Willem Dafoe Career Retrospective | SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations

[Applause] silly [Applause] actually I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't hear what she just said because I'm standing around the corner but I assume it was something about me turning 25 so good a fan there's no place I would rather be honestly this is my second home as you know so I'm thrilled to be here and to welcome you to this egg after a foundation conversation with an actor who has been consistently delivering fantastic performances for decades now he has played everything else everything if you want to talk about range TS Eliot's to a vampire to the green goblin to Jesus Christ for his work he has received two Academy Award nominations a Golden Globe nod and three SAG Award nominations thank you guys please welcome Willem Dafoe [Applause] you saw it in your natural inclination was the mic yeah you can project come on thank you so much for being here I was just telling you this is an audience of all SAG actors so I always like to start by asking how did you get your sag card oh god if it's what I suppose no I suppose it was Heaven's Gate it was heaven's game or the loveless which was had the distinction of being Kathryn Bigelow's first film really I know um cuz Heaven's Gate I think this is a fairly famous story this was your first time I got fired wait your first job I get fired you are fired I thought you were just cut from the final oh I'm in the movie you are sure you guys Wikipedia had something wrong if you ever watch the movie and there's no wordplay here but I'm I'm I fight Jeff Bridges is it's that's right you're firefighter in the fight yeah I'm like around him and I also hand Chris Christopherson his suitcase at a very dramatic moment no I did lots of things because the first day on Heaven's Gate we were about a week behind trying to figure that one out yeah because Michael ciolino who was actually quite brilliant but you know needed someone to keep him on on it you know kept on inventing things and I was basically an unscripted glorified extra someone saw me at the theater and they were look we're looking at ethnic faces looking faces and what ethnicity did they think you well here's the deal they were looking for actors with ethnic faces because it's an immigrant story a Western that's an immigrant story and the the audition was that you show up and you do the speech that they prepared one in English and one in another language well I didn't speak another language I said what do I look like yeah you know and they said Krup willingly you look Dutch which isn't really true because most Dutch people are about this tall so so but I had a friend that actually he was Flemish he was Belgium but close enough and he translated the audition speech and I and I learned it phonetically so I did English and the vein they said okay you're good to go Wow so this man if we really want to get crazy I get there and I was working on a theatre company and I was like guys let this is Michael Jame no he's he's just won the Oscar this beautiful film The Deer Hunter they've got a great cast this is it's a small role but it's really exciting cut me some slack and let me go off and do this keep things on hold until I come back and I was initially contracted for like two weeks and then a break and then another week or something it was going to be a three month shoot and I didn't have an agent or anything so I kind of negotiated my own daily contract which was you know straight minimum but daily and I got there and they said you know that contract I'm gonna put you on something called a weekly oh and we don't know when you're gonna finish and I said that was part of me that said great another part and they said that's horrible what am I gonna tell my people back home but I was there so I was there I ended up being there for three months yeah and and then one day we were doing a lighting setup and he Michael Cimino was very precise and he was waiting for the right and we were all in full cast in full makeup standing in place for eight hours you know you gotta raise your hand like a little kid to go to the toilet or anything like that and a woman next to me told me a dirty joke and I laughed and Michael Jimmy knowing who had his back to us at the moment heard this turned around and said will him step out and everybody was like and I laughed and I went to my head what's going on I said just go to your hotel that was a good start did you ever see him again I did it oh yeah you need to do a movie I would have done it because he was a talented guy very talented um and I don't hold grudges did he remember what about my revenge to go back make him wait for eight hours so I couldn't do the movie but no and I saw him later in life did he remember that he fired you or he had a foggy memory I think he fired me because things were he was under a lot of pressure and he wasn't I understood in retrospect you know I was humiliated as you would be you know but but you understood in retrospect that he was under a lot of pressure and it wasn't personal it was like I think he was so tense that he heard someone laugh and it was like he's making that noise Hey and I might declare that yeah he can go back you know anyway well that's a long story well in a way at least it's you know you weren't fired for anything that had to do with your acting that's kind of there's worse things to bother for insubordination laughing when the maestro is working well I was gonna make a joke about the critical response to Heaven's Gate but oh well that's right that's why I can kind of come out of the closet say that's because everybody can kind of tack yeah you know you were because it was a famous bomb it was yeah and not really fairly but it was historically it was placed you know it was seen as a thing that sunk a studio and basically marked kind of the end of people supporting author directors and then studios that was hit particularly bad year for a lot of you know I wouldn't say everyone had bombs but all there are a lot of directors that had challenges Scorsese Coppola chimney know around that period had movies that didn't really perform and somehow the studio started thinking these guys they may be artists but they're bad for business I don't know that precisely but I mean that's that I know Heaven's Gate was really seen as as a moment actually I want to go back to the beginning because from what I understand you were born in Wisconsin and your parents were in the medical profession so I mean were they people who are interested in theater what went did the bug bit for you no they were the bug bit me you know you grow up in a family of eight kids which is pretty big your parents work together they're gone it's a tribe you've got a chaotic household you got to find your identity my way was I was believe it or not you know the comedian there's a prankster you know and that sort of is how it started and then two other things and you know it's funny I usually I resist these questions about my past but among actors I feel more comfortable talking about it you know but I remember two things when I was a kid I loved listening to Disney Records uh you know things like Pinocchio stuff like that I remember being a kid laying on my stomach in front of the phonograph and really digging hearing the voices you know I remember Sterling Hollywood uh-huh Holloway had this great that was a thing that I remember all the time and the other thing my parents would go to Chicago on little romantic getaways and they'd always see shows there and bring back you know albums of musicals and things like that and they would also bring back super 8 actually eight millimeter little films and we had a Belen power projector and they would get me little horror films you know Lola short shorts of Harvard so its horror films musical recordings [Music] blame them if explains your careers so how did they react when you told them you wanted to be an actor I never told them did do they know listen I had a chaotic consult it's hard to you know you think of 1950s 1960s Wisconsin you know you think of beaver cleaver and people having dim forget it we never ate together it was like chaos no it's really hard to believe but it was so it was every man for himself and I think my parents by the time I came down because I was at the bottom of the family you know he can let one go I love but you know all my brothers and sisters pretty much took professional paths and my parents were were very happy to pay for their education when I said I I was thinking about going to school for acting and they were like oh I'm fine you do whatever you want but when you get ready we'll help you with your education you know they didn't consider that it sounds heavy but they didn't know anybody that made their living as an actor they didn't know anybody that worked as an artist they didn't know you know it was didn't seem reasonable they're worried about the kid they'd want them today I have a good life they think he he's fun to watch but you know so it wasn't heavy it wasn't heavy and I I left school early and I took some courses at a university and when I was at the University I was only 17 years old some people saw me at the University they had a small theater company and I started working with them Wow yeah in Milwaukee Wisconsin a company called Theatre X and it was a small little group theater that created it was cool because they created original work they had a small theater that we rented and we worked all the time and it was self-managed we and we basically did shows there in a small factory building and then miraculously we got picked up by a we did little tourists sometimes and a Dutch producer sauce our flemish and he brought us to europe and we started performing in europe and then i got friendly with some with specifically richard schechner from the performance group in new york and he said hey if you ever want to come by new york wait come back and that's what I did then I started working with him and then I that morphed into work with the Wooster group which is avant-garde and that still goes on I don't work with them right now I was a 27 year run most of the people I started with almost all except for two are gone now it's a bunch of younger people and I think they do good work I haven't seen it lately but that was Wooster group was really formative about I I heard a little clapping I don't expect you to another Worcester group because the truth is we didn't tour that much that much in the States we toured internationally more freely I see I remember what you guys came here with Phaedra Phaedra yeah but that's that's sort of late I mean that that's that's right before I left that's like you know 15 years ago but 27 years before we were touring a lot and seldom came to LA we would do shows in New York we do some touring but very little in the States because all the money which was usually public money at stake theaters for this kind of work that we were doing and and the appetite for the kind of work we were doing was more in Europe then was it really a lot of like on-the-job training it was wow it was and but one very beautiful thing about the university I went to it was University of wisconsin-milwaukee and I only mentioned this because it was sort of beautiful for a moment because it was a state school a big state school that was considered like a blue collar suitcase school you know mothers going back to school blue collar kids that were going part-time it was a real Milwaukee blue collar you know it's it was a good school but it wasn't considered a lot a DA school and certainly it didn't have that it had about architecture some things but certainly not about the arts in general but when I was there there was a very eclectic theatre department as far as the professor's it were a mixed bag so you got a real sampling of lots of different kinds of approaches and because it was a blue-collar school you've got people coming back veterans coming back from the war Vietnam war you got women coming back after they had their kids you had so what I'm getting at is you had a wide range of personalities and types of people and it was so beautiful because when you do a show for example there you weren't you didn't have 22 year old kids with the same ambition with the same experience all kind of you know trying to do these shows you had a depth of experience in the depth of perspective and I I always remember that so I do I really value diversity of approach and diversity of of people when you're making things and how old were you when you moved to New York and started working with performance theater it was well I tried to move there when I was 18 but then I get called back to work with theater X and then finally for good for good for good I was moved to New York when I was 22 still really young pretty young and I know you mentioned you know they're very avant-garde I've seen a few of their shows and they're and they defy explanation a lot of the times so I'm curious what were some of your sa craziest but like most unique roles or experiences there well it was a it was a great place to be and then it's hard to know what to say cuz every day was crazy and and it was a period of time and it had to do a lot with us being young we're what held us together was we had a piece of real estate so if you ever started a theater company get a piece of real estate a place that people can kick you out of a place that you aren't under pressure your biggest pressure isn't making rent you know and that was very important because regardless of the critical response or what our our needs were for developing work we could take our time you know the way we suffered is if we weren't making money we didn't couldn't pay ourselves but we were a bunch of young kids and and we found ways to either live cheaply or take side jobs but we kept it going for a long time and the rules were varied we did many beautiful shows that I remember well and many different kinds of shows but I think that one of the biggest innovations was that very early we started using we started integrating video and sound equipment in a way that wasn't normally done in theatres kind of in an anti illusion illusionistic way you could see the technology that won't detract even if you're doing three sisters you could will a TV set out because there was a 93 year old actress they couldn't make it to the show every night so we take their performances and I play the scene with her these kinds of things they weren't simply aesthetic choices they were practically won also we had we had a very dramatic period where we were working with the theatrical mask of black for lack of better word sort of a blackface really yeah as a theatrical mask without particular comments and we caught hell for that sure we lost a lot of funding and it was interesting that the black community had no problem with it it was the people trying to protect the black community that took offense mm-hmm it was an interesting period but it was a theatrical mask for us and we did some shows with that there were we moved some shows to Broadway for periods of time that was interesting to see how we functioned in that world but it was fine for periods I don't know it was it was really an exciting time and great people the other thing is people they were people that weren't trained really from different that's we had a dancer we had a you know painter we had a musician none of them were actors I was barely an actor I had you know worked in a theater but I wasn't highly trained but we were making things and we prat but we were practicing every day and the other thing we did is we opened a lot of shows in progress which when you have your