I have to say, Michael Bay—I’ve been with him three times now—to me, he’s one of the outstanding directors in this town. I love him dearly. I have all the respect for him. There’s a lot of stories about him, a lot of people trash him, but, as an actor—I said to him, “You’re the closest to Ingmar Bergman out of anybody that I ever met in this country as a director.”

AVC: How?

PS: He’s very precise, he knows exactly what he wants. But he’s sort of on speed all the time—natural speed—but if you could see the enthusiasm he has, which Spielberg also had when he was younger. When he did Lost World, Spielberg was bouncing around like a young kid, showing us, “Look at this set, isn’t it fantastic? Come on, let’s do it! Let’s do it!” And the thing with Michael—he’s very precise. For me as an actor, I take no offense when a director says, “Little faster. No, too fast. Little more anger. Don’t say it in anger. You know, say it in a kind way. I know it’s written like it’s anger, but say it nice and smile.” He’s very precise, at least with me, and Armageddon and Bad Boys II and even in a little part, which they cut out, in the one—

AVC: Pain & Gain?

PS: Pain & Gain. Because I was a penile expert, they cut out two scenes because they can’t show erect plastic penises in movies. [Laughs.] They can shoot heads off.

But just to be with him for a couple of days is amazing because he knows what he wants. He has the whole movie in his head already. He knows how he wants to edit it. And I have the biggest respect for him. I think he’s wonderful to work with, he’s wonderful just to sit and talk to, and he sets the bar for all the movies here. Who can do X-Men? No one else could surpass his version of X-Men. If you let him do a Marvel movie, he would set the bar so high that no one could follow him.

And now I know he’s stuck with Transformers because it’s like a give and take. If he does this, he gets to do this. He had to do Transformers 5 to do Pain & Gain and blah, blah, blah. It’s a give and take for him. He’s smart, but he’s ADHD or whatever it’s called. And if you just look away, he’s very much like Bergman. Enthusiastic, very precise, and he said this one—this is funny. A story from Armageddon.

We were shooting—I don’t know what scene, but we were at least five or six people—and we all have, you know, one line here, one line there, and we all had to scream at each other. And he said, “Faster, faster, faster” to everybody, you know: “Faster, faster, faster. You got to go quick, guys, you don’t have time. Put some energy into it. Blah, blah, blah. Faster, faster!” And then he says to me, “Peter, Peter! Don’t take a pause in your line. It stops the flow when you take a pause.” And I said, “I don’t take a pause.” “Yes, you do!” “I don’t take a pause, I say the line!” “Shut up and come and watch the replay!” So I watched the replay and he said, “There! See? You take a pause.” “There’s not a pause, Michael—I’m breathing! I have to breathe in to say the rest of the line.” “That’s the pause!” he screamed. “That’s the pause! Don’t breathe! Say the whole line and breathe before. Take a big gulp of air and say the line because I don’t have a camera on you until it pans over. Take a deep breath and say the whole fucking line. Stop breathing.” “Okay.” I got the whole line out. [Laughs.] And, for me, that was fun. That’s fun.

AVC: That sounds like Michael Bay, all right.

PS: It reminds me of Bergman—when we had a run-through of a play with Bergman I did, it was just me and another girl on stage—big, big thing to work with Bergman. After one week of rehearsal, we go through the first act, with the book in our hands, but a little bit off the book, and he just stopped after five minutes and said to me, “What the hell are you doing, Peter?” I was like, “What?” “Are you imitating Humphrey Bogart?” He didn’t say Humphrey Bogart, it was a big Swedish star, from the ’40s and ’50s. “Are you imitating this actor or that actor? Because you sound horrible. You’re imitating an actor. Can you just say it like yourself, like you’re the actor? I picked you because you’d say these lines, not like some old fucking time actor. It sounds horrible.” He was like, “I don’t want to continue rehearsal because it’s so horrible.”

I just started laughing. “Does it really sound like an imitation?” “Yes, it sounds like you’re imitating this actor especially.” You know, a name that I knew at the time. “I had no idea.” “Please stop. Otherwise I’ll have to fucking skip this whole production.” But if you—like, Michael Bay can say those things. I know there’s actors and actresses who will go home and stand in the cold shower and just feel humiliated, like, “How could he say this to me?” But, for me, I laugh and I think it’s cleansing. It’s great. And I say, “Michael, great. I breathe because I don’t have air. But I can take a big gulp of air if you promise the camera’s not on me, then I can say, ‘Fine, maybe’ in one breath.”

So I like when directors have no bullshit. Go on a walk around the block. Did you lose a family member? Did you have a dog when you were a kid and the dog died? No. Did you have a mother or a father that you lost or a grandmother that you lost? No? You know, when psychology comes in. And psychology was not for Bergman, either. Even if his movies are far away from Michael’s. But Ingmar said to me, “The more simple you are, the more shit people read into your thing.” And also Michael’s a very—he’s always been simple with me. I always had a very good time, always smile, always laugh, and always feel enlightened every time I go. I learn something. He’s always very specific and very direct, because, as with Bergman, he always knows exactly what he wants, and he doesn’t want to improvise and do a lot of shit. He’s very prepped—he knows exactly what he wants.

And that’s rare. That’s rare. A lot of directors here say, “What do you want to do?” And I usually answer, “I can do it in a thousand ways. It’s going to take three days to get through all that crap. What do you want? You must have an idea, you casted me in this. Please.” So my experience with Michael is all just thumbs up. I hope he does some more interesting movies like Pain & Gain. He might have to do Transformers 6 to get some money to do something. Because he has managers and agents, too, who don’t want him to do small movies because they get 10 percent. I’ve been seated with him and Will Smith when they wanted to do a small, small little movie and I had a part in it, and they couldn’t do it. They were fighting for two years and they couldn’t do the movie. Because each other’s agents or reps just fucked it up so they never could do it. Which was a bummer, because it was a good script that will never be made.

AVC: That is a bummer.

PS: [Laughs.] They’ve all got to have their 10 percent, you know.

I'd love to see a Bill Murray/Michael Keaton film. But who to direct?

i dont buy that LV has only seen 36 movies this year.

There hasn't been a lot I've wanted to see. Also, it takes longer when you wait for 4K instead of going to the theater. I'll catch up.

i'd say that list is a war crime, but most of those movies are terrible. You have nothing to work with.

LV purposefully skips good movies.