- Oh God. "What do you think The
Lighthouse is about?" Go see the movie, lazy bum. I did a draft to explain it. Just watch it and you figure it out. I'm Willem Dafoe and Esquire has asked me to explain a few things. Let's go. (upbeat music) "The internet is obsessed with this photo. Can you explain it please?" Yes I can. I did this movie called "Inside" and I'm trapped in this house and there's all these
paintings and objects because the guy's an art
collector among other things, the owner of the building. I'm a art thief and I get trapped in
there and I can't get out. And there were these
sculptures which were oranges. They were very realistic. They looked like rotten fruit. And there was also a sculpture
of a half smoked cigarette. So the artist asked me if I
could take a photo with them. So I did it. A simple thing and the little bum put it on the internet. First of all, it looked
like I was smoking. And second of all, it looked
like I had a thing about rotten oranges, which I don't particularly. Then people started playing
with it and turned into a meme. You know, they started putting
different things in my hand, different things in my mouth. I mean, it got a little wacky. That damn internet. You're happy to have people
play with your image, but sometimes it's not so nice. "How would you describe
the Willing Dafoe drip?" The drip thing, that had
to be described to me. I didn't know what drip was. Do I have a personal style? I don't think I do. I'm a blank slate. You know, I'm interested in clothes to the degree they're clothes, you know? I'm an actor, I appreciate
clothes, I appreciate them. Mostly other people's clothes. But for me, yeah, I value clothes because they're a kind of
costume and I value costumes 'cause they can really affect how you work and I appreciate what they can do. But personally, I don't
want to take the time thinking about what to wear. So maybe that's my style that
I don't quite think about it and I bounce around. So my personal style
is all full of things. All full of contradictory things. - Hey you guys, let's go down to Krambo's and get a drink from the bubbler. "What is the most challenging
accent you have ever tried?" I don't know, but one thing's interesting is I speak Italian. (speaking Italian) I can't do a good Italian accent. Maybe it's out of respect. I don't know. Beside the really broad Chico
Marx one, I can't do it. Maybe I'll learn one day. "Which of your characters
would you most want to have a meal with and why?" You know, Jesus, I know
there's gonna be a nice glass of wine, a nice loaf of bread. That's okay. Who I wouldn't wanna have it with is, oh, probably Bobby Peru
from "Wild at Heart". He'd be eating fast food, very fast food. - Okay, the cat's outta the bag. You know, Mark, he's
brilliant in this movie. And when we were rehearsing
he kept on belly aching about, "Oh, I'm, I feel, I don't
know, it's too much. Maybe I'm not right for this." And he was just, I think
reaching for reassurance and we were happy to give
it to him to a degree, but I thought, "Oh man, let's give this guy a good little scare." Oscar Isaac was shooting at
another part of the studio where we were in Budapest and Mark one day said, "I saw Oscar Isaac's here. Is, like, he here to replace me?" I said, "Oh no, don't be silly." And the next day, since I knew Oscar, 'cause I had worked with
him, I said, "Come over." And he came over at lunch and we staged this little
scene like he had come to tell Mark that it was
over and he was taking over. But that lasted for about a second. But it was a good joke. Yeah, good practical joke. "Whose decision was it for you
to go to mortician school?" It is not really mortician school. We had a wonderful
teacher, this young woman who was the head person at
the mortuary in Budapest where we were shooting. And she took Rami Yusef and myself and taught us how to
suture, also flay flesh, also gave us instruction about how to do certain things about autopsies. But she was very cool and the
thing that I loved about her is she worked all the time and every second that she
didn't work, she was a gamer. So jeez Louise, think about that. A woman that works in the mortuary and the rest of her
time, all she does is get behind the computer and play
all these virtual games. Wow. "What did you do to pass the
time in the makeup chair?" We're talking about "Poor Things". Long makeup preparation, four hours in, two hours out you meditate,
you can't really sleep because you've gotta cooperate with them 'cause the pieces are
sometimes quite small. Your call is usually three
o'clock in the morning. So you try to turn it into a good thing. It helps you get into character, certainly because you recede and the character comes forward as you're looking in the mirror. But meditation, meditation, meditation. "Why did you volunteer to
let Emma Stone slap you?" Listen, you try to be
there for the other actor. This isn't in "Poor Things",
it's in "Kinds of Kindness". It's just gotten a new title. But there was a scene and
she had a very long monologue and right before the