own space you can do it's like you do a showing you know and it is what it is and and because we had a company a real company where people came every day we could put old shows next to no shows so one of the really beautiful things was we could do a 20 year old show next to a brand new show sometimes we'd have to change the roles like one show we did one version of three sisters where I played three different roles because of my age because when I started out I was the youngest actor in the company and by the end of the 27 years with the exception of the director Elizabeth will account I was the oldest one Wow and you worked a lot with I mean I did it I heard somewhere that she directed all the shows is that currently directed off shows so there was never any other directors no wow what so she was like and she was my partner too uh it was great it was great but she was very demanding and very tough precise and yeah yeah just to clarify because [Laughter] directors are good for you directors directors don't usually get to work consistently with the same director over at the beautiful yeah and then that's something that I in my career I I'd go back to directors you know yeah I noticed that because you you know trust and I'm very much a try you know I like being in the room with people that bring out the best in me and excite me and I have a level of you know smarts and passion that I identify with and you have an immediate trust if you've worked with them before and I like that idea also in a body of work where you become sort of a character in their body of work and not everybody's into that but some people like Wes Anderson enjoys that that's part of his work you know he's working on a big canvas you know in each movie I mean he's never told me this but I can see it this way he's he's really refining a one long story in one university I was like yeah you know you think some of the greats even you know someone like Kubrick you know as diverse as his movies are you know you feel Kubrick all through the line of things so I actually have to question about revisiting roles and again I apologize if I mispronounce anyone's name but Pamela Finney that was pretty easy okay is there any character from your early days of acting that you'd like to revisit now I like the question but I'm not going to answer it I am you know someone asked me that question maybe five years ago I don't know and it didn't make any sense to me and I'm like you know go back you know you're doing you let it go it goes no don'tdon't no regrets but listen [Music] well I like the other question let me do that first no I thought it was interesting that I you know there was a role that I did in a movie called victory a very little scene movie basically a European co-production that got hung up in post because of financial reasons and sometimes the problems they have when there are European co-productions um so it did get released but in a very bad way so it's very little same movie but a beautiful story based on the Joseph Conrad novel and there was a character that wanted to drop out he said I'm done with doing he wanted to be away from life he wanted to not strive anymore he didn't want any social contact his father had just died and he wanted to go into retreat and when I was younger I didn't understand that at all I thought I did now that I my father's died now that I'm further down the line I understand that you know and you think God if I had to do that over it would be a different performance now the 20 years down the line yeah I have done it sort of in the theatre but not so much in a movie the same character 20 years later I'm kind of think I'd love to see Jesus at 53 well actually you did because he shows up later forever coming back I'm sorry can you keep a good hand down I mean were you thinking that did you always want to do movies or were you just looking to do these you know my identity when I first started out was really theater because that's what I know and you know I was a young guy and I I love moving around I've uh I've still loved it that's my favorite thing to do a physical approach you know dancing running moving that I like more than anything and movies they have their lore you know and there's many things associated with movies that have their allure but until you make them you don't know what they are so were you waiting really and and when they started out so I'm you know I'm not even thinking of a career I'm just want to be with fun people and interesting people and and feel good about myself and feel like I'm learning things and and that's what I'm doing with the Wooster group and then somebody sees me besides that in skate somebody sees me and says hey we're doing this movie we think you'd be great for this role and they send me a script and I read it and it ended up being the loveless Kathryn Bigelow's first movie and literally I didn't have an agent or anything I remember calling up friends and saying they want me to do this how much should I ask for I didn't know I had no idea that's how crazy that is and then I started making the movie and I really I loved her and I loved the whole process of going somewhere collecting these things I loved the day of making the movie and making the day and I like the adventure of this family coming together and making something going away so that all appealed to me it was similar to what I was doing in the theater but of course different in many ways so I thought yeah I like this too why can't I do both and that's what I continued to try to do and after those I feel like you really broke through in the early 80s with Streets of Fire and to live in to die in LA people love free sitar that's a fire as an interest women because it was a big bomb when it came out that's that's pretty hard but people that love it really love it a lot has to do with the music and the style of it it's quite bold movie actually on the other hand was it was to live and die in LA wasn't that a big hit oh no no that was apology oh I ever been a karcher I mean I wasn't born yet but I remember hearing you're born yet might have been depends on what month it came out I'm 25 I already told you guys that I will take it but I seem to remember so many people talking about at least in my film school in the car changed you know what to live and die in LA is interesting for me because what happened is Billy Friedkin I think he had a not such a good success after being a very bankable you know really respected but also very bankable director he did sorcerer and that yeah it's again great film but it didn't perform he got spanked a little bit and he thought well I'm gonna do this a different way I'm gonna get some money from someone I know and for Wallace I'm not gonna do going through a studio so he made it totally independently he wanted to do it with unknown actors and he found a good solid kind of I don't want to say pulp because that has a negative connotation but a cop novel and wrote a good screenplay with the writer of the novel and we made this movie that was very stylish and had a lot going on but when it opened because it got a kind of poor distribution and also the critics were not good initially and I think it's interesting that a common complaint this is pree Tarantino mind you the common complaint was this movie is flawed because it's badly constructed because everybody's horrible in it there's nobody we can root for there's not a good person so it was really kind of this puritanical thing about we cannot tell stories where there isn't a good person to relate to so therefore this movie is not so good because you know they're using a imprecise formula so it doesn't really perform but enough filmmakers say yes and Billy Friedkin is a great filmmaker and it it's it had caught some it had some really stylish and great things Robbie Miller shot it a great DP and you know I