Willem Dafoe: The Hollywood Interview

Actor Willem Dafoe.



"BEHIND THE SHADOW:
Willem Dafoe on portraying cinematic legend/enigma Max Schreck, being directed by Steve Buscemi, and how one prepares to play the Son of God"
by Terry Keefe

Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in the February 2001 issue of Venice Magazine.

Max Schreck. It’s a name that to film fans conjures up the unforgettable images of the cinema’s very first vampire, played by German actor Schreck in director F.W. Murnau’s 1921 silent horror masterpiece Nosferatu. Schreck holds the dual distinction of being both one of the most recognizable figures in film history and also one of the most enigmatic. Besides "Nosferatu", few, if any, of Schreck's films even exist anymore and almost nothing is known of his life.

Willem Dafoe. It’s a name that to film fans conjures up unforgettable images of his acting performances in some of the best films of the past 20 years. And it is Dafoe who has brought the mysterious Max Schreck back from the grave in Lions Gate Films’ Shadow of the Vampire, a deliciously macabre tale of historical fiction about the making of “Nosferatu”. The film’s hook is that Max Schreck was an actual vampire hired by F.W. Murnau for the purposes of realism. Dafoe turns in a terrific performance as the vampire Schreck in a role that might have been very one-note in another actor’s hands. But throughout his entire career, Dafoe has specialized in adding layers of depth and humanity to challenging characters. Along the way, he’s also been unfairly saddled with the image of an actor who specializes in playing odd or peculiar roles. A closer examination of his career reveals a deeper truth - that he’s a daring artist who simply refuses to be satisfied with the creation of the bland or ordinary.

Willem Dafoe was born on July 22, 1955, in Appleton, Wisconsin, the second youngest of eight children. After leaving the University of Wisconsin, Dafoe made his way to Manhattan in the late 1970's where he became one of the founding members of the Wooster Group, a now-famous theater company which has been a pioneer in incorporating experimental elements of multimedia into the theatrical language. Dafoe still performs with them today.

Dafoe made his screen debut as a featured extra in Michael Cimino's legendary cinematic disaster Heaven's Gate. Things could only go up from there and they did, as Dafoe was cast as a beatnik biker named Vance in Kathryn Bigelow's little-seen 1982 feature The Loveless. Dafoe's next big role was also as a biker, of a very different sort, as he played the evil Raven in Walter Hill's underrated rock 'n roll fable Streets of Fire in 1984. But if Raven was a great villain, he was only a warm-up for Eric Masters, the counterfeiter/painter that Dafoe portrayed in William Friedkin's brilliant To Live and Die in L.A., which was released in 1985. Masters is the perfect L.A. villain - a talented artist who also happens to be a merciless killer - and Dafoe colors Masters with so many realistic mannerisms that he becomes far, far scarier than the average criminal antagonist.

Then came the film that changed everything for him, Oliver Stone's Platoon in 1986. The shot of Dafoe as Sergeant Elias, riddled with bullets and his arms stretched towards the heavens, would become the defining image of the film. And "Platoon" would finally bring Dafoe both worldwide fame and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. It's perhaps ironic that Dafoe's good-hearted Sergeant Elias is derisively referred to as a "water-walker" by another character in the film, because the next major role Dafoe would take would be as Jesus in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. This choice as a follow-up to "Platoon" is all the evidence you need of Dafoe's daring as an actor. While it's true that this was a lead role in a film directed by Martin Scorsese, "Last Temptation"'s controversial subject matter was guaranteed to offend many, and for an actor who had only just broken through with mainstream audiences, it was a risky move. But it was also very characteristic of the path Dafoe's career would take during the next decade. With the possible exception of 1997’s Speed 2: Cruise Control, rarely will you see him in a big studio blockbuster that was done just for the exposure or the paycheck. The one thing you can always count on from a Willem Dafoe project is that it will be interesting, at the very least, and usually much more than that.

