It’s somewhat disconcerting that Willem Dafoe is not casting a larger shadow in the Best Actor conversation this season. His performance as Vincent van Gogh in Julian Schnabel’s “At Eternity’s Gate” has already earned him the Best Actor prize from the 2018 Venice Film Festival and almost universal critical acclaim. It might be because Schnabel’s latest effort challenges the viewer more than they might expect in both how they view what might have been seen as a traditional biopic. But, frankly, that’s fine by Dafoe.
The three-time Oscar nominee sat down for an in-depth conversation in a comfy bungalow at the Chateau Marmont where we discussed his process for “Eternity’s Gate” and segued to what has become a very busy year and a half stretch for him. In fact, Dafoe had just arrived early that morning from Canada where he’d been shooting a new film on a cold and snowy landscape less than 12 hours beforehand. A few weeks after our conversation James Wan’s “Aquaman” would open and it’s another blockbuster on Dafoe’s increasingly fascinating and impressive resume. And, trust, Dafoe is well aware of the unique adventures he’s constantly undertaking whether big or small.
Also, feel free to check out this 45-minute Q&A between myself and Dafoe for the SAG-Aftra Foundation.
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The Playlist: You’ve done it before, but it’s still daunting to take on such a noted historical figure as Van Gogh. What made you want to do it?
I wasn’t thinking about that, I think. Julian’s a painter. He’s also a filmmaker. I know him for many years. I’ve been around him when he’s painting, I’ve been around him when he’s making movies. And, certainly, he has lots of special knowledge and personal connection to Van Gogh. And also, having read the letters years ago, I have an interest in Van Gogh. So basically, a painter making a movie about a painter and have it not be a forensic biopic, is an interesting proposition. Of course, like any time you’re trying to play a character, particularly if it’s not a traditional biopic, it’s sort of like the first thing you’ve got to do is forget you’re playing this famous historical figure. And just concentrate on the stuff that you have in the film, and what you have to learn to give you some sort of personal relationship, or go towards the material that you have. So, in this case, it was the letters, it was the painting and seeing through Julian’s eyes, really changing how I look at things visually.
Julian is an acclaimed visual artist. How do you think that inspires his direction on set?
Yeah, it’s a good question. Everybody’s different. Julian, has a strong instinct and strong vision. But he’s also very receptive to what is presented to him. When you’re out in nature, he lets nature tell him, someone, what has to be done. When he’s in a room painting, he lets the light tell him what has to be done. So there’s a great strength, but there’s also a great flexibility. Also, I’d say he creates a family. And, he’s a strong personality, but he encourages you to find your personal stake and be a collaborator with him. So, when we’re working, the rigid boundaries of who’s responsible for what, kind of disappear and you all feel like you’re making the same thing. He’s leading things and he’s very clear about what he wants to do. But he’s also fixing your hair, he’s fixing the set, he’s painting, he’s letting me shoot some of the scenes with the camera. It’s very hands-on, it’s very organic. It’s not like industrial filmmaking. It’s very personal. It’s like you go out on an expedition. You have an idea of what you’re trying to find. But things also happen to you, and you are there to receive them. And you’re changed by the experience, and what he records, what he frames, what he organizes, becomes a record of that experience.
I spoke to cinematographer Benoit Delhomme this season and he was telling me a story about the day that you shot a very visceral scene where the camera follows you running out of a church, onto a long road and, eventually, into a field as the sun is setting. Originally, he was supposed to have a Steadicam operator shoot it, but the cameraman quit the day of filming. And, at the last minute, Julian said to him, “Just put it on your shoulder. Follow Willem.” So, I’ve heard his side of the story. Can I hear your side? Because and, correct me if I’m wrong, Julian had said to just leave the location of the previous scene, a church, and he didn’t tell you where to go or where to stop.
Right. We would kind of plan out things, but we wouldn’t rehearse in the traditional way. And, there was no traditional coverage at all in this movie. So, you’ve got a very fluid camera. And, the beginning of that scene. What you know has to happen in the scene is you know that Gauguin’s [played by Oscar Isaac] going to leave Van Gogh. And Van Gogh is going to be very torn up about it. He has a very specific idea about, visually, where he wants to shoot. We’re going to shoot in this chapel. We’re having an argument, and at some point, we knew that I was going to leave. And that was sort of up to me. And how far I went, and where I went, there was a rough idea, but Benoit and I became like dancing partners. There was a complicity there. And, a flexibility there. It’s not pure improvisation, because our objectives were very clear. But, we did not rehearse spatially and he was very able to roll with me and I was able to roll with him. When it works well, and you have a partner like that, you have a great possibility to act on impulse.
But in that particular case, the sun was setting, it was twilight. There was a limited amount of time to get it right.
But it was always like that. I mean, Julian is very much a first thought, best thought kind of guy. And that’s expressive. Also, in the film a little bit, this kind of quickness, this kind of decisiveness, this kind of sincerity and directness.
Besides the letters was there anything you researched and found once you took the role that you felt was important in your performance, that maybe wasn’t in the script?
No. I mean, I don’t think in those terms. I don’t interpret a script. The script is a vehicle to have an experience. And I also don’t have a sense of my performance. I have a sense of the experience of approaching this role and trying to inhabit this role.
Right.
I mean, there are surprises. But I’m not that calculated. It was done quite organically, and quite instinctively.
So was it more important to you than to tell the story, than to tell the history?
No, I’d say it was most important to inhabit him. The camera’s responsibility was to be with me as I was doing these Van Gogh things. Painting, dealing with people. The structure of it is very much a series of portraits. Talking heads The close-ups of conversations, these landscapes. And they kind of mimic Van Gogh’s work, because that’s obviously what his work is. But, really, what I concentrated on most was the painting.
I apologize for not knowing this, but are you a visual artist yourself? Had you painted before?
I had but in a much less profound way. Many years ago, I painted a little bit because I played an artist in “To Live and Die in LA,” a Billy Friedkin movie. But more to the point, that guy was also a counterfeiter and a murderer. [Laughs.] That was more of what the story was about. But, to help me get a taste for being an artist, I started painting, and I had someone teach me the technical aspects of mixing colors, and how to prepare a canvas and that sort of thing. But this was much different, because Julian not only taught me how to paint, he also taught me how to see. He taught me how to paint the light. He taught me how to paint what I saw, not what I thought I saw, or what something represented. It really liberated me and brought me into really seeing in a different way. Looking past the surface and the function of things, and seeing things in their relationship to this world of the rise and fall of everything. So, it becomes quite profound. And the more I think about it, movies are great when they change how we see. Everybody talks about them in terms of narrative and sharing stories. And that’s all true. And there’s a beauty of that. There’s a beautiful social thing of that. It’s important to share our stories. But, even more important is to challenge how we think and how we see and how we see our relationship to each other, and to nature and to the unseen. And that, in this movie, is really what I was most interested in.