Cage: Someone mentioned to me that there was a blurb in Entertainment Weekly that said very condescendingly, "We get a kick out of watching Academy-Award winners being in movies that they have no business being seen in." I thought, "Well, OK. That's really shallow thinking because they can't get outside their own box."

They don't understand the concept of what I would say is art. You have different styles, and you can choose to be photo-realistic like World Trade Center or you can be pop-art illustrative. Why limit yourself to one style of acting? And especially when you look at Ghost Rider, you see a comic-book story structure which digs a little deeper. It doesn't take itself too seriously, of course. It's funny, but it's coming from classic themes like Faust with Goethe or Thomas Mann or Beauty and the Beast. It's fascinating to take those story structures and reintroduce people to it in a pop-art contemporary manner, and especially a comic book, no less.

It's just fun and reaches a lot of people, but Entertainment Weekly is the kind of magazine that is very condescending, and they think in a very narrow box, and they always have. So that's why I would recommend that if you want to really get your information and know what movies to go see, I wouldn't resort to that particular publication, because they are pretty shallow.There was a day when movies like Star Wars and E.T. were up for the five best pictures of the year and got nominations, but that's not happening anymore. Do you think that there will be a time when these types of movies will get back to that kind of status?

Cage: They deserve to ... You can see that some very creative people put a lot of hard work into this movie. Kevin Mack, he drew those visual effects brilliantly with his team. It's just a fun ride, a spooky ride, and I hope to see these movies get a little more attention at some point.What was the most difficult acting challenge in this part?

Cage: It's all about imagination, and that's what comics did for me as a boy. I read Ghost Rider and I read The Hulk. I liked the monsters. I liked them because I couldn't understand how something so scary could also be so good. It got me thinking at a very early age, and I had a lot of rehearsal. I was Ghost Rider in my backyard at 8 years old. Nothing has changed.That transformation scene is a bit incredible. What was your barometer in terms of how far you could go with that, or did the director control that and pull you back?

Cage: Well, that was what I was really excited about it. I like the old grand werewolf movies, and I've always wanted to find a way to apply my acting in a big bad monster movie where I was transforming into this scary entity. I worked with Kevin with where I thought [we] might go in terms of the physical expressions, and he would take snapshots of them. I thought that there would be pain because the skin was melting off of my face, but then maybe ecstasy because the power of the Ghost Rider was surging through me and he was starting to get off on that a little bit, and then also sadness about what's happening. So he would download all these different facial expressions into the computer, and then I would work with Mark [Steven Johnson] on the day of [the shoot] with the DP as to where the camera was going to go and match my moves with the camera. So it became like a dance, and then wherever I had to go in that private place to come up with this imaginary belief that I was transforming into this monster. But I wanted it to be like an aria. I even wanted his screams to be like music, like an operatic aria.Was it fun to wig out like that?

Cage: Yeah, it was really fun. I liked it. I grew up watching those B monster movies on TV, and I really wanted to capture the spirit of that sort of externalizing, that sort of abandon that those movies have where they don't take themselves too seriously and they're all about fun. I watched all the Vincent Price movies and like The Fly. All the Price and Peter Lorre ...You know he's buried right behind you in that vault?

Cage: Yeah, that's right, he's in there. So I wanted to capture that essence if I could. You know, as a kid I watched all those great monster movies with he and Vincent Price. He was one of the reasons that I wanted to always do a movie like this.Did it help you on the set?

Cage: On the set I would try to imagine that stuff. Mark Steven Johnson would say, "OK, imagine your character is covered in bugs or you're in a lot of pain and being eaten alive by ants." I would just start trying to feel that, and I would get so excited that I was a kid again, like I was doing monster movies. I would start screaming, "Monster movie! Monster movie!" It felt like I was 8 years old, and I really think that kids will enjoy this movie because it has that kind of attitude about it. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and it is about fun. I wanted humor to come through; I didn't want him to take himself too seriously.Is Johnny Blaze a good guy or a bad guy?