His next film after playing the Son of God would be an acclaimed teaming with Gene Hackman as a pair of mismatched F.B.I. agents investigating a hate crime in 1988's terrific Mississippi Burning, directed by Alan Parker. Other notable performances include Wild at Heart (1990, as the vicious hit man Bobby Peru, for director David Lynch), Clear and Present Danger(1994, as government operative John Clark), Tom & Viv (1994, playing poet T.S. Eliot), The English Patient (1996, in which he was the mysterious war veteran Carravagio), Affliction (1997, as Rolfe, the long-suffering brother of Nick Nolte's Wade), and American Psycho (2000, playing Kimball, the police detective hounding the serial killer of the title).

This past fall, Dafoe starred in Animal Factory, the second film to be directed by Steve Buscemi. Dafoe plays Earl Copen, a lifer con who is the top dog in the prison yard, and who enters into a relationship with Edward Furlong's much-younger character Ron. It's a definite love story, but the film skirts the usual genre conventions by keeping the relationship almost entirely cerebral. "Animal Factory" is based on the book by Edward Bunker, a former con turned writer-actor who many also remember as Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs.

Which brings us to the present and "Shadow of the Vampire", directed by E. Elias Merhige from a screenplay by Steven Katz. As mentioned earlier, little is know of the real-life Max Schreck and this has led to endless speculation about his true story by fans of "Nosferatu" throughout the years. The most famous quote on record about Schreck is that a prominent German film producer once referred to him as "an actor of no distinction". And then there's the name - the word Schreck in German loosely translates as "shriek" or "scream", and it seems likely that it wasn't the man's real moniker. "Nosferatu" is shot almost like an early documentary and the film has a creepiness that stays with you for days. All of these factors provided fertile ground for "Shadow of the Vampire"'s take on what really happened during the making of "Nosferatu". In fact, watching the original again after seeing "Shadow" is a very unsettling experience. You're left thinking "what if?"

As Schreck, Dafoe is a quivering, scheming mass of long claws, fangs, vanity, and loneliness. Remarkably, Dafoe creates a Max Schreck who is not only scary and sad, but also very funny. Although he's uncomfortable in front of the cameras at first, Schreck soon becomes something of a prima donna, asking for more make-up and questioning parts of the script. Dafoe also re-creates the real-life Max Schreck's original performance beat-for-beat in the "film within the film". It's a multi-layered, tour-de-force performance worthy of an Oscar.

In January, Dafoe began shooting the much-anticipated Spider-Man with director Sam Raimi. He'll play yet another icon in this one: Norman Osborne, who any good comic book fan knows is also Spidey's arch-nemesis -the sinister, pumpkin bomb-throwing Green Goblin. One imagines that the make-up required for "Shadow of the Vampire" will have been a good warm-up for what Dafoe will be wearing as the Green Goblin - in the comics, the Goblin is covered with green scales, has pointed ears, and flies around Manhattan on an airborne "goblin glider"! And it’s a safe bet that because it’s Dafoe behind the mask, the Green Goblin will have a lot more depth than your typical wisecracking comic-book villain. We sat down with Willem Dafoe this past December to discuss his career and all things Schreck.

Can you tell us about your preparation to play Max Schreck?
Well, there wasn't a lot I could do until I got in the make-up, in the costume. I read about Murnau. I looked at his films. I certainly acquainted myself with "Nosferatu", because I had to be well acquainted with the film...I had certain sequences that I knew we were going to replicate that I had to know very well. Also, I knew I wanted to have an accent, so I got some Slovakian accents from the Tatrus Mountains (in the South of Poland) and listened to them, then scored out an accent with a dialogue couch in New York. And then just made certain adjustments for clarity and what felt right. And through that, I found the voice, which of course had to be invented because there's nothing to copy in that case. Then it was really about dealing with the costume and the make-up, which was everything because that became the key, that became the mask, that became the mode to find the character, because it was so extreme that it informed everything you did.

