Willem Dafoe: From Jesus Christ To 'Antichrist'

Hailed as a vision containing an "undreamed of capacity for evil", Willem DaFoe has a lot to answer for when it comes to his latest film 'Antichrist'.

The highly provocative, high-art horror film caused outrage at this year's Cannes film festival with its graphic depictions of self-mutilation, masturbation and sexual violence.

Provoking further controversy, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has decided to pass the film completely uncut with an 18 certificate - meaning that from next week you can see the film, already being hailed the most controversial in Cannes history, in all its pseudo-psychological, gory, confusing and disturbing glory.

It's not stuff for those with a weak stomach or nervous disposition, and the film has caused people to walk out in disgust from test screenings, as well as sparking speculation whether the film's Danish director, Lars Von Trier, has completely gone off the rails.

To say the movie features high drama would be understating things - it opens with a couple having sex while in the next room their baby son falls out of an open window to his death.

From here we see the female lead, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, known only as 'she', in hospital. We learn her husband, Willem, known only as 'he', is a therapist and he takes the controversial decision to treat her himself.

From this point the film descends from an essay on family grief and rehabilitation into darker territory. The couple retreat to the woods where the male attempts to cure his wife of her anxiety and depression, but ultimately fails with catastrophic consequence.

Much of 'Antichrist' is unexplained and while appearing packed with significant meaning, a clear interpretation is very hard to achieve.

Instead, much of the drama building around the two actors - the only people in the film - comes from the atmosphere created by the setting and from the moment they step into the misty forest the film constantly jars as it builds to an unpredictable climax.

There is far more to 'Antichrist' than mere shock, however, and actors of the calibre of Willem - who twenty years ago caused controversy on the opposite side of Christianity portraying Jesus in the 'The Last Temptation of Christ' - aren't the type to lower themselves to appear in a 'video nasty' in the first place. In fact starring in a Von Trier movie requires a certain dedication from the off - as the director has a fear of flying, meaning he rarely works anywhere other than his home country.

Willem - who also collaborated with the director in 2006 for 'Manderlay' - found out he had an increased role in this film due to the fact it was born out of a period of deep depression for Von Trier. The director forced himself to write the film as a way of getting himself focused on his art again, and even by the time of shooting he wasn't steady enough to even operate a camera, describing himself as, "Helpless like an old man in a wheelchair. It was a humiliating way to work."

The director's dim worldview and experiences with therapy - as well as a lack of sympathy for the human condition - leave visible traces on the film and are particularly visible in Willem's character.

'Antichrist' was conceived and executed in exception circumstances, and the project inspired a level of dedication and belief in its story which is unusual among a cast - this is one of the reasons for us meeting Willem to talk about the film.

Having risen at 4am to fly from filming in Italy simply to talk about 'Antichrist' in London, the actor is filled with a wild enthusiasm and appetite for the movie. Despite its nightmarish content and having provoked polar opposite reactions in critics, he still greets us with a wry, playful smile.

BANG: So, what attracted you to this film in the first place?

Willem DaFoe: What do you think?! Lars. I called him up and said, 'What are you doing?' I knew him a little bit because I'd worked with him for 'Manderlay' and even though it was quite a small thing, I felt some kind of connection with him, and he was like, 'Let's do something again,' back then.

He sent me this script and it didn't seem to me that it was necessarily even like a proposal, what he was doing. But I read it and I really liked it a lot and I told him in detail what I thought and he said, 'Well, why don't you do it?'

And I went crazy for it, the material. I thought it was really good. It's hard to find movies which have content about adult things.

How do you interpret the film?

If someone said even in the most broad terms, 'What's this film about or what does this mean,' I have no idea, but I have a deeply involved experience with it and I am part of the film.

Do you feel the film's violence is justified?

This is more poetic and some of the stuff is hard to account for, but it has a great taste for me. You see the figures of grief, despair, how do you explain that? But it speaks to me, you know. The animals, the three beggars in the story, what the f**k is that? But it speaks to me.

These are all inventions but this is what I like, that he makes a world where, for me, they can exist and they don't need to be explained and they still have a resonance and help the story along.

