Stephen Dorff Says Filming 'Somewhere' Was 'Pretty Extreme'

'It's the most naked part you could ever play,' Dorff says of his role in the Sofia Coppola-directed film.
By Kara Warner, with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Stephen Dorff
Photo: MTV News

For many moviegoers familiar with his work, Stephen Dorff is most recognized for playing dark, destructive and evil characters à la Deacon Frost in "Blade" — the role for which he took home an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain. His new movie "Somewhere," written and directed by Sofia Coppola, is a complete departure from much of his previous work, a role that required Dorff to step into new territories of both filmmaking and acting.

"This one was pretty extreme because [Coppola] wanted to experience some real-time acting on film," Dorff told MTV News of Coppola, whose unique directorial style involved getting lingering shots of his character just staring off in the distance or literally doing nothing. "So if I smoke a cigarette, that might be one line in the script but in the movie it might be five minutes, so it's very authentic," he added.

Dorff said the role of Johnny Marco, a disenchanted movie star and absent father to 11-year-old Cleo (played by Elle Fanning), was the most challenging of his career thus far.

"It's the most naked part you could ever play, really, because there's no plot driving the emotion," he said. "There's no explosions, nobody dying to trigger an emotional breakdown, there's no bank robbery. This is a film that's based on almost a portrait of a guy we open with, and we find the monotony in his life. Then when Elle comes into play, Cleo, it becomes really this movie about an adolescent father who needs a change in his life or he's headed for disaster."

Dorff described Marco as broken, lost, confused and bored with his life, until his daughter comes along and he starts to realize how spending time with her, actually being a father, makes him happy.

"While he's been going through that, he's missed probably three years of crucial time with his daughter and the fog starts to lift throughout the film," he explained. "He starts to see this beautiful girl and starts to get his act together."

"Somewhere" began a limited run in theaters on Wednesday.

Check out everything we've got on "Somewhere."

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