think it became like a filmmakers movie and I think platoon and also Last Temptation of Christ curiously enough those two movies probably came out of the directors sing to live and die in LA really make sure the right people see it know because like to live and die in LA it's constantly cited now as a classic and one of the best changes ever and no and there's nice things in it yeah yeah I saw it recently because they redid it they did it that's very nice no they remastered it I don't know my technical stuff so much better and for no blu-ray and they also did a print and can last yeah so so maybe those movies didn't change her career as much as like or they did because I am you know one thing leads to the next the better and for worse particularly early in my career and obviously platoon was a huge movie and I'm curious when you were making that I'm actually curious about the audition process if it was always for the role of Elias cuz yeah see that's what I like my thought would be you would be cast as the Tom Berenger old huh you know the thing with the tomb is complicated because it was a movie that was kind of tried to get made for ten years and I remember they saw everybody in their mother you know for just as part of the ensemble and Oliver just wanted to get guys that he thought were interesting and then he was going to get this group of guys and then kind of figure out make a community because it's very much the classic it's sort of a classic war film and then you have the guy from Texas and you have the you know bebop guy and you have the you know redneck and you got the this and you got the hippie and yeah you know so he wanted to make that community and I don't think he flat-out said you're this role you're this role he collected these people and in actually the first round they tried to make it once they didn't and sort of almost cast it and I wasn't even in that round you know and that didn't happen and then they went again and they started the process again and then I got in the pool and I think I could have played any role but for I mean not any row but you know they he decided that later it wasn't like he said you're playing this role I think he got the group together I don't know that for sure but that was my sense when you auditioned you were addition from the movie not for a specific role that's really cool actually it's actually pretty cool yeah and then it just turned out that you ended up with the best death scene ever captured on film yep a nice designed thing and fun to do I was wondering because I thought that you know it was what I loved to do it was stripped down it was the essential acting it was a simple task and you do it and as you do it stuff happens too and because it's so well designed and because the world is so well made something extraordinarily happens to when you're doing it and it was you know it's moving to see because it's a good filmmaker and he knows where to put the camera and the music to put on it but it's a very basic idea you know guy left behind running for a helicopter it was one simple action but that simple action you know really was very evocative in and was strong and I love doing it I heard a rumor and if I was someone that hasn't seen the movie it's like yeah the guy basically is running that shot to bits which sounds like not so interesting but you know in the context of what else is going on in the movie it's very moving I heard it was actually supposed to be bloodier and the blood didn't go off um I have to it was a do people know the movie put to him okay I mean I'm not being coy you know maybe if I was but now unless there were cameras in the ground and there were helicopters with cameras on them but because it was such a huge shot there wouldn't no there was no crew anywhere there were just like hundreds of extras behind me that we're going to chase me and basically I'm running away from them and they're shooting and I've got the detonator in my hand and I've got squids on my body and I know there's I know where the cameras are and I know where the explosions are and I don't want to make a straight path but I know a path that I have to run in order for it to be safe and it was wild it was really very memorable I've got a hidden walkie talkie there and they're like well I'm are you ready and it's like you know when when you tell me we're going and it's like okay I'm ready put it down and I just start running like hell and I've certain points I knew I had to detonate and we did maybe two or three takes and on one of the takes yeah some of the some of the body hits then go up and also I think in the movie I shouldn't say this is any spoiling but I think you could see that I've got the thing in my hands and before before I reach for the heavens trying to be saved you see me tossing I think wow I ruined a very good movie with a horrible actors and it's terrible i weirdly actors are so selfish I'm going to look into rescinding your nomination but I mean I did the success of that field cuz it was actually this one I know was a huge hands but critically and financial and it was beautiful because it was a little small movie it was very difficult to make at that time and also it had political content that the country still hadn't dealt with because the rare or the Vietnam movies at the time were like Rambo and things like that it you know Vietnam War and and personal political personal story didn't go together so as we weren't making that I thought I love this movie I love making it and I think it's a beautiful movie but I always had a little bit of a fear that it would end up on a video shelf next to kung fu movies no I really did and thankfully and this is where good critics are important it's really the critics that gave it a leg up and created a buzz and then veterans started to speak positively about it and then it's sort of crossed over in into news because enough time had passed a particularly probably not from all but from a lot of veterans points of view they said well here's finally a movie that we can relate to because it's not just about the heroism it's about the sacrifice and the harder and you know the mistakes made and attitude and the difficulty and sacrifice all the kind of dark things that hadn't been addressed so it was important for that and and whenever you get nominated it's great because it you know shines the light on you and creates opportunities and and I mean was there like a noticeable change in your career did people start coming to you have you heard of something called the Oscar curse I'm kind of joking but what happened what was funny is after I was nominated and I didn't win by the wedding I'm trying to remember I'll tell you who won I know [Applause] Michael Caine huh I hear that's right for him Michael Caine Hannah and her sisters Michael can't be here tonight because he's foaming jaws 3 in the Caribbean thanks Aaron god bless Michael King how is it gonna he's a great actor okay we can edit all this out later Michael Caine doesn't have to know but I mean did you honestly feel cursed after nor joking no when I said the curse what I was wanting to get into is after that it was great and and I got offered a lot of stuff but I got offered a lot of stuff that was totally wrong but I was offered it because I was a new name I was a new flavor at that moment and you get impressed you get impressed by the money offered you get impressed by the level of the offers but I hung tough because none of it seemed right you know I thought I don't want to do this this is doesn't feel right that goes on for a year and you're getting lots of offers but nothing's right and then finally I found a really great script but it was set in Vietnam oh and I thought a great scripts a great script and actors should act stop being so precious get on that horse who cares it's a very different kind of movie and I made this