Cage: Johnny is a good guy ultimately. He's a good guy in a bad situation. I think that's something that we can all relate to. I mean, we're dealing with mythology. It's Jungian, if you really want to look at it that way. I don't know if you need to take it literally, that he's really selling his soul to the devil. It's more of an expression of the troubles that we all get into in life at times that you can relate to, and it's drawn on a fantasy scale. I think that you can look at it more as a personal thing, too, if you don't take it literally. Can you talk about working with Wes Bentley?

Cage: Well, Wes was someone that I've always wanted to work [with] since I saw him in American Beauty. He just has a great look about him and a darkness to him that is perfect for this character. I mean, he's just a uniquely talented individual with the way he moves and the way he poses and holds his space—it's very striking. I think that it works very well for that character in particular. How frustrating is it that some people assume that it was a digital you with your shirt off?

Cage: Well, I guess on one hand it's a compliment, but on the other hand it's like that was a lot of hard work and it's just being written off as if someone made it digitally. It's a little frustrating.We were told that you were really involved in changing some elements of this character.

Cage: Well, it's a deeply personal character, and I was trying to find a new way of presenting how he would keep dark spirits at bay. I didn't want him being a heavy drinker or chain smoker. I wanted him eating jellybeans so that he wouldn't invite the devils in, and I wanted him listening to Karen Carpenter to help him relax so that he wouldn't invite the devil in with, like, satanic Goth rock or something, or he's watching chimpanzees do karate instead of The Exorcist. All three of those things I was doing in my own life. I was eating jellybeans out of a martini glass and listening to Karen Carpenter and on the Internet watching chimps do karate. I thought that it was funny and we should put it in the movie, but it is also true.Can you talk about getting your skull X-rayed?

Cage: Yeah, we did all of that. They graphed my skull and so I guess that is me, which is kind of wild, but what I really love about this character is that we're all him. We all have human skulls. You've got one. I've got one. We've all got one, and we look at it and go, "That's scary." And then after a little while you go, "Wait a minute. That's beautiful. He's human, and he's a total badass. He's fighting the dark forces, but he's human." So it's pretty neat.Did you read the earlier script that was much darker, written by David Goyer?

Cage: Yeah, it was a good script. Steve Norrington of Blade was directing, and David [Goyer] wrote that script, and I was on board for that, but whatever happened, the studio didn't want to make it. That also would've been a good movie, but that movie dissolved, and then Avi brought Mark in and I talked to Mark, and Mark found a way to make it more palatable to larger audiences. It became more of a spooky ride. You go to an amusement park and you have a roller coaster and you have the haunted mansion. This is just the right amount of scary to get your adrenaline up, but not so much so that you can't finish the ride. It's something for the family.What was it like working on set with Sam Elliott?

Cage: Sam Elliott is an elegant cowboy, and I used to be his neighbor in Malibu Canyon. It's funny because we're both from the same place, but he has a much more pronounced drawl than I do, and he just comes off so screamingly beautiful as this cowboy icon, and I think that his performance is so poetic. Every word, every expression, every movement is precise, and nothing is wasted.And what about working with Peter Fonda?

Cage: That was a trip,and he made a movie called The Trip [laughs].

Eva Mendes: And he's taken a lot of acid trips.

Cage: Peter is the reason that I ride motorcycles. I saw Easy Rider,and the next day I bought a Harley Davidson and went from L.A. to San Francisco and back to L.A. and became Captain America in my mind. So when they decided to make this movie and we talked about who was going to play Mephistopheles, originally I wanted Tom Waits. That was the whole lamp wick Pinocchio thing, but the studio decided with Mark that they wanted to go with Peter. I thought about it and I said, "Well, you know what, that makes sense, because who better to seduce a stunt cyclist to sell their soul than Captain America, Easy Rider himself." And we were there play-acting together, and there was this bike there, and there's Peter, and he's talking, and I stepped out of myself and looked at the two of us and was thinking, "Wow. This is really cool. This is Captain America."Nic, when speaking to you only a short while ago, you said you weren't sure about carrying on with a sequel to this, but Mark mentioned that there's some early talk about a Ghost Rider 2. Can you see a sequel now?

