It's fun to be a bastard.
That was the message from actor Paul Giamatti when he sat down for a short video interview in the lounge of the Arclight Sherman Oaks, during theWrap's screening of "Barney's Version."
In Richard J. Lewis' film, Giamatti gives a tour de force performance that spans four decades and three marriages in the life of Barney Panofsky, an eternally cranky and frequently drunk television producer at least partly modeled on the late Canadian author Mordecai Richler, who wrote the acclaimed novel on which the film is based.
The Emmy-winning actor (for the miniseries "John Adams") talked about the thrill of playing a jerk, the joys of working with Dustin Hoffman (who plays Barney's father), and his lack of interest in making the character loveable.