movie shot in in Thailand the movie did not perform it had lots of production problems it was a great script and the writer of the script arm you know said that he wanted to direct it and that was the only way Fox would do the movie and I think he came in under one regime and then another regime came and they did not like this one yeah from the get-go so I felt like he was fighting with the studio and the movie didn't really get a chance it's a movie there here it was called off-limits internationally it was called Saigon but it was very interesting because it was about to basically military policemen in Saigon and they had an interesting role because they had to keep the peace but they're basically fighting there they've got to keep there they're enforcing their own people in a foreign place so their own people don't like them and also the locals don't like them because they're Imperial invaders you know so these guys are between a heart rock and a hard place so they have and they have a dangerous and difficult job so it's an interesting movie but I'm not not perfect but some some people like it it's interesting because I wouldn't have thought your career slowed down because 2 years later you had both Mississippi Burning and last temptation of Christ two years later was it two years ago wants to wait two years that is a long time when you're waiting but on like if you look at IMDB it's like Oh boom boom boom yeah it's not how it feels when you're doing it no it doesn't and and sometimes you got to remember that you may do stuff you have a flurry of activity of stuff that you want to do and then the way gets spaced out or held or you know it can it can get spaced out a long time or you can do things over a long period of time and then they all get released at the same time because nothing's coordinated anymore particularly with that when they're so gun-shy and careful about release dates now that you know they they used to just you know Saturday and that was it avanti avanti avanti we should have a lot of questions about Last Temptation of Christ yeah let me see what's what's one huh best sums it up well what was the key oh sorry from Luce welcome you what was the casting process like and what was your process in becoming the character of Jesus you know what finally a simple answer yeah I came back from the movie that I shot in Thailand I was teaching through the Wooster group with the Wooster group in Massachusetts having university one of our gigs to keep us going I got a call they said you're in Massachusetts can you make it down to New York like tomorrow because Martin Scorsese would like to see you and I said yeah what about it they said well you know he's doing this movie Last Temptation of Christ and I said yeah which always seems strange to me when I heard he was gonna do that if I'm on Scorsese Last Temptation of Christ but I said okay which and what what's the role [Applause] my agent was like duh you know sometimes we limit ourselves and I thought that sounds wacky okay so send me the script and then I read the script and I understood I mean you know you feel best when you read something and you say I'm the guy to do this you know if someone else can do it maybe you still wanted to do it but this was one where I say I got it I know why he wants to do this because there's an imperfection there it's a different it's a Jesus Christ so I was very happy and that was one of my happiest experiences making that film because it was so demanding you were working with a master filmmaker and a great crew and it also you know my great love for working in down-and-dirty it was a low-budget movie they had tried to make it before I think at a budget of like seven million dollars and they started production and then they had to shut it down so even some of that seven million was already gone so we're talking about going to Morocco no trailers and nothing you know stripped down getting paid scale and everybody getting paid scale and making this movie frog probably four five million dollars and like at a good clip and it helped us I think to make the movie you know Marty showed me Gospel according to Matthew passel a nice movie and he said this is key for for explaining what they're feeling I want and I think the fact that we didn't have a lot of money in the budget forced us to make a very stripped-down essential thing and not get confused in any pageantry or get bogged down and too much historical stuff and just make it about you know the human side of this of this character I know the movie was really controversial I guess probably before it was released when a lot of people had ideas of what they thought it was going to be and then actually saw it and I don't think anyone who saw it actually had a problem with it did you anticipate that controversy so really no I mean I know that it was a radical telling of the story I always remember when there was the controversy I was I was leaving my apartment one day and there are a couple guys sitting on my stoop and I'm like hey man like good good oh you did that Jesus movie and I said yeah yeah yeah well I don't know yeah it's a good movie though and he said yeah see what happens when you change the story no but I didn't think because it was a devout film it really explored spirituality also Marty I don't know what he considers himself but he deeply is he steeped in Catholicism and spirituality so it was a very sincere thoughtful film and I thought who would have a problem with this in in an age of slasher movies and porn I thought you know you don't want it don't see it but I think there was a period where where the religious right at that moment needed something to stand behind to kind of bring their agenda to the fore and I think they used it mm-hmm and then it morphed into this weird anti-semitic thing against uh Hollywood so it was a political thing as we know it's always interesting when something gets released its reception is conditioned by so many things what's happening politically in the world what other films are out there you know if if the lead character gets arrested for some heinous thing right before it's gonna affect the movie you know there are all kinds of things and I think the timing was just weird and the climate was such that someone said aha this is something we can run with you and and they organized the protest and I feel bad because it hurt the movie because it started to you know people that want to see it see it but it creates a stink around the movie and creates a barrier to see the movie the way you want to see it you have to go through that that that all the gossip year literally you have to sometimes go through picket lines to get to the movie it made it hard so the movie it it was critically embraced by you know mainstream press ridiculed by you know right religious press this surely I love that they kept from saying this Jesus is a wimp earth the earth [Laughter] well I didn't expect it it's so interesting to that they've made that comment about changing the story because I couldn't I could be wrong but it doesn't really change the story just speculates on a fantasy yeah yeah anytime you tell that story you're changing the story yeah true do you do you remember the Michael Keaton's joke at the time I don't know if you oh he was up for Batman and it was super controversial like people did not want him to be Batman and he said and he was not expecting it to be controversial and he's like geez up until now the thing I was worried most was the scene where I make love to Mary Magdalene yeah those were the two big controversies that's so I mean your career has been filled with you we just mentioned less temptation of Christ which was obviously a lead role but you'll do anything from like supporting roles like born on the 4th of July English Patient very memorable role in wild at heart - um yeah you can be a