Transcripts For KQEH Tavis Smiley 20171009

And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. So pleased to have willem dafoe back on this program. The appleton, wisconsin, native is best known for spiderman, the last temptation of christ and oscar nominated roles in platoon and shadow of a vampire. Hes getting high prize and oscar buzz i hate to embarrass him for his role as bobby in a project called the florida project. Before our conversation, a clip from the film. Yeah. I got a videotape of the kids illegally entering the utility room. Okay. [ whispering ] did you hear what i said just to her . I got it. Im going to talk to him. Youre out of here. Only second week of the summer, and theres already been a dead fish in the pool. We were doing an experiment. We were trying to get it back alive. That was my idea. And water balloons thrown at tourists. You cant [ muted ]. Tourists. It didnt tip us. Are you serious . Oh my god, this is unacceptable. Ive failed as a mother. You disgraced me. Yeah, mom, youre a disgrace. Why is this called the florida project . The florida project refers to the florida project was a name when walt disney was buying up land around the kissimmee area in Central Florida for disney world. Thats that was kind of the code name for the project. Yeah. And this story takes place in that area very close to disney world. The setting is a budget Tourist Motel where a lot of the residents are longtime, longterm temporary residents, and theyre basically people who dont have a home, and theyre living at this budget motel, kind of week by week. Yeah. When i got a chance to look at this, its fascinating for me, and i think it will be for filmgoers, film lovers, as well. And this is its not an uncommon story, the story of america, as i think about it. The things that happen in the shadows of the things that we focus on. So that to your point, disney world is the focus. But all this other stuff just in the shadows, just in that perimeter, there are stories like this that we would never know. Its true. I wasnt aware of this world that existed. Actually, in this movie, the world is that world. Disneys in the shadows. I got it. Yeah. And we the story doesnt point fingers specifically at disney, its just that thats a place that an Entertainment Industry has grown up aound, its the happiest place in the world. Its billed as that. Its a place for people to be amused and have fun and enjoy themselves. But in the shadow of that is this place where people struggle, struggle to make ends meet. Tell me about bobby. The character you play. Bobby, iplay the manager of the motel. He lives there. Hes like these people. Hes just about a paycheck ahead of them because he could be them. But he is its an interesting character because hes not, lets say hes not an extraordinary person. I mean, he doesnt have extraordinary gifts. But he wears a lot of hats. And he keeps his motel going, and hes got to deal with a lot of problems because hes hes an Authority Figure because hes got to collect the rent and people have trouble making rent. Hes got to cut them some slack. He doesnt want to kick them out. Hes always very conflicted. Hes got to deal with these kids that he loves, but theyre also a pain. Uhhuh. They get in his way. Hes got lots of challenges. Yeah. So its a nice character. Yeah. I found myself wondering what it was about bobbys back story that allowed him, that caused him to be in this predicament. Well, hes got a job. s not really a predicament. I mean, you know, and one of the things when i did research for this and i met some guys that do this kind of job, the one thing that was kind of surprising, struck me, is theyre very proud of their work. Yeah. This community is like a microcosm of a world, you know. And he he tries to make do the best he can with the kind of bad situation. Somewhere deeply he understands that for him to be happy theyve got to be happy. And hes pretty compassionate guy. At the same time, hes hes the order. Hes the hes the structure. Hes got to keep things going. Yeah. Im fascinated when you say you did research on this and found people who do this for a living and you say they took such pride in their work, clearly there is dignity in all work, i believe, as theres dignity in all work. Specifically given what theyre up against and all the hurdles they have to jump through and over and and what you just described and what we see bobby having to endure in this assignment, what was it specifically that you discovered that they take such pride in . Making it better. Yeah. Making a bad situation better. Yeah. Contributing, helping people. They start to identify with the people. They become like an extended family. And i dont want to ge too sweet about it, because he, probably in this job he has to kick people out sometimes. Es got to be hard. Yeah. But yeah, tell me about this family and about these kids. The kids we see much of the movie through their eyes. The kids that are some on some summer vacation, a lot of them have single parents. The parents are having a hard time. Some of them have work, some of them work two jobs. Some of them have no work. They got to figure out ways to make ends meet. Its not always the most legal or or easy ways to make ends meet. These kids, theyre running around, they know nothing different. Theyre wild. We see the florida landscape through them. We see that milieu, that motel milieu through them. And and the relationships are interesting because, for