Thirty seconds -- that's all it took for Werner Herzog to flip the interview. One question in, and suddenly he was the one doing the asking.

The director of "Fitzcarraldo," "Grizzly Man" and "Rescue Dawn" was dying to know what a New Orleans Film Festival audience thought of his latest film, "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans," which shot in town last year and opens here Friday.

His question, posed politely but directly, was simple: "Was there laughter?"

With that question, it's clear his "Bad Lieutenant" is a very, very different animal from the gritty, brooding 1992 Abel Ferrara film that inspired it.

The grit is still there, but Herzog's story of a New Orleans police officer on the brink in the wake of Hurricane Katrina includes a wealth of dark, surrealist humor, fueled by a wild -- and wildly enjoyable -- performance from Nicolas Cage.

Herzog himself gleefully describes his film as "so vile and so debased."

Calling recently from New York to chat about the film, the German-born filmmaker -- who is frequently given to laughter himself -- discussed, among other things, New Orleans' role in the movie, his work with such intense actors as Cage and Christian Bale of "Rescue Dawn," and his inspiration for the now-famous lizard hallucination scene in "Bad Lieutenant."

And as far as laughter at October's film festival? Herzog was tickled to hear that, yes, there was laughter. Plenty of it.

"That's very pleasing to hear that," Herzog said. "There is very dark humor in it, let's face it, and I think it connects with audiences, and that's quite important."

Some excerpts of our question-and-answer session follow; read more at NOLA.com/movies.

What kind of film can people expect when they go see your "Bad Lieutenant"?

I think a couple of things come to mind instantly: No.1, an absolutely formidable performance by Nicolas Cage, (and) a very beautiful story. New Orleans is one of the leading characters in the film, of course, and there's some sort of what I would call "the bliss of evil." The enjoyment of evil is there, which makes you laugh a lot... It's so vile and so debased, so wild and so outrageous it gets hilarious.

How do you approach things when you've got an actor as intense as Nicolas Cage is? Do you just stand back and let him do his thing, or do you have very specific ideas about the character that you want to steer him toward?

No, (he was) very, very focused, for much of it extremely focused, and worked out with great precision. However there were quite a few scenes where I knew, this is the scene where he has to turn the hog loose. "Turn the pig loose," I would tell him. And I knew he had to have the fluidity, almost like in music -- give him the space, give it to him and he will go completely wild. I really love these moments, and Nicolas Cage has it in him to make something extraordinary in certain moments and unforgettable. As a director you have to know when to open doors and windows and everything.

At the same time you have to embed him in a very, very strong cast of other characters. You see, it would be no-man's land if he didn't have Eva Mendes or Xzibit or Val Kilmer or Brad Dourif.

It almost sounds like you have a little bit of a jazz approach: Once the magic starts happening, you just let them riff.

Yeah, Nicolas Cage speaks more of that than I do, because I'm not so familiar with jazz, but I know exactly what he means. It has to do with musicality and a certain flow. For me it has to do with what I love as a director: All of a sudden, open everything up that's around you and go completely wild and demented, and Nicolas would understand it and he would give me something back that was unforgettable.

The project wasn't always set in New Orleans, was it?

No, I think the screenplay was written for New York. All of a sudden from three sides we converged on New Orleans. A producer all of sudden approached me: "Couldn't we shoot in New Orleans? Because there are tax incentives," and, you know, "money, money, money" and that's important. I said, "That's much better! It's great! I want New Orleans for completely different reasons, because we should set it right after Katrina." At the same time Nicolas Cage was pushing for New Orleans for other reasons. Again, he loves the fluidity, the music, and New Orleans is a very, very important place for him. He said to me once, and I think he's said it in public as well, he said, "New Orleans was the place I was born, I was born a second time, I was born again," after struggling with his demons. So I think New Orleans is of great, great significance for Nicolas Cage, yet for different reasons. All of a sudden we were all pushing for New Orleans.

Did it affect the script very much?

The beginning of the (original) screenplay was, the bad lieutenant rescues a suicidal man who jumps onto the subway tracks in front of an incoming subway train. I said, no, we have to start right after Katrina, and it has to be as vile and debased -- they forgot a prisoner and two detectives are wagering bets on how long it will take until he finally drowns. (Laughs.) And it starts out right like that, and it's so wild that that's where people start to enjoy the film and laugh.

You avoided the trap of filling the film with New Orleans clichés, like make everybody a Cajun or a voodoo priest, which so man filmmakers do.

Or, "Let's continue Mardi Gras," or the French Quarter, all the postcard clichés. No, no, I immediately said, "I'm refusing to do that." ... And yet New Orleans as it is in the film has a very strong presence -- so strong that it's like a second leading character in a way.

What is it about the city that really grabbed you?

Some of the things I love about New Orleans are not in the film. For example, Antoinette (K-Doe). My wife asked her, "But Antoinette, why do you have mannequins, or replicas, of Ernie with you all the time?" And she said, "Honey, you know I loved my Ernie." You see, this is heartbreakingly wonderful. Unfortunately, Antoinette, I heard, just died, and at least a thousand people in New Orleans took her out to the cemetery. I love that about New Orleans. Where else would you find that? ... It's not the food or whatever -- yes, I love the food -- but it's people like Antoinette.