FILM INTERVIEW: STEPHEN DORFF

Veteran Actor Returns to Action-Adventure Genre Baring Almost All in 'Immortals'

By: Parimal M. Rohit

November 10, 2011

Very few people spent as much time in the makeup trailer on the set of Tarsem Singh’s Immortals as Stephen Dorff. According to the former Blade and Backbeat actor, the only person who may have been under makeup longer than him was Freida Pinto. After all, it would be kind of hard to convince an audience that Stavros -- the character he portrays in Immortals -- has a body full of tattoos, as he is baring almost his full body in a film based upon Greek mythology. When all of his tats were finally covered up, Mr. Dorff had quite an entertaining time parading in front of the camera with his rock-hard body.

Mr. Dorff spent a little time chatting it up about his thoughts on Mr. Singh and his fellow cast members -- Mickey Rourke and Freida Pinto.

Parimal M. Rohit: How long did you have to workout for your role?

Stephen Dorff: A couple hours. Seriously. Just a couple hours of training for the whole movie, ate a lot of cheeseburgers, In-and-Out, but they don’t have any of that in Montreal. I’m just kidding. I actually had a great trainer. It was kind of boring. The crew at lunch would get ribs and French fries and all that stuff, and I’d get my little meal. It was intense -- a lot training, four months. I was joking when I said two hours. This was one where you had to look good or you’re screwed. I mean, we’re not wearing any clothes. Can’t really hide it.

PMR: Being such a Hollywood veteran, what was your attraction to Immortals?

SD: There were all these cool projects I wanted to do, and I really wanted to mix it up. I always look at the director, and Tarsem is a director that had something to prove. It felt good to me, and it felt like he was the right director for this piece. It looked like he wanted to make something more grounded and not something like Clash of the Titans. I also think he was the right guy for 3D, which I think is this new technology that’s been overused and converted.

PMR: Did you share any time with Mickey on set?

SD: A little bit, yeah. I’ve known Mickey for a while. He’s a great guy; we share the same agent. I didn’t really share too many scenes with Mickey in this one, and he’s in that weird helmet most of the time. But how can you not be a fan of Mickey Rourke? I thought this movie had a cool cast. And I am a huge fan of Freida Pinto, who I think is an incredible actress.

PMR: You said you thought Tarsem would be a good fit for this film, but what was it like working with him?

SD: Tarsem is great. He’s like an energy bomb. He’s the perfect guy for a film of this size. When you do a film of this size, as a director, you’re the captain. You have to be in control of all these people. There are extras. There are horses. He’s a visual master. He knows exactly what he wants. His energy never stops. He was a director that had something to prove. He hadn’t done a film in a long time; you could tell he was hungry.

PMR: You’re no stranger to action films. What is like to be back in the genre again? Is it easier now?

SD: It’s okay. We had a great stunt team; they did 300 and taught me all those weird moves. I don’t like to practice too much. I like to be spontaneous. I feel like you can rehearse something until it’s dead in the ground and then it’s boring.

PMR: Did you get to improv much, either with lines or in the fight scenes?

A: Yeah, I kind of messed with the dialogue here and there, kind of make it my own, adlibbed a bit. Tarsem was cool with that. But there really isn’t that much room to improv on a movie like this. Every scene is specifically planned out, it’s effects-driven, so a lot of it is ‘this is the way it is.’ Unless it’s more banter, like with some of the stuff with Freida, we’d mix it up and make up some stuff. But I have only seen bits and pieces of the film, so I don’t know what stayed in.

Relativity Media's 'Immortals' is released on November 11, 2011.