Conan O'Brien: My next guest has appeared in numerous films including Blade and I Shot Andy Warhol. Beginning on May 3, you can see him in Deuces Wild. Please welcome, Stephen Dorff.
(Stephen makes his entrance)
C: How ya doin?
Stephen Dorff: I'm good, I'm good. Happy to be here.
C: Very nice to have you have you here on the show.
SD: Yeah, I'm a big fan of yours.
C: Oh, well thank you, thanks for coming on the program. Um, you've been traveling around a lot, thats one thing that I envy about actors. You've had this experience too where you get to travel, like you'll shoot this movie in an exotic place...you were in Hungary.
SD: In Budapest, we just finished a movie um...last week actually called Den of Lions, and uh it was a crazy place.
C: Do people know who you are in Hungary?
SD: Yeah, Hungary was kind of crazy. I mean I think like Blade was probably like the most commercial film I'd ever done so it did well like really well in Hungary, people wear like fangs and they're playing the Blade song in the clubs and stuff and...
C: People go to the clubs and play like techno Blade music?
SD: Yeah, that that Blade song from the opening, you know and um theres a lot of gangsters in Budapest a lot of uh...
C: Like serious...like former cold war gangsters?
SD: Almost like Russia, like I've never been to Russia but ya know I could but Turkish gangsters and at the same time theres like a lot of beautiful girls too so...
C: Youve described like the craziest kind of country... like gangsters, beautiful women and everyone is dressed up like a Blade character , ya know rocking out to techno music. (Conan laughs and dances)
SD: I mean I would meet like a girl ya know, I met a girl one night, and um it looked like she was with one of these gangsters and I didnt want to, ya know I didnt want to die in Hungary or something, you never know I'd rather go out somewhere else (chuckles)but um basically I had a driver and he was a translator so the girl didnt speak any English so we'd go out to dinner and stuff and then we went out to dinner like five times and I'd say something hed say something in Hungarian she'd say it translate, by the end of the fifth dinner I'd totally forgotten about the girl, it brought me and the driver together...(laughter) me and Zole became...
C (jokingly) :I love you Zole
SD: We called him Zole Night because he was our driver at nighttime...so yeah...
C: I was looking through all the work that you'd done... you've done a lot of different movies, and then one thing caught my eyeyou were on different strokes.
SD: yeah, its for, yeah it...in the beginning before I went into the movies I kinda did these guest spots on all these different shows that I grew up watching...
C: You must've been a kid at the time.
SD: Yeah, yeah I was like... I would always watch Different Strokes and Silver Spoons and all those shows and so I got this part, this gig, on Different strokes and I was on the set the Drummond family, it was kind of surreal the dad was there ...
C: Especially if you're a kid and you see these people like oh there's Drummond house.
SD: Yeah. The audience was out there... the fathers there and Todd Bridges was there but Gary Coleman wasn't there and I was really excited to work with Gary. And uh at the time they didnt let me read the whole script so I didnt realize that he wasn't in the episode ya know. So um I was with the little red head guy, Danny I think was his name the little red headed kid I was a cub scout on the show...
C: They always do that the the end of a series, it must've been toward the end of the series...
SD: Yeah.
C: When a show starts to like not do well anymore they always bring in, ya know when the kid that used to be the big star in the beginning starts to grow up they did this on the Brady Bunch with Oliverthey bring this kidtheyre like get a new kid in here! and so theres always these kids just show up...like shove a little red headed munchkin out there...wheres Arnold? I don't know.
SD: yeah so I was kinda upset about the Gary thing but then I met him on a movie I did later a few years later SFW he did a little cameo on there.
C: Youve only worked with Gary Coleman since.
SD (chuckles): Thats one of my highlights, I mean.
C: Was he rocking out in the techno club in Hungary?
SD: I'd like to see Gary in Hungary thatd be funny. (chuckles)
C: I'm sure he gets around, traveling the world. Um I saw you in I Shot Andy Warhol you did something thatthat surprised a lot of people, you played a drag queen, in this movie and a lot of people were,and you did a great job doing it actually we have a still from the movie...
(Still of Stephen as Candy pops up on screen)
SD: (laughing under his breath) Oh my god... (jokingly at himself in the still) How you doin?
C: This is a you from the movie and about four hours ago, just kidding!
SD (Laughing): Oh...
C: You went the whole nine yards you got your eyebrows plucked you ya know, you...
SD: Yeah, I went for it, I mean it was weird we were shooting in New York and um Candy Darling was verywell she looked like a woman
C: This was playing a real, sort of protégé of Andy Warhol named Candy Darling?
SD: She was on everything, she was on hormones and everything. I said I'll do everything for the part but I'm not going to take hormones ya know cause I have movies to make after...
C (joking): They were like, we want to do surgery and have you go on hormones to shoot this independent movie...
SD: When I wasnt in the make up, ya know, everyone kinda looked at me really strange because I had very little eyebrows and stuff. I had like meetings at the time and I wanted to have a sign on myself "I'm here making a movie and Im playing a drag queen. Stop looking at me".
C (agreeing with him and laughing): Stop staring at me.
SD: I didnt get weird or something, ya know Hollywood hasnt ya know, made me crazy.
C: Did it hurt, I'm sure while youre interview for the next movie and you're trying to interview with people and you have plucked eyebrows and I mean...
SD: I had a meeting with Woody Allen it was very strange and I said to my agent please tell him, you know, I've never met woody Allen, Im a fan of his, please tell him that I look strange and uh and so I went there and he didnt say much anyway, he was (Stephen does a little Woody Allen impression) "yeah yeah" and I think he thought I looked very strange and I dont know if that call went through beforehand but he was a nice guy.
C: Was he adjusting his glasses a lot and getting all Woody Allen'y?
SD: Yeah it was in a screening room it was really cool. He asked me what I was working on and I said I was playing a drag queen right now. (Woody Allen impression) "oh great".
C (joking) And then Woody Allen backed out of the room and someone else came in and said this meetings over.
SD (laughing) yeah...really quick meeting.
C: So Deuces Wild. Tell us about this flim.
SD: Deuces wild is a movie actually we made about and a year and a half ago it was supposed to come out Sept. 14 and was moved to May 3. Its a kinda 1950's rumble movie kinda to me, it goes back...a throwback to like the outsiders. A lot of young guys, a lot of tough fight scenes. Its the story of two brothers growing up ,in uh, in 1958 theyve lost one brother and Leon, my character is trying to keep this block this small radius clean, clean from drugs, clean from just violence and uh, Marco, Norman Reedus who plays Marco, is coming out of prison and hes just kinda pushing all my buttons. It becomes kind of like a western high noon kinda.
C: We have a clip here, do we need to know anything for this clip?
SD: I think this clip is of me and my brother Bobby played by Brad Renfro, were a little at odds in this scene hes a rambunctious kid and Im trying to keep him on the good side.
(Clip from Deuces, Leon and Bobby and lots of swearing which is, of course, edited out)
C: (laughing) Thats swearing.
SD: Kind of a rough clip there.
C: Yeah. Every other word. (laughs) Deuces Wild opens next Friday. Thanks for being here. Stephen Dorff everyone.
