A Hollywood star that actually isn’t one, but rather is a normal person. Charismatic yet mod- est, beautiful yet inconspicu- ous, simple and relaxed. Actor Matt Dil- lon took time out to meet every fan who wanted a picture taken with him, sat in the restaurant beyond the zone reserved for VIP guests, mixed with the crowd dur- ing the celebration of Serbian New Year, with a Cuban cigar and a beret on his head, listening to music from The Written-O s. With no bodyguards, agents or personal assistants anywhere to be seen, because Matt doesn’t have his own entourage. All he has is an equally cute, almost imper- ceptible girlfriend who stoically endured the hordes of fans in Drvengrad. That’s because the role played in pre- vious years at“Küstendorf”by the likes of Nikita Mikhalkov, Monica Bellucci, Audrey Tautou, Jacques Audiard, Johnny Depp, Jim Jarmusch and Andrei Konchalovsky, was this year taken on by American ac- tor Matt Dillon. He arrived in Mečavnik as one of the o cial guests of the 12 th Küs- tendorf International Film and Music Fes- tival, which this year had 21 lms from 16 countries vying for prizes. This actor met Emir Kusturica many years ago and has ad- mired him since he rst watched the lm “When Father Was Away on Business”, be- cause that lm was very important to him. “It was through“Father”that I met the Balkans. I was 22 years old when it was re- leased (1986). It had heart, the story sim-
as though I was created just to do that. I always had imagination and loved sto- ries and history; I was curious and loved to write and read, yet then again I also liked to get into ghts and trouble, but that wasn’t my real nature. I became an actor because I wanted to express some kind of truth, authenticity, and not be- cause I wanted someone to look at me on the stage. I was always drawn by cu- riosity regarding human nature.” Francis Ford Coppola said that he was shy, but Matt disagrees. He says that he was just very young at the time. He was also bothered from the start by the la- bel that would follow him throughout his entire career – that of a beauty and a heartbreaker! “I didn’t like the image of a heartthrob. I didn’t want them to marginalise me. Peo- ple would put me in a drawer that had nothing to do with my acting. And I took acting seriously, I attended lessons and was very dedicated from the very begin- ning. And then they stick a label on you as if you’re a piece of meat or a heartbreaker or a stud or something like that. I didn’t like it. I didn’t feel comfortable. It was meaning- less to me. I had the impression that I was collapsing into a chasm and would soon be forgotten. And I wanted to play charac- ter roles. Even when I was a kid, at the age of 14, I was a natural “method actor” [the school of acting created by Stanislavski, known to us as Stanislavski’s system, ac- cepted in America by Strasberg and others.
ply knocked me o my feet, and it was then that I started following Kusturica and his career. He immediately became one of my favourite directors and someone with whom I would have liked to work. He’s a delightful and good person, and that can be seen in his lms. He is very normal, not only a humanitarian but also an egalitar- ian. He treats all people the same, all are equal. He was curious, interested in the world. That’s why he was in Havana at the lm festival where we met and when he invited me to Küstendorf.” Dillon was very young when he moved from one lm to the next and didn’t nd the time to follow his classmates. While his peers were at school, he met Gri n Dunne, Fisher Stevens and many other actor-directors... But he didn’t complete secondary school. “I feel like I became an actor and it’s as though that wasn’t my choice, as if I wasn’t asked anything about that. That was just something that happened to me, but from the moment it happened I could no longer imagine doing anything else in life. I felt
Kopola je govorio da sam stidljiv. Ali mislim da to nije tačno, samo sam bio mlad Coppola said that I was shy. But I don’t think that’s right – I was just young
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