小黒 作品とファンの関係が、ですね。
Oguro: The relation between the fan and the work.
庵野 そうそう。で、本当の綾波レイには会えないけど、その代償行為として、その声をあててる声優さんには会う事はできるから、イベントに行ったりね。あるいは、その画を描いてる貞本義行にサインをもらったりする。
Anno: Right, right. So, they can't meet the real Rei Ayanami, but because, as an act of compensation, they can meet the voice actress who does her voice, they go to events [where she appears]. Or, they get that picture signed by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, the man who drew it.
小黒 本当の綾波レイの代わりに。
Oguro: As a substitute for the real Rei Ayanami.
庵野 アニメのキャラクター商品が売れるのは、そのキャラクターに接近する方法がそれしかないからだと思うんですよね。綾波レイのポスターを壁に貼ることでしか、彼女に対する愛情表現ができないわけなんですよ。だからキャラクター商品がそこで売れるわけでね。
Anno: I believe that anime character merchandise sells well simply because it is a means of getting close to the character. You can't express your love for Rei Ayanami except by putting her poster up on your wall. So, character merchandise sells well because of that.
小黒 愛情表現ですか。
Oguro: Express your love?
庵野 その辺が作り事だっていうことは、みんな、分かってるんだけど、逆にそれだからこそピュアな感じかして、よりのめりこみ度数高くなるんですけどね。アニメのキャラクターは基本的には裏切らないと思い込んでいるですよ。幾ちゃんが言ってたけど「最終回で、綾波レイが妊娠して、腹がデカくなっているというのをやってくださいよ！」って。「とにかく綾波ファンを裏切ってくれ」ってね。「君達が考えている綾波レイというのは、本物じゃないんだ。本当の綾波レイは、ちゃんと妊娠して腹が」。
Anno: Everyone understands that it's a fiction, but precisely because it's a fiction you have a pure feeling, you fall for the character to an even greater extent. You assume that an anime character will not betray you. Iku-chan said [to me], "in the last episode, please have Rei Ayanami get married and become pregnant. Just please betray the Ayanami fans. The Rei Ayanami they are thinking of is not real. The real Rei Ayanami gets married, and her belly..."
小黒 (笑)。あ、ホントに綾波がいたら。
Oguro: (laughs) Ah, if Ayanami really existed.
庵野 「ホントだったら、妊娠して腹がデカくなって子供産んだりして、年を取ったりするんだっていうのを思い知らせてやってくれ」みたいな事を言われて。俺は「そこまでせんでも……」と思ったんですけど(笑)。
Anno: He told me something like, "please, make them realize that, If she were real, she would get married, become pregnant, have a child, and grow older." I was thinking, "we don't have to go that far..." (laughs).
小黒 (笑)。幾ちゃんの方が悪人ですね。
Oguro: (laughs) Iku-chan is a wicked man.
Ikuhara has a kind of interview in the book on Kaworu that was published a few years ago. The reason is that Ikuhara is universally believed by Japanese fans to have been an inspiration for Kaworu (it's stated, for example, on both Kaworu's and Ikuhara's wikipedia pages), and the bath scene between Shinji and Kaworu is thought to have been based on a conversation Anno and Ikuhara had at a hot spring.
There are pictures of the book here. There are also pictures here, including a small scan of the interview.
The title of Ikuhara's interview is "「そのままの君でいいよ」という魔力", "The magic of 'you're fine just the way you are.'" This is the only excerpt I could find from it (taken from here):
僕は14、15歳の時には、本当に絶望していて人生真っ暗だと思っていたんだよ。（中略）今はさ、負け組のほうにも注目が集まっているというか、ダメになる自由もあるという感じがするけど、そのころは一回でも負けたらその先は闇でしかないように感じられた。70年代まで安保闘争があったわけだけど、それも終わって「ああ、やっぱり世界を革命するなんてことはできないんだな」って空気が蔓延してたんだ。だから自分は20歳までには死ぬんだろうと思っていたし、それ以降の人生なんてオマケみたいなものだって思っている――そんな話を(庵野秀明監督と)したんだ。
When I was fourteen or fifteen, I was truly in despair, thinking my life prospects were very bleak. [...] Today it seems like even failures recieve attention, or that there is freedom to be "dame," but at that time it seemed that you would have no future after failing even once. Up until the 70s there was conflict over the U.S.-Japan security treaty, but when that finished, an atmosphere like "ah, as we suspected, we can't revolutionize the world" [began to] spread. So, I thought that I would die by the time I was 20, and I felt that any life beyond that would be something like a bonus - that's what I told [Anno].
