Interview with Marvel star Willem Dafoe: “Shit is always funny”

Willem Dafoe began his career in one of Hollywood’s biggest flops, Heaven’s Gate. Four decades later, he can boast a remarkable filmography. He’s played everything from Green Goblin to Jesus Christ. In his new film Inside, he plays master thief Nemo, who is being held captive by the apartment he plans to break into.

He actually only wanted to steal five paintings by Egon Schiele. But the ultra-modern complex in the heart of New York locks all windows and doors. A struggle for survival begins for Nemo, while the other residents of the high-rise have no idea that a burglar is starving, dying of thirst and possibly dying in the apartment next to them.

From the Marvel universe to the horror apartment: Willem Dafoe on the thriller Inside

When Inside premiered at the Berlinale in February, I caught up with Willem Dafoe to talk about the nerve-wracking thriller. The film has also been running regularly in German cinemas since Thursday.

You can watch the trailer for Inside here:

Moviepilot: Inside takes place exclusively in one place and tells of a character who cannot escape it. Did the project come about as a reaction to the corona pandemic and the various lockdowns?

Willem Dafoe: Not really. The idea is already ten years old. The director [Vasilis Katsoupis] approached me about five years ago with the project. We’ve been talking about it ever since. It took a long time before we could shoot. A lot of time went into research. How do we build the apartment? How do we get the artworks? And how do we finance the film? We shot during the pandemic. So there are definitely parallels. Our film tells about a person who cannot go outside. In contrast to Corona, where the whole world has developed strategies, the thief in Inside is on his own. Despite the isolation, we felt a sense of community. Nemo is completely ripped out of his life and imprisoned there.

What interested you most about the role?

I was particularly drawn to the fact that there is hardly any dialogue in the film, which completely changes the preparation for the scenes. All of a sudden you get on set, step into that place and you’re trapped yourself. It wasn’t even necessary for me to come up with a backstory for the character. Everything arises the moment we get to know him. I also liked that the film is very straightforward. Everything plays in one place. And then there is the relationship that develops between the character and the artworks in the apartment. Overall, it was a nice balancing act between an active, physical role and lots of quiet, meditative moments.

How exactly can I imagine a screenplay without dialogue?

There are many, many descriptions. But a lot of it can be deleted because it doesn’t appear in the finished film. It was a pretty thin script. As a result, it didn’t have any of the dialogue that you hear in the film.

Does that mean the story has changed a lot over the ten years?

Exactly. The idea originally came from the director. I don’t know how many different versions of the story there are though. We planned a lot of things before and during the shoot that didn’t make it into the film.

Can you reveal what didn’t make it into the film?

There was a very nice sequence where we played with the neon writing on the wall. I was sitting on the set waiting for something when I realized that you could make other sentences out of the letters, something that Nemo would also do out of boredom. However, we didn’t find a way to implement the scene convincingly. Happens. Another example would be the cooking show, only a very short version of which is in the film. Actually, this should be a much longer scene in which I [Köchin] Imitate Julia Child with her unmistakable voice. Unfortunately we had to cut that.

I’ve often wondered if you were really shooting in a New York apartment or in a studio.

It was all a studio. We shot in Cologne, where the apartment was built. That was the only way we could do it all on our budget. Because basically we’re destroying the entire apartment in our film.

So a real apartment was out of the question?

No, that would not have been possible. We would have needed $40 million for a penthouse in New York alone. For this we had a large 360-degree set that you could rotate from all angles. There wasn’t just a blanket. There were all the headlights, but of course you don’t see that in the film.

But what you see is the skyline of New York. How did you solve it?

It’s all a projection. The shots were taken well before the shooting in Cologne, so the backgrounds could easily be projected and the lights adjusted during shooting.

Your character is locked in the apartment for a very long time and is increasingly losing his mind. Did you sometimes lose yourself on the set?

One of the most intriguing things was that there is no sense of time at all on this set. It feels like the sun and sunlight is being taken away from you. You’re always in the studio and have no idea what time it is. I was in one place the whole time, wearing the same costume. I don’t even bring my cell phone to the set. That’s a rule I set myself. So I’m there all day and I lose all sense of time – the story that we’re telling blurs with the shooting.

Inside is another role that demands a lot from you physically and mentally. Where do you draw the line that you say you don’t do that?

Yes, there are some gross, vulgar moments in the film. Where do I draw the line? I don’t know it. [lacht] Pitch me a scene and we’ll find out. In the end, most of it is very funny. Take the shit scene in Inside, for example. Shit is always funny because we all know that. Everyone has some experience with it. You could say that shit unites us all. [lacht]

The film comes to the conclusion that you have to destroy something that already exists in order to create something new. do you agree

I think that’s the way things go. That is the nature of existence. Everything ends and from these ends something new is born. Spring follows winter, summer follows spring, and so on. When something dies, it prepares the ground for something new to grow. This process surrounds us all.

How do you see yourself in a role as an artist or actor? You create a performance in front of the camera – what do you destroy for it?

In the beginning there is a white wall. Everything is possible. In the end, this wall no longer exists because I made it my own. It is a transformative process that is also commented on in the film. Nemo destroys the apartment to create an escape route. The original function of something is reversed. There’s a certain beauty to that too, and it happens a number of times in the film. When he ends his message [an den Besitzer des Apartments] leaves behind, there is also a political thought behind it. “You rich bastard with all your money and art. I climbed to the top of the mountain and saw what lies beyond.”

A fun detail is the Macarena song that plays whenever he leaves the fridge open for too long. How did that come about?

I didn’t choose the song, but I think it’s a very good choice. To be honest, I was surprised that we could afford the rights to it. He’s well-known, fun, but can also be very annoying. That goes very well with the film.

Where we are with the music. You also sing a song in the film. What is the story behind it?

Beard and hair grow longer. You’re soaking wet and limping around because your leg is injured. Then you cut your hand too. You have to come up with something to not completely lose your mind. I thought of a song I know by a mother who used to work as a nurse with catatonic patients. One of these patients sang the same song from morning to night. [singt] “I’m going to heaven on a hillside, I’m going to heaven on a hillside.” I took that into the film because it’s something to hold on to when everything around you doesn’t make much sense.

Inside has been in German cinemas since March 16, 2023.

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