Dancer In The Dark (2000)—"Bill Houston"
DM: We shot it all in Sweden and Denmark. It was obviously supposed to take place in the Pacific Northwest, but Lars does not travel, because he has this odd view of America. I had said no to that movie a number of times, and it hurt me to do it, because I'd loved his films before. I couldn't wait to get the script when I heard that he was sending it, and I read it and… [Laughs.] I couldn't believe he was going to make a musical out of this. It was just so grim, but my manager convinced me to talk to him. I still didn't feel like I could do it, but I told him I would think about it. And it was literally 12:30 one night and I was flipping through channels and there was this incredible scene from this movie on, and I couldn't stop watching it. I realized what I was watching was Breaking The Waves, and I called Lars the next day and we talked more, and I said, "Whatever happens, this experience is going to be amazing. The movie may stink, but there's no doubt this experience is going to be amazing." So I said yes, and the experience was truly amazing, one of my favorite experiences, and I think the movie itself is amazing too. Obviously there's a big gap between how people feel about the movie. Either people hate it or just completely love it, and I'm one of those people who loves it. I think it's remarkable.
AVC: Other actors have reported having a hard time working with Lars von Trier. You didn't find it to be difficult?
DM: I didn't find anything about him difficult. He had that reputation, and I did not see a day of it. I've worked with directors who were monsters on the set, who were bullies and abusive and screamers. I didn't see Lars do that at all. I know Björk said she had a hard time, but I didn't see any of that. I know there were times when they were working together when they maybe got into it a little, but I think part of it was Björk is someone who had been a star since she was 13 years old or something, and everything had revolved around her. She called the shots for much of her life, and suddenly to be in another person's hands, I think that was hard for her. But I loved working with her, and I think she's amazing in the movie, and I was so impressed with her integrity in how she did it, having never acted before. It was really exciting to be working opposite her.
The Green Mile (1999)—"Brutal Howell"
DM: I think I was the second person cast in it, though I don't know who the first person was. Frank Darabont, I had worked with a little in HBO's Two-Fisted Tales series, before he directed The Shawshank Redemption. He called me up and said he was going to send a script, and the only thing he was worried about was that I would want to improvise, so I was quick to assure him that I didn't want to improvise. I didn't want to change his lines. You basically have to tell the director whatever they want to hear when you're looking to get a job. [Laughs.] That script was a script that everyone who read wanted to be a part of. Everybody who read it wept; it was just wonderfully moving. And I was one of those people. I got the script, and there was just no doubt that I wanted to be that man and be in that world and go through that. When we made the movie, it was supposed to be shot in three months, and we wound up shooting it in five months, which put a lot of pressure on people. And it was a long five months. But I think all of us looking back on that probably are grateful it went five months, because of the experience of being with each other. All those actors, all those people doing such amazing work. We just got to spend that much more time together in such a rare film.
I think Frank has a real sense of how to tell Stephen King's stories on film. He's a really good storyteller. He's completely the opposite of Lars von Trier. Lars, when you're shooting, doesn't give a damn about his script. The camera will be rolling and he'll say, "This is crap, just say what your subtext is," and you're improvising constantly in the flow of things. And if something happens that's not in the script, that's great. I was doing a scene in Dancer In The Dark where I walked out the door of the trailer and I'm supposed to be off-camera, except that Lars walked out with the camera following me, so I had to keep acting. I haven't got a clue what I want to do, and slowly people start stumbling out, and we wind up doing a scene outside the trailer that was never written, and that's how Lars works. But Frank is completely the opposite. A woman who has worked with him on everything he's ever done told me, "There isn't a comma in there that he doesn't fret over. There isn't a moment that he hasn't lived with and imagined and seen how to shoot it, and it's really fulfilling that this thing he's lived with in his mind for so long is what you're there to help him create."
Proof Of Life (2000)—"Peter Bowman"
DM: Well the scandal with Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe is what everyone remembers, but we were so unaware of it while it was going on. It was like the world found out about it before we did. The first thing that comes to mind to me is that Taylor Hackford, when he asked me to do it, said he wanted an actor that could go to the edge of the cliff with him, because this role was going to be so physically demanding, both in the world that he was going to be shooting in—which turned out to be completely true—and emotionally. He just wanted someone who was willing to put himself in his hands and go the distance with him. I thought that was a great challenge, and I was excited to say yes to that.
Obviously, we didn't know that it was going to be as dangerous as it was. My stand-in wound up being killed during the movie, doing a scene I was supposed to do. My stepfather was dying in Massachusetts, and I only had three days off in the whole film. I had flown up to Massachusetts to see him because he only had two weeks to live. As soon as I got off the plane, Taylor called and said, "You're going to have to come back here to shoot a scene, and then you can go back and see your stepfather," and I said, "Well, I don't know if he'll be alive when I get back here. I'll get back on as soon as I can, but I'm not going to go back tomorrow." And he was furious at me, and the next day, they shot the scene with my stand-in, and the truck he was in went off a cliff with five other people in it, and he was killed. And he was a very sweet man, thrilled about being a part of this movie. He and his wife were down there. It was very sad, very tragic event, and very difficult on the crew that was there shooting that day. It was a second-unit crew. But even out of that, there were some inspiring moments, and it all had to do with Will's family. Will was the young guy who died, and his family could not have been more concerned about the crew, or more generous to the crew. They didn't blame any of them or any of us. These were people who lost their golden boy, their oldest son, and they're down there caring for the crew. It was so devastating. So that's probably the first thing that comes to my mind.
AVC: Is it difficult for you to watch the film now?
DM: Well, there's obviously a lot of meaning to that film that goes beyond what you see on that screen.
Hounddog (2007)—"Daddy"
DM: A silly controversy with that film [regarding child actress Dakota Fanning playing a rape victim]. It was silly to begin with, and it's too bad for the film, because it got the wrong kind of attention. It wasn't the attention it deserved. Deborah Kampmeier had tried to get that movie made for 10 years, and was so crushed and overwhelmed by that furor or whirlwind that surrounded it. It just couldn't ever be looked at on its own terms, and I think that was too bad.
AVC: Do you make a conscious effort to divide your career between parts that pay well and smaller projects like this that you can help out just by lending your name to them?
DM: Yeah, I do. Because of my experience having done St. Elsewhere. Before I agreed to do St Elsewhere, I'd said I would never do television, and then I wound up doing nothing but television for almost 10 years, and I got so typecast from that character—that St. Elsewhere sort of sensitive, nice victim—that I just decided I was never going to let myself get in that position again, or do my hardest not to. I wanted to make sure that I kept as much of a balance between television, which can do a lot that film can't do, and independent films, where you get to experience worlds and characters which big-budget movies can't touch, and those big-budget movies, which can be a lot of fun. And I've enjoyed being able to maintain that balance over the years.
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