Naomi Watts, Michael Pitt, and Brady Corbet in Funny Games Courtesy of Warner Independent Pictures

Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet

Was this movie fun to make?
Pitt: A lot of fun. Everyone was having a good time. It was a lot more fun than it looks, I think.

Did you guys see the original film?
Pitt: I saw it once, yeah. When I first saw it I felt a little assaulted and it took me like a day or two to digest it and then I decided that I really liked it. But right away I didn't... There's a normal way that we as viewers have of watching films and I realized that he was breaking the rules and he was sort of saying, "You can do anything." And he reminded me that you can do anything in film and that there aren't any rules.

Did the two of you spend any time trying to analyze why your characters are the way they are and why they do what they do? Or is it just there in the script and you go with what you see on the page?
Corbet: I don't think it's something we ever spoke about too much. The characters don't have a past and they don't have a future. They only exist in the confines of a 100-minute movie and so, if anything, I was trying not to think about it too too much.

Was it harder to justify their violent behavior or was it harder to justify their winking asides to the camera?
Pitt: We weren't really thinking about why they were doing it, we were just doing it and I thought it would be more difficult than it actually was because normally you think about the character's past and you analyze why they doing [what they're doing]. I don't know — it was weird, it was almost easier for me because they had no past.

Corbet: For me, too — it's not justifiable, their behavior. You don't have to dig very deep. If anything you just had to find something kind of charming about the two of them because you want the audience to be on their side in a way. I've never made a movie where I thought about the end result so much. I was always thinking about the audience and I think Haneke wanted it that way. I've also never watched a monitor so closely and so often. We'd shoot it and we'd look at it, and we were as much of an audience as anybody.

Were the directions extremely specific?
Corbet: Yeah. Like, "When you say this line, put your hand here and then rest it on the counter." It was that specific.

And so he justified that how?
Corbet: You know, it's amazing but he was able to do it every time.

Those justifications, did they have to do with your character behavior or did they have to do with the purpose in the film?
Pitt: A lot of it had to do with the purpose in the film... I knew the type of director Michael was when I did a work session. So I was aware of how it was going to be. And I think for some actors it could be very frustrating if you went into it and you didn't know it was going to be like that. For a lot of film actors it's about catching a moment and they're not used to taking direction like that. I just took it as an exercise. Because if I'm not able to be good within the restrictions he makes, then I'm not — you know — good.