Insomnia

Interview with Martin Donovan at the Premiere of "Insomnia" by Rebecca Murray
about.com

MARTIN DONOVAN (Hap Eckhart)

How did you get involved with “Insomnia?”
It was very straightforward. The agent called and she said, “Here's the script. They want you to read.” I went and read for Chris Nolan in New York and that was it.

How much research did you do for the role of a police officer?
You know honestly, I've played cops before and one of the things I tried to do was look like I knew how to hold a gun, basically that sort of stuff. I did some work in terms of entering a premise - we had a police advisor up there - just little things like that. The rest of it was stuff that didn't necessarily relate to or wasn't specific to being a cop. There was emotional stuff between two partners.

How was your experience playing opposite Al Pacino?
It was just fantastic. He's like driving a Ferrari; if you want to go fast, he'll go as fast you want to go. He's an amazing artist and he's extremely passionate about the work. After his kind of career, he's still the most serious guy. He's one of the most serious, committed actors I've ever [worked with]. You'd think that somebody maybe at his point would be willing to coast a little bit but there's no sense of that whatsoever.

And how was Christopher Nolan as a director?
He's amazing. He makes it look easy. He's still relatively young and he's working with these guys, he's working with Pacino. It was one of the classiest productions I've ever been on just in terms from the producers on down. It was a very professional crew. Chris made it very enjoyable. He's very open to actors' input yet knew what he wanted to do. He had all the right ingredients.

What other projects are you working on?
I did a film called “The United States of Leland” with Kevin Spacey and Don Cheadle, among other people. I just did a movie for FX called “RFK” where I play Jack Kennedy. I also another film called “Pipe Dream” - a film I did with Mary-Louise Parker. It's going to be shown at the Seattle Film Festival. It's a romantic comedy.

What's “Pipe Dream” about?
I play a plumber who lives in New York City. He feels that due to his station in life, he can't get the women he would like, so he poses as a movie director to meet and pick up women. It's a romance between my character and Mary-Louise.