteurs. My reviews of Boogie Nights and Magnolia after jump.