crybaby um how are you sort of choosing your roles was the people the script a combination of both combination you know it's your sniff it out you know it's really you know what calls you what calls you I'm not that calculators really I mean without being spooky about it it's really intuitive you know you read something and as actors you know you read it and you say do I want to do this thing what they're saying I'm doing here do I want to do this does this excite me is this evocative is this challenging is this something I know how to do and I want to strut my stuff is this something that I don't know what it is but I want to find out about all those things but I think as I talk to other actors I'm odd a little bit in that I really the director is very important because I am a self-starter but I'm also a collaborator and I also like to I like very much to submit to a director's vision I like to be his creature I like his or her creature I like the idea that they sort of make a world or they try to make a world and they're like this is what I see this is what I think happens go in there enter it do it and I'm the guy that I'm the zombie that goes in there and activates the world I like that relationship and if you don't have a feel or really cross the intelligence or that or the passion or the aesthetic or something has to call you in that person too I can't I can't connect and even I don't sometimes I don't even know what that world is and I'll go in there because I want to find out what it is but if if you're telling me to go in there and I don't know what it is I want to trust you or I want to be interested in you it's important you know and like you said you work with a lot of the same directors I'm really obsessed but I think I'm gonna develop this and a couple of years I'll be able it really it's pretty good then you can tell me what happened in all of us Anderson's movies but what is it like he doesn't get the girl but I am curious satisfaction postponed when you like get a script from Wes Anderson I mean is it's an automatic yes I presume before you even read it and is it like you know Christmas date when he sends that script yeah I you know I like him so much and he's very precise and he's a friend and I I've worked with him two times and then done a voice thing and I feel quite confident I'll work with him again so yeah I like his movies a lot and then like someone like Lars von Trier who just it has done horrible things to you on film yeah he's a visionary I think he's a great director and something like an antichrist isn't for everyone but I think it's one of my is one of the strongest movies around and one of the strongest movies I've ever made as I say good it's not for everyone because it's got very harsh elements to it but I think Lars has a real talent for exploring taboo things and he gets misidentified as just being a bad boy or a troublemaker or you know kind of European Punk stir trickster it goes deeper than that you know he he's very compassionate guy but he looks for the truth in in very dark places and in that movie he explores you know some people think think he's misogynist I think he explores some really interesting female themes about a sexuality and motherhood and and and you know violence many interesting things in women's terms and when you're working with him he identifies with the women more than the men it's interesting yeah I mean his film language is beautiful I mean in Antichrist those three animals I mean that is so cinematic and so beautiful the way he weaves them in that is like that's heaven for me that's heaven for me that's yeah that's that's all kinds of art forms coming together to make something that's total magic it's interesting because Antichrist has actually been in the conversation a lot lately that's it I think a lot of people have been I don't wanna say comparing that's not the right word but saying like the way the film mother now is very divisive and people either love or hate it is like what Antichrist was like and how they think it'll be remembered as a classic so I just keep hearing that movie come up it's so interesting to me I actually want to jump ahead to this year cuz you have so many projects this year I know you're in the new Murder on the Orient Express yep busy are you the killer and I don't know if people have been able to see it because it's only played festivals now but you're in the florida project yeah okay so you know how special this movie is it's from the John Baker who directed tangerine on an iPhone and he's working with a lot of I mean other than you it's mostly non actors or kids there's an actor yeah but yeah there's a lot of kids a lot of street casting the one of the principal characters he found on Instagram yes great no so he really mixed it up hey it feels finally talking to a room full of actors about working with a bunch of man they took my job but it's a it's it's it's a good way of filmmaking I mean it was very exciting and you learn things you learn things and it also keeps you on your toes I mean I always feel like when you've got on any film you've got people coming from such different experiences and there's no uniformity of training in this country particularly so you always have to find the common ground and find you know kind of fit in and find the world you know you've got a you know be flexible it's a very slice of life movie you play the manager of a hotel where a lot of very interesting characters resolve eight including this remarkable she's six years old in the movie young girl Brooklyn Prince and like was there a script cuz it feels like so natural oh there was a very good script and a very complete script now in production we did do some improvisation and we also sometimes we shoot stuff that would arise and sometimes the script would be adjusted but there was a very strong script I think it's showing also has to have that to get the budget that he needed it's not a big budget it's a small budget movie but previously he had worked with combinations of scenarios and and sketches of scripts but this was a complete script written with Chris Berg gosh his writing partner beautiful script but we did a lot of as we were shooting even though it was a very tight schedule if something came up he's like let's go over there and catch that and we invent stuff and also working with children sometimes you know you don't want them doing the scripted scene you feel like you if they can put it in their own words or you can find a parallel thing that basically expresses what's happening in the scene they feel free or you don't want that them to think that they're acting you want them to feel like they're playing and he's excellent at that so I'm trying to think because you do share a lot of scenes with with Brooklyn and she's so amazing were there things you learn from her did she ever ask I'm not sure though you know you learned from everything uh she's I'm afraid of her all right did she know who you were because she probably can't see any of your movies yeah some oh my gosh a tip that someone tipped her off I was in a movie spider-man yes that's right yeah yeah it's true yeah I don't do a lot of kids movies but that's gonna change I'm sure I learned you know the thing is when I always I always want to be like a beginner you know it's the old beginner's mind thing it's really true you don't want to if you can forget you're an actor and just be engaged in what you're doing it's it's a good place to start so when you're dealing with people that have no history or association to what they're doing like a child and particularly gifted child like Brooklyn who is a natural performer she's doing it she has no context for it it's just what she's doing now and to watch that and to remember that and to have that kind of those kind of that kind of recklessness and that kind of sweet chaos you know is