Actor Dane DeHaan talks to The Inside Reel about mindset, movement, direction and character research in regards to his Quibi series "The Stranger" recut as a feature film for Hulu.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC]
00:10 You wanna know what this story is?
00:15 I will break you.
00:17 [MUSIC]
00:26 But see, most people know that most people who are evil don't think they're evil.
00:30 They're thinking they're going for a common good.
00:32 Think about Carl.
00:32 Carl doesn't apologize, and he just goes for it.
00:35 And that's a beautiful thing.
00:37 Do you have to sort of just completely separate?
00:39 Because you've played villains before, of course.
00:41 But do you have to separate yourself from their motivation versus who they actually are?
00:47 Or is it just about moving forward to the journey of what their end goal is?
00:51 No, I think, well, I think what you said is totally accurate.
00:54 And I think this is the first character.
00:56 Of course, I've played bad guys in the past, but they're usually like,
01:00 their motivations are, they think they're doing the right thing,
01:05 or they have a troubled childhood or whatever.
01:08 But I do think Carl, he's just an evil motherfucker.
01:13 Like he's just a bad guy.
01:14 Like he's doing bad things because he's bad.
01:17 He's being evil because he enjoys being evil.
01:21 And so like that, but that to me, like it helped me to indulge in the evilness of it
01:27 and to have fun while shooting it because, you know, it's fun to have permission to misbehave.
01:33 Like I had an acting teacher one time that always said, like, be the good guy,
01:37 the good boy in the classroom and the bad boy on stage, you know?
01:42 And I think once you're given that permission, it can be a whole lot of fun, you know?
01:48 Well, I mean, yeah, there is a deliciousness to them.
01:51 And I mean, considering, I mean, but the aspect of all this cancel culture,
01:55 this feels like more like a 90s thriller that it's just balls to the wall,
01:59 do what you do, sort of cool and not worry about the consequences.
02:03 But you know what that keys in, I saw it a lot here was in the movement,
02:07 how he goes from still to just vicious, sort of that element.
02:11 And I mean, obviously, after seeing Oppenheimer, where they had to be very controlled.
02:16 It's interesting seeing sort of that modulation.
02:19 Is that part, do you work the inside out in that way in terms of physical to emotional?
02:23 Or is it the reverse?
02:25 What do you find works for you?
02:26 Uh, yeah, I mean, generally, no, it's all good.
02:31 Generally, I always work inside out, you know, like, I'm not really thinking about
02:34 how I'm going to say something or how my character moves or all that.
02:40 It's all about understanding the psychology of the character and
02:44 trying to then like believe in that and allowing that to inform my decisions, you know.
02:48 I think that's almost always how I work.
02:54 Hey, what happened?
02:59 My passenger from tonight, she pulled a knife on me.
03:02 He attacked me.
03:04 If he finds me, he will kill me.
03:09 This one, it's interesting because you're the puppet master.
03:13 So you're doing some of the action stuff versus like when you've had to do a lot more action.
03:19 Does that give you a little bit more sort of control of trajectory in terms of
03:24 knowing how you're going to do each scene when it's not being controlled,
03:28 like say by a stunt coordinator, or it has to fit into a larger sequence?
03:32 Does it change your psyche in terms of seeing a project?
03:37 It can, yeah.
03:39 I mean, like look, doing big action sequences is its own monster, you know.
03:44 I mean, like the amount of work that goes into those and the pre-visits and all of that.
03:49 I mean, in a way, like when you're doing something like that,
03:52 you're only trying to bring someone else's vision to life in a really specific way.
03:56 When something is more like dialogue and character driven,
04:00 there's obviously more freedom there in my interpretation to
04:05 lead the character a certain way or have certain moments and that kind of thing.
04:10 You know, I think we had like a week of rehearsal in this and it was just all about
04:14 making sure I understood what Vina was going for as clearly as I could.
04:21 And luckily, it seemed like we were on the same page.
04:24 So she really gave me freedom to have a lot of, to kind of do what I wanted to do.
04:30 And she was always there for me if I needed her.
04:34 But after that week, and you know, I feel like I was really just given permission to
04:39 let it fly.
04:40 And so, yeah, I mean, that's incredibly different than like a giant action sequence when
04:46 you're shooting it bit by bit and really just making almost like a, I mean, when you do those
04:50 big action sequences, there's basically already a bad cartoon of it that you're watching that
04:55 you're trying to make come to life, you know?
04:57 - Yeah.
