Oscar-winning actor, award-winning playwright and Hollywood's conscience - there really is nothing Tim Robbins can't be. Having landed an Academy Award earlier this year for his heartrending performance in Mystic River, the tall guy returns in futuristic love story Code 46, playing an investigator who falls for a young woman (Samantha Morton) with whom he shares a chilling connection. Virgin.net caught up with him...
VM: We understand shooting in Shanghai was a little hairy...
Tim Robbins: It's a chaotic kind of city: you had to be ready for everything. I can't understand how more cyclists don't get hit as there don't appear to be any rules for traffic; maybe it's the bicycles that rule the traffic and the cars that are supposed to stop. Our director Michael Winterbottom had such a renegade spirit; we would just jump out of cars and start shooting. I think he got some really great stuff there.
VM: What was the appeal of the Code 46 script?
Tim Robbins: I liked the idea of doing a romance. I hadn't done one in a while, and I wanted to find one that was interesting. This was set in the future, with the classic love story structure of an obstacle placed between the man and the woman being together. This had classic elements but reinvented in a way that was really interesting. The obstacle is genetic make-up, and the idea that in the future, with man messing around so much with cloning, certain people are forbidden from being together because of what they might produce. My character and Sam's character recognise a love and a faith and a destiny, but they have to overcome the obstacles placed in front of them.
