J: [starts stroking beard] Do you like my beard though?
D: Oh, yeah! No, it's fine. I mean...
J: My kids like it. They use it as a playground. [laughter]
D: Now what does that mean? They yank it and ride around on it?
D: Yeah [laughs], well that's a wonderful parent.
J: [tilts head back and laughs]
D: Now, you uh, have you been injured accidentally? Several times?
J: That's right.
D: What kind of stuff? How did it happen?
D: Oh, yeah.
J: And... called Dr. Faustus, which I'd heard before I took the role had a certain curse to it. Because it's about a man who sells his soul to the Devil.
D: Mmm hmm.
J: Little did I know, that it was true. I got three injuries. The first time I injured my leg, which I thought was nothing. It was like a little graze--which turned into a blood infection. Went from my toe all the way up to my thigh [stretches leg out and points from his toe to his thigh].
D: This is during the production?
J: This is during the play, yeah. And then...
D: But how...
J: And just having come back from that...
D: But what, I mean, what were you doing in the play? What calls for--why does that happen?
J: It was a very physical production. And my character doesn't leave the stage for two hours, with people running on with props and knives and fireworks, and so on. Because of course the Devil is involved in the pact with Faustus.
D: He's awful, that Devil. [laughter]
J: He's bad!
D: He's horrible.
D: No, no! Don't even.
J: Never again!
D: Don't even think about buying a car from him, because... yeah.
J: Three times he's got me.
D: So, you get your blood infection...
J: I got a bad blood infection. I got over that. I went
D: Wow. Is it like a bottle rocket or a sparkler?
J: No, it's like a filament which is lit and thrown in the air [immitates throwing] and makes this beautiful explosion. Which then I look up at [immitates himself looking up at the firework] and the filament then falls out of the air and into my eye.
D: Right.
J: So I'm weeping [runs his hands down his face, pretending to weep], carrying on with the play. Of course all my friends are in that night, and they all say my performance, "Wow! All that crying is so realistic!" [David laughs] And then three nights after that, there's a scene when uh, when I'm given this plate of knives, and the guy puts it down and scewers my hand [lifts up left hand and looks at it]. Straight through it.
D: Oh, yeah [pointing at it]. I can still see the scar.
J: Yeah, and of course because I've written the pact in the play with blood, the audience again don't know what's going on. So I'm bleeding all over the stage [tosses his arms down as though blood is pouring out; the audience laughs]. So like you said, I'm never gonna work with the Devil again. It just doesn't work.
D: [laughs] Say what you will about the Devil, but I do think everybody likes fireworks. Honeslty, ya know? [Jude laughs] I mean, I like 'em [audience claps].
J: Because of the danger.
D:Well, they're just pretty. [smiles]
