Willem Dafoe made Emma Stone slap him 20 times for a scene in an upcoming film.
The actor stars opposite Stone in the anthology film And, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite). In a profile interview with Dafoe by The New York Times, it’s revealed that Dafoe asked to be slapped repeatedly for a scene where Stone slaps his character, despite him being off camera in the shot.
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In the interview, it’s described how Dafoe “insisted that the move would look more genuine if he were actually being slapped”, and that he took the staged hit 20 times.
“That’s what you want from actors,” Lanthimos said about Dafoe being on set even when he’s not required to be. “To want to be part of it in any way.”
Speaking about Dafoe, Stone said: “There’s this instinct to perform that many actors have – the ‘look at me, look at me!’ kind of performer. He’s the opposite of that. Maybe it’s changed through the years. A lot of actors I bond with have been doing this for a long time, and you know they’ve gone from ‘I’ to ‘We.’”
Other confirmed cast members for And include Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie and Hunter Schafer.
Dafoe will next appear in director Wes Anderson’s upcoming film Asteroid City, a romantic comedy-drama about a Junior Stargazer convention in a 1950s fictional American desert town that is rocked by world-changing events.
Alongside Dafoe, the film’s ensemble cast includes Tilda Swinton, Tom Hanks, Adrien Brody, Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston and Jeff Goldblum.
Asteroid City is scheduled to be released in cinemas on June 23, 2023.
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