torrilla:

Jim Jarmusch on new ground with ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’

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Though Swinton had worked with Jarmusch before, for Hiddleston it was the first time. The actor recalls his first contact with Jarmusch’s work, remembering the very theater in Oxford, England, where he saw 1999’s “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai,” and has been a fan ever since.

In getting in sync with the director’s sensibility and the gothic melancholy of the character of Adam, Hiddleston took in Jarmusch’s suggestion to think of Pink Floyd’s raven-haired, wild-eyed former frontman Syd Barrett while re-reading “Hamlet.”

“We did find a commonality, because it was always about specifics,” said Hiddleston, on the phone from a movie shoot in Toronto. “What kind of music does Adam make? What does he like? What doesn’t he like? Through those conversations I began to get a sense of Jim’s palate, his speed, his tone and his style.”

Both Swinton and Hiddleston draw a comparison to Jarmusch’s recent work as part of the band Sqürl as a reflection of the collaborative nature of his work, how it can be singular while he remains so seemingly open to others. The movie is a reflection of his own broad-ranging interests, across literature, music, art and science — “I’m a real nerd,” said Jarmusch, noting his recent pursuits as an amateur bird watcher and studier of fungi.

“That’s what’s so great about working with him, is his passions rub off on you,” said Hiddleston. “He loves the music that Adam loves; in a way there is some of Jim in Adam, but there is also so much of Jim in Eve, and the things they love are the things that he loves.”

“I’m neither of them, but I’m both of them. It’s not a portrait of me in any way,” Jarmusch said. “I feel very close to Adam in a lot of ways, and Eve I aspire to be more like. I wish I had more of her qualities as I get, I don’t know what the word is, older. Or more confused.”