Cage: Well, it depends on the reaction from the movie-going audiences, whether they're enthusiastic about it and if there is a good script, but I would say that out of all the characters that I've played, my interests coincide with where this particular character could go. I'm interested in the metaphysical nature of Ghost Rider and his world. I am a man with an open mind. I don't really know anything, but I'm very interested in the spiritual and the material and that this is the one superhero that walks between both worlds. I think that's pretty exciting, because he's new. There is a lot of room for adventure with this guy.What's the first comic that you're going to read to your little one?

Cage: Oh, wow. Probably Superman.What comic book do you think should be made into a movie that hasn't yet?

Cage: If I had to pay my seven bucks or eight bucks, however [much] it is now—it's a lot—I would go to see The Sub-Mariner come to life. I want to see the water and all the animal life.Do you have a concept of hell that you brought to this, aside from doing press interviews?

Cage: [Laughs.] I didn't really think about it in those terms. I think that if I had a concept of hell, it's here now, and it's simultaneous with heaven in that you can choose it. You can make a choice with your free will about which way you want to go. War is hell. That's a cliché, but it's true. So I guess that would be my concept of hell.Eva Mendes, how much about Ghost Rider did you know about?

Mendes: I didn't know a thing about it except Nicolas Cage was doing it and I've been dying to work with him, and that Mark Steven Johnson, who I've also been a fan of, is writing it and directing it. So I went, ummm. Sony just happens to be my favorite studio, so those three things combined, I just figured ...

Were you worried about not looking like the part of Roxanne?

Mendes: I had a meeting with Mark and I was like, "Mark, I love the idea. I love the comic book." Because I obviously did my research and looked at the comic book. I love the idea of selling your soul to the devil, because I kind of feel like I do it a little every day in this business, or every other day. I sat down with him. It was hysterical. We just had a really great time. I said, "OK, now that all the laughs are over, I know I love you as a person, but this character, I just don't want her to be the girl. I want her to be something, and I want her to have a real struggle and stuff." And he's like, "It's not there right now, but I promise you it's going to be there."How much input did you have into developing the character?

Mendes: None. Not much. But I took his word for it. I totally trusted him—which is something you shouldn't do too often with men in Hollywood. I trusted him, and it turned out great. He created a really beautiful love story within this amazing visual comic-book movie, so it has heart. Were you a fan of comic books?

Mendes: Not so much of comic books, but I'm a fan of the idea of good versus evil. Just breaking it down and being like good versus evil, and obviously always having good prevail. Have you had much interaction with the hardcore fans?

Mendes: I went to Comic-Con. I've been there twice now, actually. It's so cool. I love it. I love when people are passionate about something like that. I love people dressing up their little kids. It's so cute. How have they responded to you playing the character?

Mendes: So far so good, because they really haven't seen the movie. So I hope after they see it, they're still good. I think it's a great time because in the comic book, Roxanne is a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman, which I'm obviously not. I was really worried that the hardcore don't think "Who is this exotic little creature playing Roxanne Simpson? It doesn't make sense." So I realized that in the comic book, Roxanne is also very voluptuous and has massive boobs. I don't know if you can tell by those scenes, but I actually added a little weight and grew in the fun areas. I said I'm going to get to the hardcore fans one way or another. So I let myself go a little bit more voluptuous, and it was very easy, because I just skipped the gym and ate. Was it fun doing that?

Mendes: Yeah, I didn't let myself go; I just allowed myself to have more fun and not be like, "Oh, it's time for work, I have to go to the gym" or "I can't have that pizza." I'd be like, "Yeah, I can have that pizza."Are you involved in any of the action sequences in the film?

