Interview with Doug Jones

Doug Jones is known for his roles in the “Hellboy” series, “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer”.  We had a chance to interview Doug Jones about those projects in May 2010, check it out here.  This time around Media Mikes chatted with Doug about work on the web series’ “The Guild” & “Dragon Age: Redemption”, his upcoming film roles in “Dust of War” and also his coffee table book coming out called “Mime Very Own Book”.

MG: Tell us about working on the web series “The Guild”?
DJ: I absolutely love “The Guild”.  The whole phenomenon of the web series is something new to me.  I got caught up with the first four seasons of “The Guild” and fell in love with it.  Felicia Day is such a great writer and she also plays the lead role of Codex.  When she asked me to play a reoccurring role in season 5, I jumped at it.  I have been in episodes 6 and 7 so far.  I will also show up in a couple more in early October.  This season “The Guild” members are at a gaming convention and Robin Thorsen’s character Clara kind of wonders over to this Steampunk booth.  I am on one of the three characters at this booth. We have these British accents, act very snooty and we totally overdid it. We are just having so much fun with it and it is just so well written. Oh my gosh, its great. I have never laughed that much on a set ever.

MG: You are working again with Felicia Day with “Dragon Age: Redemption”
DJ: Being the big game/geek queen, she is also a big fan of “Dragon Age”.  So she is developing a web series based on “Dragon Age II”.  We have a decent budget and it is actually like “Lord of the Rings” made for the web. It was very epic for a web series.  I get to play the main bad guy named Cerberus.  I am Qunari Mage and for people that play the game that would make sense to them.

MG: Last time we spoke you just finished “Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life” and now it is released, are you excited to have it out for your fans?
DJ: I am so happy about this film.  It is a biography on Serge Gainsbourg, who is an iconic singer songwriter from France and he was total cultural benchmark. I get to play the most fun character.  It is a biography but I get to be the fantasy element in this.  I play Serge’s alter-ego.  I am cartooney exaggerated looking version of what he didn’t like about himself.  This was a really wonderful and fun role for me to play. This year marks the 20th anniversary of his death, which is pretty timely to put the movie out now.  I am happy that it finally got its US release.  It started playing in Los Angeles and New York on Labor Day and is opening in new cities every week until November.  You can find out more information about this at my website thedougjonesexperience.com.

MG: You just finished filming “Dust of War”, tell us about that film?
DJ: I get offered a lot of independent films from young filmmakers.  I love young filmmakers that are energetic, passionate and have a true vision for storytelling. “Dust of War” was written and directed by Andrew Kightlinger from a small town in South Dakota.  This town was a perfect place for our story, which is a post apocalyptic story after the crash of society and it was caused to crash by something outer worldly.  So you have this “Mad Max” setup and good guys on the run from bad guys.  The formula has been done before but this script and these characters really grabbed me.  I absolutely LOVE them. I got to play a character named Jebediah Strumm.  I am the counterpart to Crispus Hansen, who is played by Tony Todd.  We got to play these traveling minstrels who try and bring life back to this miserable world.  We get to protect and interact with the leads characters.  I am very pleased to have be able to work on “Dust of War”.

MG: Tell us about your coffee table book called “Mime Very Own Book”?
DJ: Oh my gosh, I had so much fun with this project.  When you fill your schedule with film and TV projects and you take out three days out of a photo shoot for a coffee table book it is something very different.  This is a photo book of 250 pages of me as a mime.  We do a lot of pop culture send-ups.  We make fun of famous works of art, movie posters and famous photos in history.  For instance, there is one of me with my arms photoshopped off as “Venus de Milo”.  You will see me in there as the Mona Lisa.  You will see me in boxing shorts knocked out with myself standing over me as Muhammad Ali.  It goes on and on.  We also explore different puns like “A Mime Is A Terrible Thing To Waste”, “Once upon a Mime” and “Mime over Matter” [laughs].  The list just goes on.

MG: Any secrets you want to leak to MediaMikes.com?
DJ: Currently, I am on my way to a costume/makeup fitting for a contract I signed yesterday.  So, I have a new movie shooting late October.  Unfortunately, I can’t say the title just yet.  I can tell you it is fun romp with me in creature makeup.  It will be the first time I am back in creature makeup in two years. So I am looking very forward to it.  It is a huge studio film with big stars in it and it is going to be funny as hell.