When you finally did get into the make-up then, did you have to spend a lot of time finding the character further or was it immediate?
It was fairly quick. We did some tests. Then every morning of the shoot, I'd be the first one there. And it was three hours of make-up, which was always a great preparation for the day. Because you're sitting there every day for three hours and you have to be quite still because some of it is quite delicate work. And you look in the mirror and it was a process of seeing 'you' as you know yourself, what you identify with individually as yourself, starting to recede away and having this other character come forward, as you became more and more obscured. So you start to look less like yourself and then you start to feel less like yourself and then you start to even think less like yourself, because you're encouraging that transformation willfully. Then you apply yourself to the story and certain impulses come.

When I tried to find out more about the original Max Schreck, the only thing I really learned is that he was once referred to as "an actor of no distinction". Is that pretty much what you found out?
That's pretty much it. But to tell you the truth, I didn't feel that compelled to find out that much about him because, although any information can be useful, I was most interested in the Max Schreck of the performance, of the performance as Count Orlock. That's what I was dealing with. The other part was really the invention of Steven Katz' screenplay.

I was just curious about what you thought about Max Schreck as an actor.
Oh, I think he's great. You know....traditionally, silent film acting is considered hammy and unsophisticated and amateurish. But if you kind of let go your criteria for what is 'acting', which is usually based on our notions of realism and naturalism, there's some very beautiful things that happen (in Schreck's performance). In his awkwardness, there's a grace. There's a poetry to his simple actions. We aren't handing out prizes here, and it's particularly not important when the guy's been dead for so long. So whether he's a good actor or not, I don't know. But I do know that in watching him, there is some poetry.

How was working with your director, E. Elias Merhige?
It was great. An actor wants a good set-up. He gave me a good set-up, and he kept me on track. And then some. He's very supportive. He's very passionate about what he does. He paid alot of attention to the technical aspects of it, to create the conventions in the "film within the film" sequences. He's quite ambitious and quite driven and I think on some level he identified with Murnau (laughs). But in other ways he's not at all like Murnau, because he's very sweet and very warm.

You recreated Schreck's performance flawlessly for those "film within the film" sequences. How many times did you watch "Nosferatu"?
We had it on the set. I mean, we watched it a lot, but then...we had a cassette of it available always. And sometimes we'd huddle around it and there'd be debates about actually what we were seeing. We would get together and it would be amazing how some people would see different things than other people, watching the same thing. It was a lesson about perception. And sometimes we'd argue about what we actually saw. Because the rule was that, as much as possible, we'd try to recreate those moments.

Murnau and the Vampire are very similar people. It's very hard to say who's the real monster and also who's really directing the project.
As Schreck says in the movie, "We are not so very different, you and me." (laughs)

I wanted to talk about another film of yours that was just released, "Animal Factory". Could you tell us a little bit about working with the director Steve Buscemi?
Sure. Steve's an old friend and I only mention that not to name-drop, but that does make a difference in this case. I've known him for many years. I knew him when he was a fireman, before he was an actor...he was a New York City fireman in Little Italy. And he was doing his comedy sketches with Mark Boone Junior in the clubs. And I went off to do "Platoon" and he filled in for me at the theater, at the Wooster Group. And then I've known him through the years and we've kept in touch. And when this project came up, he said he wanted me to do it and I thought it was a beautiful story. It was fun being directed by someone you knew very well because you could skip to the chase on alot of stuff. And he directed me like an actor, because the language is there. I also felt like sometimes it was almost as if he was doing the role, but he was doing it through me.

Let's talk about your background a bit. You were raised in Wisconsin and you're the second youngest of 8 children. That's a big family - were your parents or any of your siblings also artistic?
They're all artistic but professionally they did other things. It's the old story - I'm the actor but when we get together for a family reunion, they're all far more talented than I am (laughs).

When did the acting bug get a hold of you?
When I was quite young...I was in school plays, and I was in summer stock. Then I went to Europe for a little while and I went to New York. And 23 years ago I started working with the Wooster Group and I still work with them now.

