Emile Hirsch talks about Woodstock, Kristen Stewart, etc.

"Emile Hirsch was on his way to becoming a leading man after starring in Into the Wild and Speed Racer.

But now he's taking a small but pivotal role as a Vietnam vet trying to adjust to returning home in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock.

"As soon as I heard Ang Lee was interested in me, I knew I was going to do the film even before I got the script. I've been a fan of Ang ever since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which I absolutely adored. And course Brokeback Mountain just blew me away. I'll always remember talking to Heath Ledger just after he finished that movie and he was going on about working with Ang and how incredible he was."

Doing justice to war vets.

"We talked with some Vietnam veterans who literally went through their scrapbooks and dredged up a lot of memories. They told me about their experiences, like the firefights and the combat flashbacks they had after coming home. Then Ang had me go off with some Iraq veterans who took me to a shooting range where we were firing M4's, Glock's and a Beretta. After shooting all day, we went into the woods and did these crazy military drills. What was funny was afterwards we ended up checking each other for ticks because they were worried about Lyme disease."

Why he still isn't visiting a barber.

"I haven't really had my hair cut since I did Milk. It was fine for Woodstock, but I still can't get a trim because my girlfriend likes it long. I cry myself to sleep every night dreaming of buzz cuts. No, I'm kidding, I like long hair. I'm trying to bring long hair back."

Up next, messing with the Great Bard.

"I'm working with Catherine Hardwicke on a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet set at a present day college. It's being written by Ron Nyswaner who was nominated for an Oscar his screenplay for Philadelphia. We want to do for Hamlet what Baz Luhrmann did for Romeo and Juliet in terms of like a really cool kind of re-imagining. I've been watching a lot of different Hamlets for several months now, I've probably seen like 12 of them, and it's always fun to see how each one is different. But I have to say we're doing stuff with this script that's going to give the average Shakespeare scholar cardiac arrest. That's part of the kick, to like beat the geeks. But it's going to be cool." Source: www.parade.com

Cinematical: The character you played in Into the Wild had his own tragic past, but the way that he dealt with it was with a greater degree of serenity. Did you see any parallels or similarities when you took on this role in Taking Woodstock?

Emile Hirsch: I think that in some way, I didn't actually see continuity. I think what struck me was a marked difference in ultimately how the two of them kind of respond. McCandless makes the realization that happiness is only real when shared at the end of the film, but by and large that the actions that he's taken that would lead to the end of his life have been more about self-discovery and being alone. But kind of the ultimate cathartic moment with Billy is so much more about the community of Woodstock and almost the family of memories that he has and kind of coming to terms with that.

Cinematical: I'm a huge fan of both Into the Wild and Speed Racer. Having done this big sort of potential blockbuster and then something more intimate, do you feel a sense of freedom when picking roles? Or is there by necessity a sense of strategy to your career if only so that you can do more different kinds of characters in the future?

Hirsch: Sometimes I find myself scheming about my career and being a careerist and fancying myself a little game-player, right? But the reality is it never goes according to whatever scheme you could kind of hatch up because the way that business works and the way that the entertainment world works with movies is that they just come along randomly and spontaneously. It's not like after Into the Wild I went, oh, I'll make Speed Racer!

After Speed Racer, all of a sudden Milk popped up; I wasn't like, oh, I need to do a cool supporting role. I wasn't thinking anything like that. So thinking in terms of a careerist perspective is tempting and it's kind of inevitable, to be honest, but very rarely does it actually follow through. Most of the time, you're just going to follow a different path, because the very nature of what you do dictates that". Source: www.cinematical.com

Emile Hirsch at "Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen" premiere, on 22 June 2009.

Emile Hirsch with Kristen Stewart in "Into the wild" (2007).

Emile Hirsch dishes on how Kristen Stewart could get the lead role as Bella Swan on "Twilight". The actor claims he has recommended the 19-year-old beauty, his co-star on "Into the Wild", to the 2008 movie's director Catherine Hardwicke.

"I was gushing about her. I think she's so talented and so perfect", the 24-year-old movie star tells OK! Magazine about Stewart. "She's a great conversationalist, very inquisitive. She's got a little bit of an edge, too, though, so she's not a pushover. She's strong and cool. She's beautiful, she's smart, and she's emotional, too."

Professionally, Emile Hirsch was last seen starring as a 1970s hippie named Billy on Ang Lee-directed flick "Taking Woodstock". Source: www.celebrity-mania.com