'I thought I was a sell-out, playing a vampire,' the actor says about his memorable role in 'Blade.'
By Kara Warner, with reporting by Josh Horowitz
Stephen Dorff
Photo: MTV News
Although his role in "Somewhere" was one of the most challenging of his career, Stephen Dorff is grateful to writer/director Sofia Coppola for giving him the opportunity to play a character who is a complete departure from the menacing, murderous types audiences are used to seeing him portray.
When MTV News caught up with the actor, he explained that "Somewhere" is the kind of independent art film he was most interested in at the start of his career — which has spanned more than two decades — but when Hollywood started calling, he reluctantly veered into bigger films playing bad boys and villains.
"[After the 1992 coming-of-age drama 'Power of One,'] Hollywood was coming to me, but I was kind of resisting," Dorff said of his early years in the business. "I really wanted to make art films. I loved working on movies like 'I Shot Andy Warhol' [and] 'S.F.W.' I liked doing edgier things. I was kind of into Nirvana, I was into rebelling against my childhood."
He added, "I wasn't really interested in playing vulnerable, sweet parts, like I played in 'Power of One' and 'Backbeat,' so in a way I think I did that to my own image. I kind of fought it. Then, when it came time to wanting to do [a sensitive role again], it wasn't necessarily there for me.
"Then 'Blade' came around and I thought that was the end of my career," Dorff admitted. "Because I thought I was a sell-out, playing a vampire."
Dorff said that those reservations eventually subsided and that he enjoyed making the action-horror flick.
"I had a good time with [director] Steve Norrington," Dorff said. "I knew he was talented. I had seen this little teeny movie he did and I knew this guy was going to make a good movie."
Dorff went on to say that now he feels that "Blade," as well as the first "Matrix" movie, were well ahead of their time with regard to what they opened up for filmmaking.
"Now we have so many comic-book movies and they're kind of regenerating the same movie," he explained. "In a way, there's not much originality to them. I like that we did ours earlier."
Dorff said that leading up to and after "Blade," he tried going for less dark roles, but that he couldn't resist opportunities to work with the likes of Jack Nicholson (1997's "Blood and Wine") and other great actors, so he became typecast.
"Up until now, really, this movie is the first time somebody like Sofia [Coppola] said, 'Well there's another side to Stephen, maybe he can play the leading man, maybe he can be a little sweeter and not have to kill everybody," Dorff suggested.
"It's nice that now I get texts after 'Somewhere' [that say,] 'You make such a good dad!' " he reveals about his family members' reactions to his performance in the film. "It's so different than 'Why were you so scary and mean?' "
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