example, the central character, this character mooney, 6yearold little girl sure. Has a relationship with her mother that is almost sisterly. Because shes a young mother, and her mother, you know, isnt you saw in the clip shes not the perfect mother. She she doesnt take it from anyone. And she shes in a precarious place because she doesnt have any training. She doesnt have a job. Shes struggling to make ends meet. Theyre all living in this one room. Yeah. Its really about a cycle of being in this precarious position, of having no stability. With no stability, what happens of course is the kids develop in a different way. They fall behind in school. You know, they theyre by themselves a lot. Theyre unsupervised. Theres a sweet part to that, a sweet anarchy, and we see that. And we see kind of fun and innocence kind of a huck fin misadventure aspect to it. You also see that if they dont get the right tuneds, theyre headed kind of where the parents are. And the parents are struggling. I love that phrase, sweet anarchy. Right . I didnt know there was such a thing, but you got me to think about it. I like it, willem. I like it. As i was looking at this, i thought about a conversation i had with Steven Spielberg one time years ago. And ive been thinking, what im missing one of the things he told me. He told me there were three things i must have asked him what advice do you give to young filmmakers. Steven spielberg says three things, there are three things not to do do not do your first film with kids, with water, and the third one im blanking on right now. Maybe it will come to me before the conversation is over, but the point is that you worked with a bunch of kids in this project. Yeah. And in your case i had just come from a project about water. Water. Yeah. I got a nose. But youre a veteran now, academynominated veteran. By the way veteran of what . For you, hollywood trivia buffs, willem dafoe is the only actor, i think im corrected about this, the only actor nominated for an academy for playing a vampire for those of you who like trivia stuff. Here you are with the kids. Im reading the research preparing for our conversation, stuff i didnt know. These kids are like some of these kids, havent done this for very long. No. First of all, theyre kids. Some of these kids are just getting into the acting thing. Yeah. The mother, you guys found on social media somewhere. Social media. You found the mother on social media. Shes fantastic. Yeah. She is. But but the question is how as a veteran you found the experience of playing with these great. Yeah. Great. We had so much real elements to work with and sean, the director, is so good with a little help from his partner who kind of coached the kids. Samantha klon. I dont know. They were natural. Theyre cast well. And you know, sometimes, yes, you lose certain things, maybe you livelihoods a certain kind of refinement that you know, certain things cant be refined, but you have an energy and kind of commitment and kind of lack of selfconsciousness if its set up right where the kids are playing. Theyre kids before theyre actors. And some of them arent actors and dont necessarily aspire to be actors. Im sort of dealing with the real deal. And that sometimes thats preferable to a trained, crafted performance. Because stuff is happening. You know, its not its not shaped maybe, but then the director, if hes if hes a good direction, to and seans a very good director, is able to frame it and structure it in a way that that play can, you know, be fed into a narrative. Yeah. The truth is, i had to fit in with them. I had to get my stink of an actor out of there. I had to become a human being. You know what im saying, because actors can develop tricks. They can develop a ton of distance with technique sometimes. Yeah. And i theres a part of me that always admires the ability to come off as a nonactor, you know. To to have someone my ambition is when someone sees you on the screen, its not very realistic, as ive made a lot of movies, so maybe someones seen him in another movie, see someone on the screen and think theyre the guy and think whered they get that guy, you know . I like that. Ive always liked actors like that. You know, some character actors that probably, maybe theyre highly trained but dont feel like it. They feel like people first. And you dt see ts g, woundup performance. I like that because it lets you in in a different way. It becomes less of a show and less lets things happen. Yeah. See, this is the sweet spot for me. Okay. Now were into your process. Which im curious about. It changes all the time. It does . Yeah. Yeah. Depending on what your job is. Tell me more. Tell me more. Just depending on what your job is. Sometimes how you position a movie, what your character has to do or what your relationship is with the director. Are you the flash . Are the collaborator . Are you the person that they see the see the movie through . Do you have a transformation . Do you have to deliver exposition in a tasteful way . You know, its always changing. Also your relationship to the character. Sometimes it comes easy. Sometimes you find a trigger and youre there and can pretend like that. Sometimes you have to claim it through research and doing things that kind of give you the authority to pretend. Its always different. And thats whats fantastic about being a performer. Its filled with so much uncertainty and so much you know, so many moving pieces that you never know. So what