Serious actors play foolish, with glee, in Burn After Reading

Joel and Ethan Coen might be known for dark, offbeat movies (typically peppered with comedic elements), but their film sets are easygoing places for actors to play, according to the stars of their latest, Burn After Reading.

The filmmaker siblings produce "a script that is so rock-solid, a lean machine, clean kind of thing to work with that playful is what everybody is. We just all walk up and play with it and then we all go home again," Tilda Swinton told reporters on Saturday morning, a day after the comedy had its gala screening as part of the Toronto International Film Festival.

"The invitation to play with them is exactly that: come and let's all amuse ourselves with this script," she said.

"There's nothing to change or improv in a good script. You just do it," co-star John Malkovich added.

A followup to the Coens' Oscar-winning No Country For Old Men, Burn After Reading revolves around a group of Washington-based knuckleheads whose lives intertwine amid an ill-fated blackmail scheme over an ex-CIA analyst's memoirs.

Brad Pitt steals scenes, for instance, as a shorts-clad, featherbrained fitness trainer who fails repeatedly in his attempts to extort money for the leaked information.

"The leading man role is usually the guy who's got the answers, can figure things out, can defuse the bomb in 30 seconds, is all experienced. All of that's pretty good for the ego sometimes," Pitt said. "But it's more fun playing guys who make the wrong choices, who has limited experience and makes the wrong presumptions and has to deal with it from there."

"The characters are probably leading lives that don't have a whole lot of meaning, but they still can be interesting characters and actors in an interesting story," Ethan Coen said.

Much interest has centred on the brothers' decision to feature actors usually known for dramatic roles, including once again calling on familiar Coen players like George Clooney, Frances McDormand (who is married to Joel) and Richard Jenkins.

"We don't make distinctions between [dramatic] actors and comedians," Joel Coen said, adding that he and his brother choose to write for actors they feel will "inhabit the material the way it's written."

While some filmgoers might be seeking a spy satire or theme of skewering life in the U.S. capital, the two filmmakers backed away from sending out a specificmessage with their movie.

"It's not a part of ourselves we would disavow. It's certainly not about George Bush or anything political. It's not even other people we're laughing at or find amusing," Ethan Coen said.

"We've all got the internal knucklehead and it's kind of good fodder for stories."

Burn After Reading opens across North America on Sept. 12.