SFBG: How do you maintain your composure when you’re interviewing people you clearly disagree with?

MM: Well, I’ve always felt it best to let them speak and not interrupt them, because they’ll do the best job of explaining their position and what they’re really up to. And they’ll undo themselves, too. I don’t need to fight them. I don’t need to smack them down. The other part of it is that I respect them as human beings. I don’t believe in demonizing them as human beings. I don’t agree with what they’re doing, I don’t like their politics, but I’m not coming at it from a place of hate. And I think some of them sense that. They know I’m gonna tell the truth, so if they don’t want that to happen then they’re very nervous and they try to stay away from me. It’s funny — like a lot of these interviews [with journalists] I’m doing today, people are surprised that I’m going after Democrats in the movie. I’ve been doing that — anyone who’s a fan or who’s paid attention to me. I had two TV shows on during the Clinton years. I went after his people all the time. I wrote a book called Downsize This, and I had a chapter in that book, 1996, “Bill Clinton: The Best Republican President Ever.” So it’s not shocking to me to go after Chris Dodd or any of these other people.

SFBG: Do you think people assume that when there’s a Democrat in office you just kind of stop working?

MM: Yep. Yeah. “So who’s your nemesis going to be if Bush is gone now? You’re not gonna have a job.” Are you kidding? I’m gonna thrive, as all artists are going to thrive during the Obama years. There’s been a big breath of fresh air that’s been blown through the window, and if he decides to be the Roosevelt of this century, we will see great works of art and artists expressing themselves during this time. Because it wasn’t till Roosevelt took office that we had our Frank Capras and our Preston Sturgesses, and our Will Rogers and Steinbeck and John Ford making Steinbeck’s film. Because the artists then had a sense of, “We need to support Roosevelt, and we need to take this message to the masses, and we’ll do it through telling stories. Stories about the little guy. Meet John Doe.” So that’s what I’m going to be doing, and I’m encouraging other filmmakers, writers, poets, artists to do the same during these years of hopeful enlightenment.

SFBG: So you’re feeling optimistic now?

MM: Absolutely optimistic. Yep. And that’s in spite of the things I’ve seen Obama and the Democratic Congress do that I’m not happy with. But it still hasn’t, as much as I’m dissatisfied with that, that dissatisfaction has not equaled the overwhelming joy that entered my being on November 4 of last year. And it’s gonna take a little bit more for me to lose that optimism and head toward the cynical side.

SFBG: Are there any interviews you have yet to get that you’re dying to do?

MM: Well, I’d love to talk to President Obama.

SFBG: Anyone from the last administration?

MM: That I never got to talk to?

SFBG: Yeah.

MM: I’d love to talk to Karl Rove and to hear confirmation of what I’ve heard now from different people who were associated in those years with the Bush administration, about the efforts to create an organized campaign about me and Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). I think that would be interesting.

SFBG: How do you follow up a project of this scale? Do you have another film planned?

MM: Like I said at the end of the film, I’m waiting to see if people are going to get involved, and rise up and take this country back. If that doesn’t happen, I will switch from documentary — I’ve been working on a screenplay. I might switch to some other things that make me happy. This is the first film in four or so films where I haven’t had the next deal lined up. I don’t have one lined up. And I’m not going to until — ‘cause I’m not gonna do this alone. And it’s felt pretty alone for eight years. If you don’t understand what that means, I mean, do you remember that Al Franken supported the war? Do you remember that Keith Olbermann supported the war? So the people who would be my natural allies — Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who were funding the film at the time, supported the war. It took a lot out of me, to be honest. The amount of abuse I had to suffer. So this time, I’m one of millions, and I’ll do my part if everyone else does their part.

Capitalism: A Love Story opens Fri/2 in Bay Area theaters.