you got to do, its always a little bit of an adventure. In this, when you have all of these real elements, mixed with fiction elements, the real elements kind of root you in a truth and keep you honest. Make you really that story of those people, those people become us, you know. And then the fiction is something that we craft to kind of you know, let a story come alive. Now that we make a reportage. Im curious because to me you are a curious actor. I say that respectfully. Youre a curious actor because when i see you, i dont see a particular thing. Confident to you. Theres some actors, i see their faces, and i can tell you what they play. This is what they do well. They do it in every film. They do the same thing. When i see you, i mean, your face, the way your face, is uniquely different in everything you do. Which leads me to ask how you go about choosing the stuff that you want to do, particularly at this point in your career. Thanks for the compliment. You know, its a lot about people and situations. A lot of people think its about character or the story. Those things shift. You dont always know what you are. I get around people that inspire me, and i want to make something with, or the situation, you know he says, were going down to a motel that really exists. People are living there. Were telling their story. Weve made a story. Youre going to be you know, im sitting there, my dressing room is in another one of these little rooms right next to the real residents. Yeah. Im seeing them. Im getting to know them. Thats a life adventure. And that the stuff that you learn, the shift of awareness of certain things gives you energy and also opens your mind and opens your artand then you caapply that to the pretending and hopefully make a story that challenges what you take for granted. Thats when movies are at their best. When you look and say, my god, i never saw it that way, or i got to change i got to check myself on that, i think they shake you out of a conditioned way of thinking. Thats a gift. Thats what you aspire to. I look for places where i smell theres an opportunity for that. It doesnt always happen. Sometimes you want to do some things for fun. As i hear myself, it sounds highminded, and part of it is. Yeah. You know, im i want to be an entertainer, i also want to be an artist. Its always about finding situations that you can kind of exercise both of those impulses. Is it true that those two things arent always the same . Yeah, i think so. I think so. Yeah, yeah. Maybe they are. You know you may be fascinated by this the same way that actors and movie stars arent always the same thing. There you go. When you were talking about that person thats known for that thing, i know what youre talking about. Sometimes that can be beautiful. Because an actor can refine their persona in such a way that they organize stories and materials around them thastill they can be very effective theownside isou become typecast. If you cant break out of that yeah. You can become typecast. Yeah, but if you refine that persona, you can tell all kind of stories and take us interesting places. Fair enough. But thats not my talent, because im not interested in this creating a persona of myself. Im more interested in a flexible persona, because for whatever reason, i you know, i like going to bend myself to a story. Because you know who i am is what i do, and what i do is up for grabs. Im looking at the notion of the difference between entertainment and art. And sometimes theyre not the same thing. My mind goes back to a conversation i had. It was really a comeuppance. She sat me down and sort of spanked me. The late, great maya angelou. Okay. I was like sort of a she was a surrogate mother to me. We were having a conversation one time. I write about this in one of my books. She had taken a particular role, and i thought the role that she had taken in this movie was a bit beneath her, given whoa. Given the whoa given that she was maya angelou. I said, can i ask you a question . I used to call her, mother maya. Mother maya, can i ask you a question . She called me young tavi, she said sure, young tavis. I asked her, hy did you take this particular role in this parcular film . I just i think its so sort of beneath you. Why would you do that . And i got the lecture of my life about the difference between entertainment and art. And how you have to not be so hearty or highminded that you dont understand the difference between the two, that you dont accept the two, recognize that you need both in your life, and sometimes theyre not the same thing and sometimes they are. But if you cant appreciate, just as you say, doing stuff for fun, just pure entertainment, if you cant appreciate that alongside high art, then your life is going to be a little bankrupt. She gave me the lecture of my life about that, a big lecture. Did you thank her . Well, im not going to say i thanked her, but she spanked me. Whether i thanked her, im not so sure. It was a lesson. And i found myself over the years going back to that. So you made the comment about entertainment and art, it just kind of took me back there. They can be the same thing, but not always. Yeah. Yeah. You were growing up in appleton, wisconsin. Yeah. Is this what you thought you would do, what you wanted to do . How did this happen . No, because no one made a living doing this. I mean, i didnt know anyone that was in the arts, really. Its something that i knew i enjoyed. You know, i was a normal