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What do you think Jonathan Liebesman brought to the movie, both on a technical level and for you as an actor?

AE: Well, Jonathan, I can’t speak more highly of Jonathan. He is a director that knows how to tell a story and tell it entertainingly for a wide audience. He is so energetic, he knows exactly what he wants, nothing gets in his way. He’s prepared. The tone and vision of the movie is Jonathan’s. We always used three cameras, we always were shooting multiple, long takes; very real. He was very specific always in telling us what the aliens were doing, at what time, how we should react, what they sounded like, all that sort of stuff. He kept all the actors involved at all times. He has a very concrete vision of what’s going on and that’s so important to an actor, because an actor can rely on that and he makes the actor see the alien. What he’s seeing in his mind he lets us see too so that we can all be on the same page. That and his enthusiasm and energy really are what I think makes him a great filmmaker.

For being an action film, did you perform any of your own stunts?

AE: Yes (laughs). I performed most of my stunts. There were some explosions I didn’t do, just because you are not allowed to. I did do a stunt that was about three weeks before the movie ended, I jumped off a rock, landed wrong, and broke my arm. So I had to do the next three weeks with a broken arm. We were always hitting ourselves in the face and jamming our fingers, twisting our ankles, stuff like that. It was a very physical film.

Battle: Los Angeles is one of many films where Los Angeles gets rampaged, so what do you think the appeal is of destroying Los Angeles?

AE: (laughs) It’s got to be masochistic, like the self-hating Los Angelinos. I have no idea. I guess that the film industry is based out here; we are very familiar with it, its what we see, so it’s fun to destroy it.

Was this a new acting experience for you or could you draw on past work to help you along?

AE: No, this one is new to me. This, in the addition to one other character in my career … I was really sad to leave. I really enjoyed my character, SSgt. Michael Nantz, and just being around the Marines. Just for selfishness sake, I hope they make another one, because I’d love to play this character again. It’s a childhood dream. Every actor wants to be in a war movie, they want to cry, and they want a western or something and I feel like I’ve covered those bases with this film.

Starring in a movie about an alien invasion, I can’t help but ask, do you believe in extra
terrestrials?

AE: (laughs) Well, I’ve seen some interesting things in my time. I’m not going to say definitively one way or another, but I’ve been out on dark New Mexican nights (laughs) where I’ve seen something fly by real fast in the sky and no one really knew what it is. Look, some things are harder to believe than others and something is going on.

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