Mendes: I am involved in the action sequences. I get tossed around once, which was really fun. I was put up in this harness, and I was scared at first, and the first 60-foot toss, I was like, "Can I do that again?" They're like, "Yep," so we kept doing that again. I did suffer from superhero envy, because I don't have any superhero powers. What was it like getting to work with Cage after you've been wanting to for so long? What did you expect?

Mendes: I always wanted to be in a movie like this, and who wouldn't want to have the chance to work with Nic Cage? I expected the unexpected, and that's what I got. He was always so much fun to be around while we were shooting. As an individual, he's so unique, and it comes through in his work. You prepare for a scene, and you'er getting ready for that next day, and you obviously go and you have your line memorized. It seems like so long ago. You have an idea of what you want to do, but obviously you stay open, or I stay open, and you see what happens. Every time he would get me, because he does this great thing where he turns things upside down and he doesn't play it the obvious way. He doesn't play the line or the scene in the obvious way, which really kept me on my toes, and I was like, "Oh, cool, what are we doing today?" He just kind of flips it. Then he can make the most mundane sentences sound really heavy. I was like, "How do I do that?" I actually made heavy sentences sound mundane. I was like, "I need to reverse that." Can you talk about being reactive to something that isn't really there? Do you have a creative imagination?

Mendes: I do have a really, really massive, major imagination. I relied on that for this. Toward the end of filming, things got crazy. It got really bad. As far as my imagination, I would just take stuff home with me. You can see the film is pretty dark. It's very entertaining. I think one of the great things is it has not only great visuals, but it's got a darkness to it that you can really get caught up in. It's intense. The last three weeks were night shoots, and you're working at night, you're in a cemetery kind of like this, and it's 4 a.m., 5 a.m., and you're going home alone after work. It got a little creepy. But that's good, because I allowed that in. Mark spent the night in a cemetery. You didn't do that?

Mendes: No. Hell no. Absolutely not. I don't see the point. It think it's great, but no. Can you elaborate on your character's struggles and what Mark added that sparked your interest more?

Mendes: Basically, I wanted every woman to be able to kind of relate to her. I think we did that because not too many people sell their soul to the devil like that and have their head on fire, but there are problems in relationships, and I think people can, women can a lot of times feel—well, men as well—there's just so many obstacles that can complicate a relationship, and when people aren't honest or too honest in how we deal with that, I just wanted to bring that human nature into it and represent women and what we go through sometimes. The way we did that was just to be as realistic as possible. I play a reporter, and I play a career, but I play such a girl. I love that, in a sense. I say, "She's still like that 15-year-old girl [who] is still inside of her, waiting for him in the rain." It's a heartbreaking scene in the beginning. It's that girl who believes in such true love, and that girl who just went on and did her thing as a career woman and still wants to believe in love.Is that kind of like you?

Mendes: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I do. I know I can be a cynic and can act like a smartass at times, but I'm actually really super-overly sensitive, and I'm very much a bit of a romantic.How much of the film have you seen before tonight?

Mendes: I've seen a lot of it. Have probably seen about 70 percent of it, and I love it, but I've seen it chopped up for different reasons, whether we were at Comic-Con ... So I've seen it not in its sequence. What was it like seeing it at the cemetery?

Mendes: It was rad. It was really cool. It was rad. I have a bad habit of saying rad. You don't hear that very often.

Mendes: Oh, it's totally back. You didn't know? It's been back for years, actually. Skaters brought it back.Have you done a lot of green-screen work before?

Mendes: It was so weird. It was so weird, you guys. You're not looking at anything. It literally is a green screen. I didn't know. I thought that was just something they called it. I got there and was like, "Oh you are green!" And it's bright. You have just a frame of reference, like, you know, "There he is behind you" and "There he is coming up." It's kind of cool because I got caught up kind of like old school. I kind of thought this was like what they had to do back then, just pretend. I kind of got into that whole thing, really, in my mind. But it's interesting. Was it a tennis-ball-on-a-stick type thing?

Mendes: Yes, there were some tennis balls on sticks. Then there was some tape as well. Did you have to depend a lot on your imagination?