kid. I played sports. I got in trouble. I, you know were you as bad as the kids in the motel . Eh. Okay. I raised kids in new york city, and they think new York City Kids are wild. I saw him and his kids grew up, even with all the stuff around them. Uhhu i thought, thats nothing yeah. Not how we grew up really. Yeah. Yeah. Those country kids, man. Yeah. That can be a handful. Yeah. Yeah. Where were we growing up in appleton and how you got on the track to be the thespian that you are. I just knew i liked performing. I came from a big family. I think you act up, you find your place in the tribe. My thing was to be curiously enough kind of the joker, you know. So thats where it starts. You get it it starts out as a social thing. Its just fun. As you get older, it shifts to something else. I never thought of it as a profession for a long time until i did it for over a while and thought i guess this is what im supposed to do, because i love it. Who knows what level ill work on, but i love doing it, so i kept on doing it. Now about 40plus years later, i guess im an actor. Yeah. I guess so. Are there roles i thought i read a piece once where you were talking pretty candidly about certain types of roles that have eluded you over the course of your career. Did i read Something Like that about you . That makes sense. Sure. Sure. But its changing. As i get older, in a funny way, i feel things opening up a little bit. Theres always a little agism in there somewhere. But yeah, i get often more variety. I think when i wayoger, you do something, people get to see you for the fit time. And they they say thats your thing. Kind of what you referred to before. And i think when i first started out, there was always this nervousness about being typecast as a bad guy. The most attractive roles, if you werent conventionally handsome or charming, were usually bad guys. Those were the best roles. I played some of those, and if you have some success with them, people say do it again, do it again, do it again. You become a product. You become a brand. But the very nature of what im interested in is against that. And a lot of actors complain about this. How did you break out of that, though . Some people would say i didnt. I think i didnt have a rule about what kind of film i did. And i tried to mix it up. Through the years, i worked in lots of different countries, lots of different languages. Big films, small films, new directors, old directors. I mix it up. So its like the target is always moving. You know, catch me if you can. Yeah. So thats not to say that, you know, the the most distributed films and the most popular films represent the body of my work. I dont think they do. And you cant scold people for that. But for me personally, from a work perspective, ive been able to beat that a little bit. Yeah. Youre definitely not the bad guy in this project. No, no. And its nice because, you know, when im here and people are kind of surprised. Im like, really . I played nice guys before. Theyre like, really . Theyre kids, man. Theyre kids. I see you as a sort of, you know, i guess my choice of words, obviously, maybe not yours, i see you as you are the Authority Figure, as you said, but you are a loving caretaker. It comes through when you see this that you care about these kids. In some ways, you care about these kids in ways that their parents dont or cant. I dont know what the right word is. But you seem to really care about these kids in this motel. Its true. And that happens through playing the scenes. I wasnt that conscious that he would come off as a compassionate person. And its not something that i was that i designed. Right. You know, its in the story. Its really about dealing with the actions. I was surprised by that. A little bit. Yeah. And i was concerned about it because hes an authoritarian figure in these kind of keep order and kind of square compared to these people that are a little more loose, you know. I was worried that hed be, you know, always busting people on stuff. Yeah. Too heavy. But thats not what happens. And i think maybe its because i did like those kids. Yeah. And i had to work with them. And i did like thoseeople. And they became my people. And have been making the movie, it was challenging. Its a lowbudget movie. But so if that comes through, its something that was pretty organic and not something i tried to do. It happens in the story. Sometimes if you give yourself to the story and not worry about the effect, it will happen it will happen. It will happen. It will breathe, and it will it will show you the way without you pushing it. I think thats the way you like it. I when it happens, its good. It doesnt always happen. Yeah. As i said at the top of the conversation, theres a lot of buzz on this. Hes been nominated a couple of times in the past. Well see what happens in the coming months. It is a good project. Its called the florida project, starring one willem dafoe. I love that nickname, willem. Name aint william, man, its willem. Like tavis. I love it, willem. Good to see you, man. Thats our show for tonight. Thanks for watching. And as always, keep the faith. For more information on todays show visit tavis smiley at pbs. Org. Hi im tavis smiley. Join me for a conversation with gospel great around sallin and the gospel group. Thats next time. See you then. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Be more, pbs. Today on americas test kitchen. 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