Justice Antonin Scalia, who will be played by Paul Sorvino in the movie, is a little batshit and would likely have been wrong at key points in our nation’s history. He’s the oversharing subject of a fascinating interview by New York‘s Jennifer Senior. There is lots of Scalia’s brand of antique bigotry and even a discussion about the devil. An excerpt:

Jennifer Senior:

Can we talk about your drafting process—

Antonin Scalia:

[Leans in, stage-whispers.] I even believe in the Devil.

 Jennifer Senior:

You do?

Antonin Scalia:

Of course! Yeah, he’s a real person. Hey, c’mon, that’s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that.

 Jennifer Senior:

Every Catholic believes this? There’s a wide variety of Catholics out there …

Antonin Scalia:

If you are faithful to Catholic dogma, that is certainly a large part of it.

 Jennifer Senior:

Have you seen evidence of the Devil lately?

Antonin Scalia:

You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore.

 Jennifer Senior:

No.

Antonin Scalia:

It’s because he’s smart.

 Jennifer Senior:

So what’s he doing now?

Antonin Scalia:

What he’s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He’s much more successful that way.

 Jennifer Senior:

That has really painful implications for atheists. Are you sure that’s the ­Devil’s work?

Antonin Scalia:

I didn’t say atheists are the Devil’s work.

 Jennifer Senior:

Well, you’re saying the Devil is ­persuading people to not believe in God. Couldn’t there be other reasons to not believe?

Antonin Scalia:

Well, there certainly can be other reasons. But it certainly favors the Devil’s desires. I mean, c’mon, that’s the explanation for why there’s not demonic possession all over the place. That always puzzled me. What happened to the Devil, you know? He used to be all over the place. He used to be all over the New Testament.

 Jennifer Senior:

Right.

Antonin Scalia:

What happened to him?

 Jennifer Senior:

He just got wilier.

Antonin Scalia:

He got wilier.

Jennifer Senior:

Isn’t it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil?

Antonin Scalia:

You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.

Jennifer Senior:

I hope you weren’t sensing contempt from me. It wasn’t your belief that surprised me so much as how boldly you expressed it.

Antonin Scalia:

I was offended by that. I really was.•