Mendes: Not exactly. That's why I left the film with nightmares, because I had to go into that and open that thing up and be like monsters and demons coming after me.Were yours worse than the ones you saw on screen?

Mendes: Yeah, they were. Well, because they felt more real, and Mark wasn't in my dreams saying "Cut." They were in my dreams doing weird stuff. Do you believe in something like the devil?

Mendes: I think it more exists in ... No, I don't. I was trying to be like creative right now and be philosophical. No, I don't believe in that. I believe people can be evil.Are you religious?

Mendes: What are you talking about? I don't talk religion or politics, because I'm not the brightest girl around. I tend to get myself into trouble, so I make a choice, no politics or religion. You seem to have a cynical view of Hollywood.

Mendes: I think it's realistic. I think I just watch out for the wolves. There's a lot of them, but there's a lot of great ones as well. I've actually never had a bad experience, but I've heard about them and I've seen them with other people, so I steer clear away from them. Sometimes you can't help it, but you put out there what you attract. You attract what you put out there. Have you turned down a project based on that?

Mendes: That's a really good question. Yes, I did. It hasn't come out yet. It's been in the can for two years. It's like cool. Not cool for them, but cool for me that my decision was based on something. Where did that instinct come from?

Mendes: I don't know. I think we know. We can see smoke signals. I think we choose to ignore them sometimes. I think we know, and I have a really great team that is very protective over me as well. I've been fortunate to have that. Is it frustrating waiting for this movie to come out? You finished shooting a while ago.

Mendes: A little bit, yeah. I was so excited about it coming out earlier, because I do love this movie. It means so much to me. The whole experience shooting it meant so much. ... I just became so involved emotionally with this movie, it's kind of like, "Come on already. Come on." I want people to see it. I want to take my nephews to see it. I want my family to see it.How would you classify this film? Part horror? Part action? Obviously there's some romance in it.

Mendes: Yeah, I think for me it's a little bit of everything, because it's funny at times, too. I love that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Nic is so great at making fun of himself. I think it's such a visual treat with emotional connection. I don't even know how I would go about labeling it. It would be unfair to the movie.Would you do another film like this?

Mendes: Yes, but I would have to have some kind of superhero power. What kind of power?

Mendes: Oh, I don't know. Anything. Maybe they would let me fly. I could be anything, but with some kind of power. Have you signed on to do a sequel yet?

Mendes: I don't know. Did I?You don't know if you've signed a contract?

Mendes: No, good question. I should find out. So there's been no mention of a sequel yet?

Mendes: No, I don't think so. I'm not sure. Maybe they've got someone else. Yeah, I'm going to look into that. You guys are making me paranoid. Did they shoot the sequel already? What, what? Since you play a reporter, did you do any research?

Mendes: I did some research, but one of the things that really got to me was when I am reporting I have to get that reporter voice on. Do you remember any specific moments that were funny or off the cuff with Nic?

Mendes: I think he's so into what he's doing. He's such a professional. That was kind of funny to me, because I'm like, "I know this is going to look amazing, but there's no bike." This is weird, but I just had to grow up, and that's where I just become really silly. The thing that I would do is I would start laughing, and me and Nicolas called it "giggle-rama." We would go into giggle-rama mode, and I just couldn't stop. You remember that moment when you're in church or something? Any moment where you have to be serious and quiet. He's talking to me as Ghost Rider, and it would be funny sometimes. I would let it go, and he would start laughing. Did he wear anything different when he was Ghost Rider?

Mendes: Yes, he wore a bra and panties. They were white lace. He went opposite. Yeah, not black, he went white lace. Totally kidding. His flame turns blue when he sees you, so is there a moment where you have to kiss a skull?

Mendes: There is a moment. There is a really cool scene where I do smooch the skull. Isn't that against fire safety rules?

Mendes: Yes, but its fun to break the fire safety rules. Just kidding. There's going to be a little kid setting something on fire: "Eva Mendes said I could do this." So yeah, it was a really beautiful, actually. Were you kissing a tennis ball then?