It seems like it's a great balance creatively to be able to do both the Wooster Group and the films.
It is. Sometimes it's frustrating because sometimes I feel like I'm cheating one world when I go to the other one. It's like having two lovers. But at the same time, being with one makes you better for the other one (laughs). Not sure if I should say that - get me in trouble! (laughs again). No, for me, sometimes it's hard because you have two masters. But sometimes it's good because when you go back and forth between the two it always forces you to find out why you do what you do. It really is a great insurance against falling into a routine.

One of your first major film roles was in 1985, when you played Eric Masters in William Friedkin's "To Live and Die in L.A.". It's a terrific film which was kind of overlooked at the time it came out.
It was. It's actually a film that directors have responded to. And I think I got alot of work in my early days from that movie. That was a very important movie for me. People, key people, really responded to it. It was seen as a failure. It was an independent at the time, when independents seldom got that kind of release, with a prestige director and basically an unknown cast. But the thing that I remember about it was that a lot of the reviews said the same things and I think it was ahead of its time, because they basically said, "We don't know who to root for. Everybody's so horrible in this. There's no one that we can identify with. This is a crummy movie because you've gotta have someone to identify with. These people are so corrupt." Well, I think Billy Friedkin somehow prefigured the coming of the kind of love affair with the anti-hero that someone like Quentin Tarantino knew so well and audiences responded to.

In 1986, you filmed a role that really catapulted you into the national spotlight, that of Sergeant Elias in Oliver Stone's "Platoon". Could you talk about the production a little bit?
I just remember meeting Oliver and thinking, "God, I don't know anyone in Hollywood like this guy!" (laughs) I loved the preparation for it, the training, it was very tough. We had people that really cared about what was being conveyed, so there were really high stakes in making the movie, Vietnam Vets that wanted their story to be told. So the training and the whole movie was done in a spirit, a very intense spirit. I loved making it. But I thought, because you've got to remember the climate at the time, I thought, "This movie is not going to see the light of day. There aren't any big stars in it. It's the kind of war movie that could be seen as depressing to some people. It could have political problems for some people. This is going to get misidentified and wind up on a video shelf next to kung-fu movies." I really did think that. And that's no judgment on what I thought we were making. It's a judgment on how I thought it would get to an audience.

The next major role you took after “Platoon“ was “The Last Temptation of Christ“. Did you have any reservations about taking the role?
No. And I've said it before, I don't know why I didn't (laughs). No, I didn't because the way Marty approached me...saying what kind of Christ he wanted it to be. I thought, "I'm the perfect guy to play this." And I think that movie probably had a profound influence on me, professionally and in my life. It was a great experience. It was a movie where I really felt used, I mean “used” in the best sense of the word. As an actor, I want to be used. I want to use my body and my mind, my voice, whatever I've got, for something. And Marty had this beautiful story to tell. He made this movie in his head for many years, and I felt privileged to be involved in it. It was a deeply felt experience, and when I finished it, I felt really spent. And that's such a good feeling.

What type of preparation did you do to play Jesus?
As little as possible. I mean, the thing that I'm always struck with is that it was more a process of elimination rather than accumulation. Because you wanted to cleanse yourself of any kind of expectation. The whole notion of the way the story goes, Jesus is a very reactive character. He's dealing with what is being presented to him. So you want to be in a place where you could receive that without knowing the outcome too much, you wanted to be very open-hearted and open-minded about it. So it's like sometimes I think I like to start from a place of not knowing, probably end up at a place of not knowing too (laughs) but in that one (Jesus) deeply there was an aspect of him that was like an innocent, so I didn't want the overview. I didn't want the information. I just wanted to deal with it as it was presented to me. And because it was so well-designed and it was framed so beautifully, that was a good place to be.

You made a lot of comic book fans, including myself, very happy when you agreed to play the Green Goblin in the "Spider-Man" film that you're about to shoot with Sam Raimi.
I'm excited about it. But there's not a lot I can say about it right now. Not purely for secrecy, but because I'm just starting. There's a lot of comic book fans we've got to make happy. The stakes are high (laughs).