That's the kind of inventiveness that I like in movies. This kind of mythology.

Do you see 'Antichrist' as a horror film?

It's not exactly. Because horror films feel slightly different and we're still dealing with the content of the story and the relationship in the story, even when it gets a little crazier.

It's dreamlike, and in horror films it's usually about playing a game with the audience, cat and mouse type thing, that's what I think about horror films.

Was Lars much more difficult to difficult to work with since 'Manderlay'?

Physically he was much shakier, because he couldn't even operate the camera anymore, which I know he hated. He had used the camera a lot during 'Manderlay' and on this he just seemed less fit and more fragile. But during the course of the movie he seemed to get stronger and stronger and now of course he's even better.

Do you think his fragile state was transferred into the finished product?

I think so, but he also created a bond between us where we had to pick up the slack. It made him more vulnerable and us a little stronger in terms of the collaboration.

You hear these crazy stories about how perverse he can be, but he really invited us to help him, and that's a powerful place to be when the guy is as smart as he is, as talented as he is and as committed to this material as he is.

Because above all, what Lars never gets enough credit for is that he is deeply sincere. He is a serious guy and he cares and he puts everything into what he does - that's why he gets so drained.

How did you feel about the backlash against the film?

The premiere was fantastic. A dream screening. But that doesn't get reported. What gets reported as the premiere is the press screening. And I feel like a schoolboy making that distinction, but it was far off. I was shocked; I felt this is really crazy, because it was widely presented that the disgusted reaction was the film's reception. That was the press reception, very different to the public reception.

The thing is it's not the kind of movie you can just make a judgement on an hour and a half after you've seen it.

It lingers and it haunts and if you have to decided how you feel about it immediately then it's almost impossible to enjoy, because its more extreme elements kind if separate out from it, because you're not in the movie.

At least, that's my take on it. I think with a little time and thoughtful evaluation, I think the critics will respond because he's playing with film language in an interesting way.

Are you surprised that the more shocking scenes were kept in the film?

No, because (laughs), well, we did worse. If you are excited about a film, you get very brave about it and at the same point that gives you the conviction.

What was your reaction when you found out your testicles were going to get crushed on film?

Hmmmm. Well (laughs) mainly practical actually - how we going to do this? Whose testicles are we going to use? How hard is that piece of wood she hits me with going to be? But it sounded good to me.

The way the script was written, for some of the more graphic stuff and some of the more formal, treated film aesthetics, it was quite detailed in the script. And it was quite interesting to see how the different modes of performance and filming were integrated. I always like Von Trier's more formal elements.

My first reaction was this is a beautiful hybrid of what he does. He takes the formal elements of 'Dogville' and 'Manderlay', with the looser elements of 'Breaking the Waves', the story elements of 'Elements of Crime', to the theatricality of 'Dancer in the Dark' and I felt like he really synthesised all these things into one movie in a strong and sensible way.

How did you find being so close and, essentially, acting intimately with your co-star Charlotte?

Well, I kissed her for the first time in front of the camera. I touched her for the first time, saw her naked for the first time in front of the camera. It was like that.

Lars is very thoughtful, very smart, you know, that's what sets the tone. She's there, I'm there, we worked together to do this thing. I always feel sentimental about it, I always feel sentimental when people come together for the greater good.

Do you think - given the background of the director, who has undergone a lot of therapy -that the overall tone gives a playful look at therapy, that Lars is making a critique of some of the things he's experienced himself?

I don't know because he's kind of mixed on therapy, and this is patterned after his kind of therapy, this exposure therapy in particular, so he had a stake in representing that in a reasonable way.

I won't say taking the p**s out of it or making fun of it - that was part of the story. While he says it doesn't really work for him, he sees how it works. Because it's about thinking about errors and about measuring the reasonableness of your thinking compared to your experience. They have all these words and things you can tag and label to recognise how your mind works.

On some level he believes in those things, but sometimes I would worry that we would represent it well. I wouldn't want to betray these CBT people who trained me and feel like they were letting me into their circle and letting me even sit in on their therapy sessions, then putting them in a bad light. The film probably isn't a great advertisement for therapy, but I think you kind of let them off the hook the second the guy says I know this isn't quite ethical or correct, but I'm going to treat my own wife.