Mendes: Yeah, what is that, weird? I was actually kissing Nicolas. He wasn't on fire, but you had to kind of pretend you were going through flames, which is fun. I'm not going to complain about kissing Nicolas. Was there a hood or something over his head?

Mendes: He did, but not when I was kissing him. He did have a hood, but when I was kissing him that one time through the flame thing, which I hope Mark doesn't get mad at me for telling you that, because it was kind of a special moment, he would, but at that point he didn't have it. When he would be the Ghost Rider, he actually had this mask over his head.So how surprised are you when you see everything come together in the film?

Mendes: Yeah, it's really cool. You're really happy that you have faith, and that's where actually going to class—I study religiously with ... my acting coach of years, and that's where all of our inner work really pays off. You're acting opposite some stunt guy and a green screen and with a tennis ball, and that's where it's like, "Thank God I studied so much," and I do this work. I just don't show up and go, "Where's my cute little outfit to wear?" I actually prepare for my characters. That's where I'm really thankful, so when I see it, I'm like, "Oh, gosh!" And I remember what I'm really thinking in that scene, because there was nothing else. There's a lot of the biker culture in the movie. Did you get into that?

Mendes: No, no. Well, because you've got Peter Fonda in the film.

Mendes: Oh, I have a really cool Peter Fonda story. I never got into motorcycles, but I like guys that dabble. I don't like guys that totally go out, because I would be a freak of a girlfriend. But I like a little edge. Oh, here's the great Peter Fonda story.

So we're all hanging out. I didn't have many scenes with Peter, so I didn't get to really know him that well at the beginning. He was talking about Easy Rider. The three of us were hanging out on set. He said something and I stayed quiet. He referenced the movie, and I stayed quiet because I was so embarrassed I'd never seen the movie, but I knew it was a huge part of American culture. So I was like, "Oh my God, please don't ask me anything. I'm so embarrassed."

Somehow it came around and a question came up, and I said, "You know what, I'm so embarrassed to admit this, but I've never seen Easy Rider." He looked at me and said, "Well, we're going to have to change that." So he planned a very intimate private viewing at Mark's apartment in Melbourne. There was about eight people there and the movie, and Peter himself was sitting there next to me narrating Easy Rider. That's one of those moments in life where you're like, "Holy s**t, it's cool to be an actress right now. Oh my God, this is amazing." It was such a moment. We'd look at each other and it was just really cool. I love the movie. He'd literally be pressing day and be like, "That day, that's what we were on on that day" and "Wait until you see this next." It was a piece of American movie history. Mark Steven Johnson, who is more obsessed about this character, you or Nick?

Johnson: Me. When did you first read the comic book?

Johnson: When did I? I was probably 10. Yeah, at 10, maybe 11. Yeah, I mean this is like, this and Daredevil, I mean, those are my two favorites. That's how I learned to read, literally. How did that come about?

Johnson: This is the movie I always wanted to make. And the rights weren't available. That's why I made Daredevil. But this is the one that I went to Avi [Arad, the producer] at Marvel, and this is the one that I tried to get done. To me, Ghost Rider was interesting because he doesn't have the best story, necessarily, or the best villains, or whatnot, like Spider-Man, but he's the most visual. It's like, he would go in and out of circulation. He'd drop out. But people still got tattoos of Ghost Rider on their body, put them on their motorcycle, you know what I mean? There's something about the flaming skull and the motorcycle, it just resonates. It's lasted 40 years because of that image. So that, to me, it tells me that it's like the best thing for a movie.What did you learn from the Daredevil experience?