is something that we have to retain to keep our our wonder and not have everything dialed in and and keep on going back to kind of tricks up your sleeve or rely on craft you know it it's nice to be around people that that are just kind of making it up as they go along mm-hmm and shooting down in Florida on location I mean was this it's I know it's an independent film I don't know if it was like I don't say a guerrilla shoot but you yeah yeah he's pretty fast but they also say 'mother is necessity as the mother of all invention mr. Otis it keeps you you don't sit in anything that's for sure and you know it's nice because Shaun Baker the director is the writer is the director his co-writer is the director and he's also the editor nice so he gets kind of three chances at shaping this thing you know so and he's very present he's easy he's you know everywhere because it's a small group and it's a small fairly small film he's you know fixing your hair and he's dealing with the you know the art direction in that shot he's everywhere so it's it makes it very flexible and you can react to things very easily there's so many specific things I'm going to ask you about but I know that people haven't seen the movie so we just have to come back in a couple months but I mean was it a challenging role but you know I'm not mean tricky here but challenging in what way I mean I kind of feel like the the challenging roles are the ones that you know challenging in the good way or challenging here anyway you know what I mean I don't know what to say I didn't think about it mm-hmm I really enjoyed doing it with all rules there's problem solving solving there's frustrations there's worries but with this I had a lot of tools to work with and one of the big tools was I had a very good placement in the story that I was the connecting material a connecting part to lots of different low worlds and I had a character that was sort of beautiful I didn't know how beautiful it was until it was over really because he's a character that has to work in lots of different mouths but as I'm doing it I'm not orchestrating that it's kind of done out of necessity because we were shooting in the real motel and we were working with so many real elements I was the manager of the motel so I was running the motel that's what was doing is that acting and then you know it was like just pretending you know it was like there's a problem in 306 go over straighten it out really she hasn't paid her rent not really that's kind of what some of the movie is and then I go there and I have the dialogue and I have the shape and the scene but as far as putting myself in those shoes I have very concrete things to work with and with each person in this story I've got to deal with them slightly differently because I want this place to run smoothly when I was interviewing guys and was searching for this the one thing that came up from these guys that ran these motels where there are people that don't have permanent homes and they're they're staying there long-term temporarily they're living very precarious lives the one thing that I walked away with it they all had a lot of pride in their work yeah and some of these motels are pretty down mm-hmm but there was something beautiful about trying to negotiate a good situation out of a bad situation in a human way because he's part of that world too he lives there he's a paycheck away from them he's in a position of authority but he's also one of them so there's a kind of sweet humanity to the film that you don't think about when you're doing it you only realize that after you in retrospect but I think you can intuit that when you're doing it and when you're playing those scenes you're not thinking of them as scenes you're really thinking of accomplishing things so it goes back to it I don't have a specific method for acting but it goes back to you know a basic tenant have a lot of acting is in tension and tension you know what what does this person want what is this person trying to do well he's a fascinating character because he is he is tough he has to be tough at his job but he is also very kind to the point where like sometimes I sort of worry that he gets too invested yeah it's going to get played and it's it's kind of a beautiful pension with the main you haven't seen the movie so it's a little hard to talk about but there's this main one this this woman that has this little kid and maybe she's not the greatest mother because she's got a lot going on mm-hmm and she's pretty challenging and she's she's a you know she's got the gift of the grift you know so he's feeling played he wants to be fair with her but he also doesn't want to take advantage of so it's it's got a push and pull of like a real relationship like a marriage sure there is something really intimate yeah there's also a scene and I again I'd only give away too much but where you approach someone you think might be endangering the kids yeah and it's like one of the most tense it's just a very simple dialogue scene it's one of the most tense things I've ever seen that's great yeah it was some it's an actor I think he isn't he's a Vietnam vet that lives in the area and there's like a semi-professional actor I mean that's low love parts here and there ya know he's fantastic yeah that that was we flew by the seat of my pants on that way I wondered a little bit when it was hotties and all the guy it was a little touchy yeah yeah I wanna just cuz we just have a few minutes left I want to just get through as many audience questions as possible oh oh gosh I'm so sorry I'm is it Yutaka Oh kind of good how do you spend your time on set when you're waiting for your turn is there anything you do to keep your concentration I hang out the one thing that I do that I never go to my trailer I like to be around the camera I think if you go to your trailer and you get called then you got a reboot all the time and also you don't bond with the crew and you don't know what's going on so you know sometimes you do for various reasons but but I'd like to stay right near the camera see what's going on and even when I'm not working I like to see the other people work that's real important to me and besides I like making movies I I think it's crazy some guy sits in the trailer watching you know the TV it's like Oh makes no sense to me you know it's happening outside baby action is out there I mean I don't want to be like yeah but you get it you get because but other people feel like they should relax is yeah other people feel like they should relax and then they get their energy and then they are ready when it's time to do something I feel like that happens anyway everybody still nervous on some film sets so the best thing is to make it yours you know make it make it your home you know be there you know the people know what's going on make it your world sit down that's your house these are your people this is your parking lot this is your motel let's go we're living our life a question from a few people but this one specifically is from Travis wants to know what was your experience like on wild at heart and working with David Lynch beautiful yeah beautiful simple Zen no he I remember he said Willem here's your costume it's like it's like sometimes you have all these discussions and you're worried about things he had a very clear idea he just gave me the costume and I was like put it on you know and then the teeth that I wore made the character it was one of those cases where that was the character you put those teeth in your mouth I give them to you you put him in there you'd be Bobby Peru I don't know it was like magic because I couldn't close my mouth because they were dentures that went over my teeth so my mother's always open you do this you do this and you'll be Bobby Peru because it made you feel kind of sleazy already and then then smoke and not