Does the film invite people to over analyse it?

I don't think Lars judges, he's telling a story and it's a personal story and just like a dream, they can mean something, you can interpret them, but can you account for them? Well not exactly. You kind of have hints as to what might be the origins they are speaking of in your psyche, but you can't flat out stay this means this, that means that.

By Andy Tillett.

Hailed as a vision containing an "undreamed of capacity for evil", Willem DaFoe has a lot to answer for when it comes to his latest film 'Antichrist'.

The highly provocative, high-art horror film caused outrage at this year's Cannes film festival with its graphic depictions of self-mutilation, masturbation and sexual violence.

Provoking further controversy, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has decided to pass the film completely uncut with an 18 certificate - meaning that from next week you can see the film, already being hailed the most controversial in Cannes history, in all its pseudo-psychological, gory, confusing and disturbing glory.

It's not stuff for those with a weak stomach or nervous disposition, and the film has caused people to walk out in disgust from test screenings, as well as sparking speculation whether the film's Danish director, Lars Von Trier, has completely gone off the rails.

To say the movie features high drama would be understating things - it opens with a couple having sex while in the next room their baby son falls out of an open window to his death.

From here we see the female lead, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, known only as 'she', in hospital. We learn her husband, Willem, known only as 'he', is a therapist and he takes the controversial decision to treat her himself.

From this point the film descends from an essay on family grief and rehabilitation into darker territory. The couple retreat to the woods where the male attempts to cure his wife of her anxiety and depression, but ultimately fails with catastrophic consequence.

Much of 'Antichrist' is unexplained and while appearing packed with significant meaning, a clear interpretation is very hard to achieve.

Instead, much of the drama building around the two actors - the only people in the film - comes from the atmosphere created by the setting and from the moment they step into the misty forest the film constantly jars as it builds to an unpredictable climax.

There is far more to 'Antichrist' than mere shock, however, and actors of the calibre of Willem - who twenty years ago caused controversy on the opposite side of Christianity portraying Jesus in the 'The Last Temptation of Christ' - aren't the type to lower themselves to appear in a 'video nasty' in the first place. In fact starring in a Von Trier movie requires a certain dedication from the off - as the director has a fear of flying, meaning he rarely works anywhere other than his home country.

Willem - who also collaborated with the director in 2006 for 'Manderlay' - found out he had an increased role in this film due to the fact it was born out of a period of deep depression for Von Trier. The director forced himself to write the film as a way of getting himself focused on his art again, and even by the time of shooting he wasn't steady enough to even operate a camera, describing himself as, "Helpless like an old man in a wheelchair. It was a humiliating way to work."

The director's dim worldview and experiences with therapy - as well as a lack of sympathy for the human condition - leave visible traces on the film and are particularly visible in Willem's character.

'Antichrist' was conceived and executed in exception circumstances, and the project inspired a level of dedication and belief in its story which is unusual among a cast - this is one of the reasons for us meeting Willem to talk about the film.

Having risen at 4am to fly from filming in Italy simply to talk about 'Antichrist' in London, the actor is filled with a wild enthusiasm and appetite for the movie. Despite its nightmarish content and having provoked polar opposite reactions in critics, he still greets us with a wry, playful smile.

BANG: So, what attracted you to this film in the first place?

Willem DaFoe: What do you think?! Lars. I called him up and said, 'What are you doing?' I knew him a little bit because I'd worked with him for 'Manderlay' and even though it was quite a small thing, I felt some kind of connection with him, and he was like, 'Let's do something again,' back then.

He sent me this script and it didn't seem to me that it was necessarily even like a proposal, what he was doing. But I read it and I really liked it a lot and I told him in detail what I thought and he said, 'Well, why don't you do it?'

And I went crazy for it, the material. I thought it was really good. It's hard to find movies which have content about adult things.

How do you interpret the film?

If someone said even in the most broad terms, 'What's this film about or what does this mean,' I have no idea, but I have a deeply involved experience with it and I am part of the film.

Do you feel the film's violence is justified?

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