Director Jonathan Kaplan called me Marlon, because I wanted to do everything“realis- tically”, although at the time I didn’t have a clue who Marlon was [laughs].” As a young actor he admired the likes of Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman and Dustin Ho man. They rep- resented the role model generation for him while he was studying at the Lee Strasberg school. And then he familiarised himself with the work of Marlon Brando, Mont- gomery Clift and James Dean. “From Dean and Clift I learned how to be vulnerable. Then there was De Niro in ‘Taxi Driver’. Those were some of the rst actors to show vulnerability and intensi- ty of thinking. Later I also admired Spen- cer Tracy, John Gar eld and James Cag- ney, because they were very truthful in their approach. I was also striving for all of that, and that excited me when I watched a movie: an actor who transforms into an- other character and in doing so is honest, not theatrical. I remember the rst Berto- lucci and Kubrick movies.” He was just 18 when he made his rst lm with Coppola.Together they shot‘The Outsiders’and‘Rumble Fish’, and Coppola left an indelible mark on his acting career. “WhenwewereworkingonTheOutsid- ers, Francis said to me, “You have to watch these movies,”and gave me Kurosawa’s‘Sev- en Samurai’ and other movies that subse- quently inspired Sergio Leone and the Spa- ghetti Westerns. Francis familiarised me with the idea of lm and never avoided reveal- ing his own role models, whether that was John Ford’s‘The Informer’withVictor McLa- glen, the silent movie ‘The Last Laugh’ by F.W. Murnau, with the famous Emil Jannings, or Carol Reed’s‘The Third Man’,”says Dillon, revealing that The Third Man also happens to be his favourite lm. His career to date has included around sixty roles. By his 20s, he already had seven hit lms behind him.‘Drugstore Cowboy’, which was among those that con rmed his place on the map of acting stars, this year celebrates its 30 th anniversary. “Although the lm is three decades old, it holds up well, which is a great thing. You never know with movies. I’m still proud of it today, and the experi- ence I gained while lming it. I was hap- py when Emir Kusturica told me that he’d chosen that speci c title as an illustra- tion of my career.” And his latest role, that of Jack the serial killer in the Lars von Trier lm ‘The House That Jack Built’, has provoked ery reactions. “Yes, yes, I scared you all [laughs]. Honestly, it wasn’t a topic that interest- ed me, but I admire von Trier as a director
me. He insisted on that “because you’ll never again have that rst double”. But that held me in the moment, present.” From Serbia he most likes art, lms and music. He likes the rich history and strong sense of cultural identity, but he didn’t get to meet the country as much as he would have liked. “Not counting Mećavnik, I’ve been to Zadar, and I want to go to Montenegro. If I had more time, I would like to spend a few days in Belgrade, to tour the city and learn more.”
and thought of this as an opportunity to make something good. I love challeng- ing tasks, and with von Trier there’s an overabundance of that. There’s something paradoxical in everything he does. I have the impression that the rules don’t apply to him. He makes movies about Ameri- ca, but he’s never been to the U.S., as he says he has a fear of ying, but he also told me that he once ew in a helicopter, so I don’t know what to think... We didn’t have a single rehearsal, and that was the rst time in my life that had happened to
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