even feel the smoke go because these dentures are covering your palate pretty weird so then you're there I want to say something like it's one of my favorite roles and it was one of the easiest roads to do well yes the setup was so good and sometimes you find a trigger it just lets you go mm-hmm and you know it's like it's like doing impressions or something you know sometimes you just feel like the person you know it's like you don't even think about what you look like or what's happening you just embody it in it's like this you know it's like it's something invades you and you're that before you get to that stage and like you see the script and you read it is there any part of you that is like what made you think of me for this part I've done I've said it many times really well once I did a movie called Tom and viv which was an english movie and the director said we want you to play TS Eliot and I love TI of the Four Quartets is something that I go back to over and over again I mean I love certain things about TS Eliot and I was like yes alia he's tall he's reading he's pinched he's I don't physically and he said are you an actor right now the point is you know it'll be getting there that will will make the character and it was a very satisfying experience and a great experience because he had such a well-documented life that you could read things you could know where he lived you could collect all this material and kind of in your head approximate what he was thinking like on this day when this happened he was writing this he was living here this is what was going on it was beautiful because you had this whole very precise narrative and then on top of that you add the work so I almost talked myself out of a beautiful experience question from Steve Costello oh great what are some of the methods you use on set to get into a character methods you know you're always fun you know I mean I just kind of said it like those teeth where everything it's sometimes you don't know sometimes the costume will get you there sometimes study will get you there sometimes something in your life that happens you can apply that to get you there it's always different and I the thing that's crazy is your job is always different how you have to function in the movie and how you relate to the other people and what kind of movie you're making is always different that's why it's so that's why so many bad there's so much bad writing about performing sometimes because no because you can't apply a cookie-cutter cookie-cut a criteria to it you always have to make lots of adjustments about I always laugh when sometimes they attribute sometimes I think critics don't know what how movies are made because sometimes you get credit for something that's not your doing and sometimes you get you know chastised for something that you aren't responsible for at all you know I always remember I did a movie and there was a long voiceover it was a movie called affliction by Paul Schrader yeah and Paul I played Nick Nolte's brother Nick Nolte I think won the Oscar for he's known a James Coburn one I James Scobie yeah good movie small movie beautiful book from Russell banks and I did the a voiceover and it was a little budget movie I remember Paul who I've worked with many many times was in a hurry he said let's let's record this in my motel room so I went over and we recorded it and like two takes it was very long of complicated voiceover that he ended up using in the movie and I remember Stephen Holden in the New York Times wrote basically this is a great movie this is the big flaw is Willem Dafoe's narration I think how the narration doesn't work but he kept on using my name baby I am curious if you like you know you sometimes don't know what movie you're making when you're going into it and I was talking about this with someone earlier the day like shadow of the vampire had a very strange trailer yeah and I was like this I was like what is this a joke and then I see it and it's like this magnificent movie second Academy Award nomination by the way did you know like on the page that it was gonna work no but it was really interesting because there was a combination of a horror movie parody it was it was very interesting I was mixing film history with kind of a crackpot premise it was really I enjoyed it a lot yeah I didn't know you never know what's gonna float you can only appreciate the making you know please tell me Michael Caine didn't win that year - I just like suddenly had watch who won that Oh a Benicio del Toro oh that's that's tough one Bagon Benicio he's a tough guy I'm coming after me I can pick on Michael Canyon all I want he's old are you noticing it I think I'm it's a gem just an older today so I'm trying to reassure my son okay I'm obviously feeling old yeah 25 for the tenth time can you tell us what you're working on next and are you give any plans to return to the stage anytime soon yes I can answer both of those questions one the next thing okay so I got I've got Florida project coming out I've got Murder on the Orient Express I've got Aquaman here from a year from December wait you're you're changing you're going into the DC universe yes yes all right this is the whole Antichrist that's one word it's all one world it's the cinema world and I'm going off to make a beautiful film hopefully great people involved great script great character I called at eternities gate and Julian Schnabel is directing it and I'm gonna play then go and it's and it's about the period at the very end of his life and that's why I'm starting I just got off a queer man two days ago so I'm just starting to grow this is two days say a little prayer to the beer gods because in about three weeks I want something a little better than this it'll happen but it makes me nervous now it just looked like it's fashioned scruff and for theater the next thing it won't show here I'm doing it in Italy but I'm doing a piece called the minister's black veil that's based on the it's inspired by the net and the fennel Hawthorn short story and it's directed by a fantastic directed by the name of Romeo Costa Lucci amazing yeah and I will be I'll be doing that in Naples right after I finish Julian's movie how long has it been since you've done a play um I did that piece in Europe last year and I did a period where I I did two pieces with Bob Wilson one was called life and death of Marina Abramovic and I did that for like two years on and off and then for two years on and off I did a piece May movement piece primarily with me and Mikhail Baryshnikov the two of us called the old woman which was based on a Russian writer amazing well I keep it up but it's you know it's it's it's hard to keep track of because like those pieces tour and they tour primarily internationally I always get frustrated because with that that kind of theater there aren't that many venues to perform in in the States and I think there's an interest but you know there's there's not the same kind of state money to support it so well the floor project opens next month so then please come back so we can have a very spoiler field conversation okay because everyone will have seen it and loved it by then there was a very special movie thank you so much for being here today [Applause]

Channel: SAG-AFTRA Foundation

Views: 78,957

Keywords: SAG Foundation, SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Acting, Actors, Willem Dafoe, Jenelle Riley, Shadow of a Vampire, Platoon, Spider-Man, Finding Nemo, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Murder on the Orient Express, Norman Osborn, Green Goblin, The Hunter, Antichrist, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Last Temptation of Christ, Aquaman, The Florida Project, Q&A, Interview, Career, Retrospective

Id: CesuFvqJWbo

Length: 81min 20sec (4880 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 20 2017