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What were the particular criteria for you to sign onto this project—especially since it’s a sequel?
I’ve not done a sequel before, the reason being that I don’t like to repeat myself.  In this case, I do believe that if you’re going to do a sequel, it has to promise to be better than the original—or at least as good.  Largely the fear with sequels is that people get lazy.  They realize they have a winner and they just throw money at it and they don’t care. Fortunately, working with [director] Jon Turtletaub, in particular, he really cares about the story.  I wanted to make sure that we could go in a direction that would raise the stakes and also hopefully be more interesting. 

When they first presented the idea of Civil War Confederate gold, John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln assassination, I said, well right off the bat, for me, that’s more interesting historically and personally.  Then they said, we have to ratchet it up from stealing the Declaration of Independence.  We thought you should kidnap the president of the United States.  I said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.  Hold on.  New rules.  How?  How?  How is Ben Gates going to kidnap the president of the United States?” and I got nervous.  Then I started thinking about it, and I started laughing.  I realized that that was the joy of it.  It was funny.  It was absurd.  When they cast Bruce Greenwood, I realized that there would be a level of believability because he looks marvelously Kennedy-esque, and that at the same time he has a terrific gift of comedy that he would be able to embrace that comedia del arte, if you will.

To me, Book of Secrets is like a movie unto itself.  When you change the treasure, you change the whole story.  You get new clues that are historically accurate and you get new locations.  The actors stay the same; the characters stay the same.  Having been a fan of Basil Rathbone and Sherlock Holmes, I thought, “Why not bring Ben Gates back as a sort of historical, modern version or a historical or archaeological detective looking for these treasures.  Jon Turtletaub has a genius.  He’s made a lot of movies—without a gun.  And I’m happy I did it.

What’s it like having young fans for the first time?
Children to me are of the utmost importance, and they really are the future, aren’t they?  So I want to treat that carefully. I’m one of those people who believe that the power of film is intense, and you have to really think about it responsibly.  And in this case, to get them to enjoy themselves with Mom and Dad but also look into their history books—in a way that isn’t “you must read or you must learn’ but actually helps them enjoy the ride even more, because there’s a level of believability to it.  You wonder, “Wow, why are there missing pages in the Booth diary?”  Then you go see the movie and you use a little imagination, and it makes the ride a little more enjoyable