Matthew Modine Video Interview On ‘Opa!’

I think the most terrifying scene in this film to do was sitting on the back seat of a bicycle with beautiful Agni Scott taking her hands off of the handlebars. We were going down a mountain and I was just terrified because you feel so vulnerable on the back of a bicycle with somebody not holding the handlebars. She's crazy, she's a crazy girl so the faster we went, the better for her. She'd have her hands off the handlebars for 15 or 20 seconds. We got a camera crew that's filming it right in front of us. What I was terrified of wasn't my personal safety because I had pants and a shirt and a hat on, but she had a dress on. I thought if we went down she'd just be scrapes and scabs for the rest of the filming.

Absolutely. Over here in America we live to work and over there they work to live. That's a big part of what the story of 'Opa!' is about. It's the celebration of life and love and just the appreciation of the brief time that we all share together on this planet. It's a beautiful place to escape to because that's much more important. When push comes to shove in those last moments of our life we're not thinking about what we bought and what we owned, we're thinking about the people we love and the time we spent with our friends. I think in a lot of ways that's what the story is: materialism versus spirituality. When I say spirituality I don't mean religion or denomination. I mean the idea, the bigger sense of spiritualism.

I didn't get to go around the islands, no. I arrived at the island and it took a slow boat to Papnos. It's quite far away from everything else. It's near Turkey. It's a holy island because of St. John the Divine wrote the book of revelations there. In fact, that's what my character, Eric, is looking for when he arrives at the island. This cup of St. John's that was supposed to have been used during the last supper. That's what he's looking for and what he finds is love in the form of the beautiful Agni Scott.

I loved our farm in upstate New York but my wife had a terrible accident there and they have these ticks that give you Lyme Disease. It was quite dangerous and she was always worried that one of our kids was gonna get Lyme Disease. Then when she had this accident our Green Acres days were over. It wasn't goodbye city life, it was goodbye country life, hello city life so we're quite comfortable and happy living in New York City.