04:58 - It's just like, it's like insert my face here.
05:01 Whereas this, it's more of a free flowing situation.
05:05 - What do you mean that someone's trying to kill you?
05:11 What does that mean?
05:12 - That, literally that.
05:15 He pulled a knife on me.
05:17 He attacked me.
05:18 - Are you being serious?
05:21 'Cause if you're being serious, you should not be talking to me.
05:23 You should be talking to them.
05:24 - I can't.
05:24 I can't, I'm sorry, I can't.
05:28 He killed this woman.
05:32 He killed her with a knife from my apartment.
05:35 And people saw me running for the seat.
05:37 And I don't know.
05:40 And I just don't, I don't know anyone.
05:44 - You were talking about, you know, 'cause every director's different and you've worked
05:47 with some of the best, but what do you need as an actor directing-wise, like say with
05:53 Veena versus say like Luke or Christopher Nolan or whoever you wanna use, what do you
05:59 need as far as pinpoint?
06:01 Because you have to be there, but how much guidance do you want?
06:05 How much guidance do you need in certain things?
06:08 - I love to be directed.
06:10 You know, I think there's nothing better than like doing all the work I do and then
06:15 getting to a film set.
06:16 And once you're on the film set, having a director that I can truly trust in, that we
06:22 can collaborate and try to find something cool and interesting, you know?
06:27 But I think ultimately, like I do always feel at the service of the director.
06:32 And I have been incredibly lucky to work with incredible directors that all have a
06:38 very clear vision.
06:39 And I try to understand that vision and help bring it to life.
06:42 You know, like I'm not trying to rock the boat.
06:44 I'm not trying to change anything.
06:46 If it's someone I trust in, like if I'm on, you know, Chris Nolan's film set, like I
06:54 trust in that man to make something great.
06:57 And so like I am there, I'm at his service, you know?
07:00 And like I'm going to do, I'm going to play my role and I'm going to go at it with as
07:04 much research and work done beforehand as I can.
07:07 But on the day, like I'm there for the movie and I'm there to make their vision come to
07:11 life.
07:12 - I don't know who you are and I only know you because I just moved here in Spiney.
07:17 I think that I just need you to trust me.
07:20 - Hey.
07:23 - Thanks, guys.
07:24 I appreciate you guys, you boys in blue.
07:25 - We appreciate you.
07:27 By the way, man, stay sharp.
07:30 There's a knifing down in Hollywood Boulevard about a half hour ago.
07:33 - A knifing?
07:35 Wow, that's scary.
07:36 - Yeah, something in the air.
07:39 Everyone's a little jumpy tonight.
07:41 - Good night, ma'am.
07:43 - Good night.
07:44 - And my last question, thank you very much, Danielle.
07:49 That's well said.
07:51 Because you say you do a ton of research.
07:53 Could you talk about what kind of research you want to do for a sociopath like this?
08:00 But the thing is that you also have to bring in the notions of obsession and different
08:05 things that work with Micah's character.
08:07 So you have to have that sort of energy balance.
08:10 Because when you guys are first in that car, you make it move.
08:14 As soon as you do that one action, it's off the races.
08:17 You know that it's just tension on her and her just sort of that sort of fear factor.
08:23 Could you talk about the research going into that, but then sort of letting that fall away
08:28 and just sort of getting into the head of this man?
08:30 - Sure.
08:31 Well, one kind of fun thing I did for this was I did as much, I learned as much about
08:38 Micah as I possibly could prior to actually meeting her.
08:42 I just read all of her interviews.
08:45 We're actors, so we have a bunch of information of us out on the internet.
08:51 So it doesn't have to be as deep of a dive as maybe Carl would do to one of his victims,
08:57 because it's all right there.
08:59 So it was really easy for me to learn a lot about Micah really fast.
09:03 And then I didn't tell her I did any of that research.
09:06 And I would ask her questions about herself that I already knew the answer.
09:11 And I was able really to guide the conversations that I had with her on set in a way that my
09:19 character would, obviously with better intentions, but it was interesting to come at it from
09:24 an aspect of like, I know this person already, but I'm going to pretend like I don't know
09:29 anything about her and she's not going to know I know anything about her.
09:33 And so I think that really informed our relationship while making it, because in many ways I did
09:40 fabricate it prior to coming to set.
09:43 (Screaming)
09:45 (Music)
09:47 (Music)
09:49 (Music)
09:51 (Music)
09:53 (whooshing)
09:55 [BLANK_AUDIO]