Please tell me it was an animatronic baby. Most of the time. Right?

Davis: Um...

C'mon, You had a puppet baby, right?

Davis: Well, we used a live baby as much as possible. There were a few times when Clive fired the gun that we wouldn't have a load in it, that we would use a digital paint-in squib. But wherever it was going to be unsafe for a baby, like when he's riding, the baby's in the knapsack, we used digital face replacement, sometimes we would use, in the tighter shots, supporting the baby, and hiding the hand ... so you could get the live baby. But I felt that it helped the actors to have a real child there, it affected their feeling of fragileness. I just don't think that you can get that with just having an animatronic baby. There were probably 80 percent live baby, probably 10 percent animatronic, and probably, maybe 10 percent face replacement.

Where did you find a mother that let you use a newborn baby?

Davis: You would be surprised. We actually had two different sets of twins, so that we could alternate. But we had a casting session. We, there was a service in Canada that, they were good at getting children and babies for commercials ... We had five sets of parents come and audition their babies. You know, and not that it was a lot of money, but it almost was a decent yearly income for a family ... But we also got off on a very open-minded family that was really into it. They were up in Montreal, I screened it last weekend, and they loved the movie, and I saw the kids grew up, they're a year-and-a-half now. It's sort of twisted, they had me sign the posters, you know, so the kids, they'll give 'em to them 15 years from now.

I mean, they knew, obviously, what the movie was about ...

Davis: We were very clear what the movie was about.

It seems like those are two pretty big coups: One, having the parents go, "Yeah, sure, you can use my baby," and then, in terms of like, actor-director trust, for you to go, "You're going to have sex with her, and shoot, and you're going to bring her to climax as ..."

Davis: (Laughs) I have to say, the sex scene/gunfight was the one scene where i let myself, in the middle of it, I said, "I'm going to let myself enjoy it. I can't believe I'm frickin' here doing this, and it's happening, and it's exactly what I want it to be." And also, it's such a great idea. In the movies, sex and violence in the cinema has been a staple since forever. The fact that no one has done something like this, that is the perfect union of sex and violence in the cinema, before, that I got here first, is amazing. And even the skydiving scene, you know you see Moonraker, people are thinking, "Someone should have thought of this over the past 30 years." ... The fact that I got in here first is, I'm floored."

My wife, she picks up on things I don't sometimes, we were watching, and she leans over to me and she said, and I hope this is fair, that it kind of reminded her of Robert Rodriguez.

Davis: Yes!

And so, if like Robert Rodriguez directed a Bond film, it would kind of ...

Davis: First of all, looove Robert Rodriguez ... It was Robert and Kevin [Smith] ... that made me say, "Fuck, I'm tired of sitting, wanting to direct, I'm going to spend my own money, I'm going to make my own movie." ... So, Robert Rodriguez doing a James Bond movie is totally on the nose. I mean, I should be so lucky that somebody says that. Seriously.

I don't know if I have this right at all, forgive me if i don't: Were you born in England?

Davis: No, can you ... I'm so busy, I have three kids, do I have time to get on Wikipedia and correct them? But it's wrong. Birmingham, England, right? But they got the date of birth right, 1961.

You have no idea where that came from?

Davis: No, but if you have time to write Wikipedia and say Rockville, Maryland, or suburbs outside Washington, D.C. I wish I was a Brit, I'd be cooler.

We haven't even talked about Paul Giamatti yet. And really, speaking of firsts, I can't really think of another time that he's played a bad guy.

Davis: Well, you know what he told me? Before he lost his hair, he used to play bad guys ... But I think his public persona is these guys that are low self-esteem. And I think the great thing about it is I think after doing that so many times, he's tired of being the abused one, wants to be the abuser. He had this pent-up energy that, "I want to be a kick-ass guy." But he did make a point: "I was on the swim team in high school! I'm more athletic than people think I am!"

Oh, and the carrot. I wanted to talk about the carrot. I'm watching it, and in a way, it's kind of like this Kojak thing, like where he's always --

Davis: Oh, that's a great thing! You know, I never even thought about that. That's a great -- people ask about it, okay. But I want everything in the movie ... everything matches ... and you have to have good eyesight to shoot, right, so, therefore, carrots. But they always give the weird stuff, or the quirky stuff, to the character actors. That's why everybody remembers the secondary characters being more interesting than the straight man, hero-guy, which is the iconic-symbol-mythic guy. And so, I always feel it's important, if you have something funny, give it to the hero ... So the carrot thing became naturally that, but then it became sort of like his gadget. He doesn't have, you know, the Q-like gadgets, but he can reach for something with the carrot, to get his gun, when it's out of reach. And then, later on, after I had that idea, I said, "Well, why doesn't he kill somebody with it?" Right? And it's funny, and ridiculous, but it kind of makes sense.

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