Johnson: How much time you got? [Laughter.] You want to come over, stay at my place for a few days? No, look. A lot of it was me. I was coming from, I directed one very small movie and then I went to Daredevil, which was a $75 million, which, God bless it, made a lot of money for the studio and whatnot. But it was a very, very difficult shoot, a very hard thing to do. It was kind of before—I mean, when I made Daredevil, Spider-Man hadn't come out yet. It was still in post. So no one quite understood the value of these characters and staying true to the comic. So everything was a fight. You know what I mean? It's like, everything is a fight. So when you get to Ghost Rider, by now enough things have had success that—and Sony has had such success with Spider-Man—that they get it. You don't got to go, "No, no, no, wait. It's Ghost Rider. It's got to be a skull on fire." You know what I mean? Which is like what it was like with Daredevil. "No, he's got to have horns and be in red." It's like, no. So that's been the big thing. You have a studio who's backing it going, "We get it. We get it. Just help us get there." It seems like Nicolas had a very strong vision of how he wanted to play this.

Johnson: Absolutely. And what I love about Nick is that I love—I keep, again, thinking about like Johnny Depp in Pirates [of the Caribbean], you know what I mean?—is when he did his character people were like, "What are you doing?" ... Sometimes like the eccentricness—eccentricity, I should say—it's not just for being eccentric. It's because it's real. You know what I mean?

We're all weird. People are weird. You know what I mean. And when I first wrote Johnny Blaze, I wrote him as a guy who's drinking Jack Daniels out of the bottle, smoking, death wish. Argh! And it was a cliche. And Nick said to me, "I don't know anyone who drinks Jack Daniels out of a bottle. Have you ever?" I'm like, "No." Do you ever drink any hard liquor out of a bottle? I'm thinking, I've never done that. Who does that? Who does that? Nobody but the movies. You know what I mean? [Laughter.]

And so Nick said, "For me, if I'm Johnny Blaze, it's like being in a dentist's chair." And that came with the Carpenters idea. It's just like, it's that music playing. It's just like, "Superstar" playing in the background, or whatever it is. And any minute they're going to hit a nerve and you're going to explode. And it's like, God, that's so smart. You know what I mean? It's so honest and so unique and so different.

And jellybeans, the idea of that, again, it's childlike things, trying to comfort yourself. Keep the monster down. It hurts to explode. You know what I mean? Keep it down. Do things that make you comfortable, because any moment it's just going to go bad. I thought, how unique, you know what I mean? How different. And how against what I initially wrote, but the same spirit of what I wrote. So the good thing is that we got together and we started talking, and we were talking about the comic. He knows all the issues. He know the character. He knows Danny Ketch. He knows Johnny Blaze. He knows Noble Kale. He knows all the things that went wrong or right about it. And so it's shorthand. You know what I mean? We just started talking, it's like, "We get it." You know what I mean.A movie like this is at the mercy of the state of visual effects. You can only do a movie like this if the technology is there. How long did you have to wait? If you made the film later, would it even be different?

Johnson: Maybe. Who knows? But I know this, I know that in my office, in the editing room, I have this great poster of the movie that says, "Coming Summer 2006" [laughs]. And here we are in the graveyard. And I'm still not done. So it's been a learning process. You know what I mean? It's been developing CGI as we go, things that don't exist, that have never been done. And you always want to say—it sounds so sick to go, "Oh, this has never been done before." But that's not what I mean. It's just like, it's literally like what we wanted to be done hasn't been done, has to be written, has to be programmed, and it's been really, really tough.What was the hardest scene to shoot?

Johnson: The hardest scene for us to shoot, I guess it'd probably be in San Verganza, the final battle, which is in an old Mexican ghost town where he's fighting Blackheart. Because it's one of those things where it's like you've got the son of the devil, who's evolved—no one's seen what he looks like when he's done—versus the Ghost Rider. It's one of those weird things where it's like you always want your hero to be the underdog. You know what I mean? Like, if he's not the underdog, why do you root for him? But he's the Ghost Rider. He's a flaming skull on the Hell Cycle. How do you get cooler than that? You know what I mean? So it was always like trying to make him the underdog. The solution was always like, well, OK the ticking clock. In the comics he was the Ghost Rider day or night. So I made him nocturnal. The sun comes up, you saw how painful that was. He's Johnny Blaze.