Justin Long Talks Dinosaurs, Dating and Felting

From his first first role as the socially awkward unlikely hero Brandon in “Galaxy Quest” to his most recent performance in “A Case of You,” Justin Long always gives a standout performance. He’s also become well known for his appearances in a series of ads for Mac with John Hodgeman.  Long stopped by the SiriusXM studios recently to talk with Ron Bennington about his new children’s movie, “Walking With Dinosaurs.”  A few excerpts from the interview appear below.  You can hear the interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.

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Justin Long Talks About Kids’ Infatuation With Dinosaurs

Ron Bennington:  If you’ve got kids you want to take them out to the “Walking with Dinosaurs” movie.  For some reason all kids are obsessed with dinosaurs.

Justin Long:  I don’t know why that is, I was when I was a kid.  I had moments of regression when I was doing this movie.  I don’t know why, but kids went bananas.

Justin Long Talks About Loving Science As A Kid

Ron Bennington:  I think little kids are natural scientists.

Justin Long:  Yeah, they are curious.

Ron Bennington:  They are so curious.  You know about bugs, you know about trees and plants, and you’re crawling around and for some reason they stomp it out of you in school, really early on.  As soon as you bring math into it or whatever.

Justin Long:  It becomes much less fun because that is a lot more – it’s not as creative.  There is something about the natural world that is very creative and fascinating in that way.  I’ll blow your mind, right now, I was a member of the Southern Connecticut Herpetological Society.

Ron Bennington:  Really?!

Justin Long:  That’s right.  Boom!  Deal with that SiriusXM listeners.

Ron Bennington:  Well, that must have brought the chicks in. 

Justin Long:  Oh, God, crazy pussy.  Crazy.  They would always go to the meetings, too.  That was really intense.

Ron Bennington:  So, what would you do in this group?  How would you guys spend your time?

Justin Long:  People would bring in – well, it was mostly adults in the group – people would bring in reptiles and amphibians, and a lot of chronic masturbating.

Ron Bennington:  How old were you, at the time?

Justin Long:  I was young.  I was eleven or twelve.  It was right when I was getting into Boy Scouts.  I had a moment where I could have gone either way.  I think I could have been a really smart scientific guy, but then girls entered into the picture.  So that’s what happened with Boy Scouts, that’s what happened with my fascination with animals.  They ruined it.

Justin Long Talks About “A Case Of You”

Ron Bennington:  I dug that movie.  It’s On Demand now if people want to check it out.  It’s somewhat of a romantic comedy, but also a morality tale of this guy who goes on a girl’s Facebook, figures out what she likes and then kind of becomes that.

Justin Long:  Yeah, it was something that we felt hadn’t really been addressed, but that is happening a lot, even more so now, we wrote it a few years ago.  But, now it’s just out of control with the social networking.  There is a thing called Tinder, who a friend of mine has gotten really into – who shall remain nameless.  I don’t know if you’ve seen this…

Ron Bennington:  It’s Grinder for straight people.

Justin Long:  Yes, exactly.  Let me contextualize it for your listeners. (laughing)  I don’t know if it’s as sexual.  I think Grinder is “Let’s just get to it.”  But Tinder is like, “Let’s just dance around it for a little bit, then get to it.”

Ron Bennington:  Before we thought it would be the weirdest thing in the world if you joined a dating service and then within ten or fifteen years, it’s like if you’re single and don’t do this, you’re insane.  It’s almost like meeting people in real life is too weird, now.  It’s too risky.

Justin Long:  Yeah, we bumped into each other and had a “face off,” which sounds really strange.  My brother and I were at this great new place – I’m obsessed with Chinese food and there is this place called Han Dynasty that opened up.  I’ll give them a weird plug for no reason, they aren’t going to give me a discount.  But, we were there the other night and it was packed at like eleven o’clock at night.  There was a table of three college students, two girls and a guy, and the entire meal they were on – one girl had three devices, an iPad and and two phones going, and they were playing these games, loud, too (makes video game gun fighting sounds).  Every once and awhile they would stop to eat and exchange maybe a couple of words about the food, but there was something so terrifying about it.  I witnessed the entire thing.  Why not stay home and do that?  Why not get take out, and do that?  I think people are so plugged in to these things now, and dating has become the same.

Justin Long Talks About Felting

Ron Bennington:  Yeah, get it out there.  But, you know I was thinking about the character who is trying to change, be something that this girl wants, but I think chicks have always quickly adopted what the  guy was into.  I’ve known women who suddenly start dating a car guy and they are acting like they are all into cars.  Or, they’ll become a surf chick and I’m not sure that’s a bad way to learn things.  It’s like a way to be introduced to stuff.

Justin Long:  I agree.  I feel as though the same has happened to me with girls.  I feel like I’ve been introduced to certain types of music… This will, I don’t know if I should reveal this, but I started felting – felting, with a “T.”

Ron Bennington:  Oh, ok, so it’s not…?

Justin Long:  No, no, no.  That, I’ve been doing for years. (laughing)

Ron Bennington:  Right.

Justin Long:  Yeah, I got into this thing, it’s called “felting” with a needle.  It’s what zany older people do, I think.  But, I got really into it, you create characters…

Ron Bennington:  Out of felt?

Justin Long:  Yes, out of felt.  You just keep needling it and it creates this harder consistency.

Ron Bennington:  Who got you to do this, man?

Justin Long:  A girl.  A girl got me to do this.

Ron Bennington:  She was felting…

Justin Long:  We both kind of do it at the same time.  We sort of fell into it together. (laughing)

Ron Bennington:  So, you just take this giant leap over middle-age, you know what I mean?

Justin Long:  I’ve skipped like twenty years (laughing)…  maybe forty.  I skipped a long time.  I get it, my point is, I get it, you start doing weird things and you get into them.

(continue to page 2…Justin Long Talks About Vince Vaughn)