monologue she slaps me and I felt like she'd do much better, she'd get a much better
start on the speech if she could slap me
rather than miming it. And she was down with that. She said, "Thank you very much." But we did the speech many, many times. But I'm a big boy, I can take it. Anytime you get a chance to help out, it's a gift to yourself. You know what I'm saying? "Can you explain this connection? Batman and Beetlejuice?" I did a role of "Beetlejuice
2" and I'm excited to see it. I don't wanna say too much about it. And years ago in the original
"Batman", there was some, and to be fair, I hate these stories where actors say, "I almost played," or, "They wanted me to play,
but it didn't happen." You know, those are terrible stories and half of them are not true. But I heard rumors that
they were interested in me for playing Batman. I was younger then. Maybe I was more handsome then. I don't know. You think I could have been Batman? I think so. But it wasn't meant to be and that's fine. Batman went fine without me and I am fine. I did not die without that role. "Are there any other villains
you would want to play?" No, I don't think like that. I don't think about roles so much. I think about situations, I
think about people to work with. I think about adventure. I'm into going from not knowing to jumping into an adventure. Those are always the most
beautiful experiences for me. So, nope. But on the other hand, bring it on, I'll play another villain. "What do you remember most
from shooting Platoon?" "Platoon" was a really rich experience. So I think of many things. You know, I went there
when there was a revolution and my plane was the last plane in and I had flown from New York to Manila and I took a little nap
because it's a long flight and I was in a high rise hotel
and I opened the bird drapes and I saw tanks going down the street. Then shortly after I got a phone call from one of the producers. They were like, "Sit tight,
the movie's canceled. We'll get you out when we can." They had expelled all
Westerners the week before. So I was a gringo at the center of this fairly bloodless people power revolution. And I was with them out on the street and it was real exhilarating experience because the people felt that power. It was a really great time for me. "You've worked with Wes
Anderson five times. In your opinion, what makes
him such a great filmmaker?" You know, he has vision. He sees things. He can articulate certain
feelings that are very specific. He's fun to work with
because he's so precise and when he asks you to do
something, he's playing with what he sees, you know, your essences. So then once he kind of frames you, usually it's a pretty good
setup because he's not a madman. He sees something there
and then you lean into it and sometimes it's pretty amusing. "Did you ever spend a night
at the Magic Castle Inn?" Yes, I did. I lived there pretty much. I mean, actually I'd go home usually and I'd stay at a nice hotel because you gotta be in top
form when you're making movies. But the whole thing was, we
were spending all our time there and the people that
were living at the motel where we made "The Florida
Project", we were learning how to do the movie from them
because we were watching them. We didn't want to interpret their life. We wanted to be a part of their life. So we were an extension
of what they were doing and that was the cool thing. So it's very rooted and it's
very hard to make a movie that doesn't have a sense
of reality or isn't truthful or doesn't have a personal stake
when you're with the people because you come to love them
and you come to respect them and you want to represent them well, even if it's not always
a flattering portrait, at least make it true so
you're not making something that's, you know, bullshit. "What was the audition process for Last Temptation of Christ?" Very interesting. I had heard about this movie. They were auditioning
everybody and their brother. They didn't see me, they
didn't want to talk to me, they weren't interested in me. Fine, what can I do about that? And then one day I get a call and they say, "Martin Scorsese
wants to talk to you." And I say, "What's he
wanna talk to me about?" "Last Temptation of Christ?" And I say, "Cool, what role?" They say, "You idiot, for Christ." And I'm like, "Really? That's not a great idea." And then I said, "Send me the script and of course I'd love to talk to him." So I read the script and then I got it. I thought, "Oh, I get it. Yes, I should play this role." And I went in, we talked, I said yes. I loved it. He saw that I was the guy to do it. And it was a beautiful experience and I think it's, you know,
as much as you can be in love or not in love with your
movies, it's a beautiful movie. "How does it feel to be back to the horror for the first time since
Shadow of the Vampire?" Well, a lot of people
say I visited the horror a lot since then. But labels are tricky. One man's horror is another man's, I don't know, I don't know. Well that's kind of a
ending with a whimper. I wish we had one more
to really kick it off, but that's what editing is for folks. Thanks for watching.
