?I Love Your Work? ? The Story: Actor Adam Goldberg wrote, produced, edited, directed and composed the music for ?I Love Your Work,? a dramatic film about the total psychological collapse of a movie star (played by Giovanni Ribisi).
Why is Giovanni Ribisi So Good at Playing a Psycho? ?Well he?s obviously unhinged [smiling]. I think Giovanni can play a good anything. I think Giovanni can access things in himself that not everybody has the facility to do.

He?s like a sponge.

If you look at the flashback sequences in ?I Love Your Work? where he?s pure and in love, I just think his acting in that is so beautiful and heartbreaking. Although they?re just snippets, which is the point because he can?t seem to stay back in that world where he wants to be, I just couldn?t believe it. The day that he showed up to do that stuff ? the scene with Christina [Ricci] in the video store - Christina said, ?He?s the most amazing actor I?ve ever worked with.?

I was just stunned because we?d been shooting scenes where he was a complete and utter mess. And here he is just sort of young and beatific. I just have always been amazed by him.?

Adam Goldberg Say This Work Isn?t Autobiographical: ?I?m Gray [Ribisi's character] to the extent that I struggle with this ability to live in the present tense. I struggle with the ability to not over-romanticize the past and to not over-romanticize the movies that I grew up watching. These are issues that I think I deal with kind of head-on.

I, however, think that everyone deals with them on some level.

Sometimes you almost have a soundtrack to your life. That?s what music is all about. You act one way when a certain song is playing on the jukebox, you know? This sort of persona overtakes you. Then the song changes and you are kind of a different person. These are the sorts of things that do affect me.?

Is there a Definitive Definition of ?I Love Your Work?? Goldberg says there is, but also admits the film redefined itself over the course of production. ?You have to watch it just hundreds and hundreds of times once it?s even completed. I found myself interpreting it in different ways, which I thought was interesting because the film, at a certain point, begins to inform you. It?s like when you?re writing. You have a sense of what you?re writing and then certain things present themselves to you, and it?s almost as though the film begins to communicate with you about how it is that you?re supposed to edit it.

You watch the film and although I have a map wherein I can clearly tell you what every single thing means and why I put it there, why I put it there stops meaning anything. It becomes valueless once it becomes its own movie. I can tell you what made me put a certain scene there and what I intended this piece of the puzzle to represent, but then once it becomes a movie it?s its own thing. You have nothing to do with it anymore. That, to me, is just the beauty of that kind of moviemaking.?

Adam Goldberg on What ?I Love Your Work? Represents: ?Well, it represents how I feel about society to be sure. It represents how I feel about a society that has really long ? forever ? been obsessed with a kind of a non-reality. And conversely what I wanted to deal with in the situation was how this guy who had been sort of swept up in this non-reality wants so badly to experience reality again, but he doesn?t have the skills. He doesn?t have the mental stability in order to do it in a healthy way and he goes about doing it in this rather unhealthy way.

I think that there?s a sycophantic nature to not just the world of movie stardom, but to the world at large. It?s a really basic thing. ?Do not covet your neighbor?s wife? ? I?m paraphrasing. And the grass is always greener on the other side. You know, these sorts of really basic clichés exist for a reason. And that to me is ultimately what this film is about. You use a kind of very accessible, understandable context, a frame of reference for people.?

On Mixing Genres and Resisting Labels: ?The films that I?ve always like and what I find myself doing each time I write is there seems to be this kind of overlapping of different genres. I don?t like films that are categorizable. That you can say, ?It?s a thriller. It?s a comedy.? Obviously you need to say something when you?re selling a movie.

I like the idea that there?s this kind of film noir structure or underbelly in a lot of the films of say someone like Nicolas Roeg or Alan Rudolph, and certainly David Lynch. But combining it with something, which is perhaps a bit more personal to me. I like that just layering of genre ? a surreal genre mood, but dealing with things that are actually rooted in some kind of reality.?

* * * * * * * *

"I Love Your Work" will be released in New York on December 2, 2005. The film is rated R for language, sexuality, some drug content and violent images.