Interview: Garret Dillahunt

Acting is in part an expression of exhibitionism – a desire, or sometimes just an irrepressible impulse to perform for an audience, be that audience a multitude of viewers or just one person. Because of that, the few instances in interviews or conversations in which actors express shyness or self-deprecation often seem inauthentic, the result of another kind of performance. Unlike many who adopt this armor to disguise or deflect their egotism, however, Garret Dillahunt’s humility is resolutely, indisputably the real deal; when he talks about being the last in line for a part, he’s articulating a genuine feeling or acknowledging what he thinks is simply true, rather than practicing false modesty.

It’s especially ironic, then, that this character actor deserves to feel entitled, rather than deferential or dismissive, about his status in Hollywood’s pecking order, and in particular, about his current and future prospects. Dillahunt stars in the disturbing new horror film The Last House on the Left, a remake of Wes Craven’s 1972 film of the same name. He plays Krug, a convict who escapes from police custody only to find himself at the mercy of the parents of a girl he assaulted and left for dead. I recently spoke to Dillahunt over lunch in Burbank, California, where he talked thoughtfully – and perhaps a little too modestly – about the terrific work that he did to bring this movie monster to terrifying life.

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Did the film turn out the way you expected it to?

Garret Dillahunt: Pretty much. I’m worried about that first third. I think it’s pretty brutal. While I think we did a good job at it, that just means it’s believable brutality; it’s not unrealistic. I don’t know what it is, it’s like something takes over almost that gets in the way of your – I don’t want to say taste, but your checks and balances system. Like, “I don’t know if we should be doing this, but let’s do it really good and really hard!” I think we’re in a little bit of denial about it.

What’s your reaction when you first go into something like this, and what do they tell you about the role?

Dillahunt: I don’t get to play this kind of part very often. I don’t get to be the baddest badass, I get to be the twisted one. This guy’s twisted and bad, so to me it just looked like a real good acting challenge, a departure from the last thing. If a Terminator has no emotions, this guy has like all of his at once. I just thought it was a challenge, but sometimes you wonder what the value of what you’re putting out into the world is. I hope people will… I don’t know. Wes [Craven] said an interesting thing and I kind of agree with him, and I’m not saying this is what we set out to do – it’s not that we intended to make a political movie – but there is a reason people seem to be responding to it so well in general in our test screenings, so emotionally. The original one was partially a response to Vietnam supposedly, and it’s funny, I don’t know if it was a conscious thing, but this is a time where Americans feel very powerless. I’ve said this before, and again I don’t know that’s why we did it, it certainly didn’t enter my mind, but in retrospect I sort of see why it’s speaking so favorably to a lot of people. They’re just tired of it, and they’re angry themselves, and they feel raped by whatever – the government, the economy, some people would say terrorists have invaded our homes, and they want to see some power taken back. I don’t know if that’s what will translate (laughs).

When you’re working on a film like this, are you thinking at all about those themes, or are you more focused on the immediacy of the scene?

Dillahunt: Sure. Not necessarily on this film, but again it might have been the unconscious reason that drew me to it. For me it’s about the story, which I think is an interesting one. The parents do take power, but does it cost? I love the fact that they had moments when they’re looking at each other over Francis’ head at the sink, like, “we’re doing this.” [They’re dealing with] how hard it is to kill someone. It’s not pretty or graceful or slick like they’ve been seeing in the movies all of their lives. They’re like, “if we do this, it’s completely different for us.” I also liked that they were up for the challenge, because I don’t like bullies. The only fights I got in as a kid were with bullies, because I was little and skinny and mad about being skinny and little (laughs). If you really think about it, who takes Krug out is really the first non-injured adults he meets. They’re not prepared for this, they’re not trained fighters, but they have a will. That’s interesting to me.

Was it just the appeal of playing something diametrically opposite from what you’d done before that made you want to do this?

Dillahunt: I don’t get a ton of offers – some, and this was one. That made me nervous, because you think, “if they want me, this must be crap” – you know, self-deprecating thoughts. They sent me the script, and accompanying the script was a film called Hardcore, which was Dennis Iliadis’ first film which he shot in Greece. I was judging everything by the cover at that point, and I was like, “oh they’re offering me this movie and director did this movie called Hardcore? This is going to be softcore… something.” [I came up with] all kinds of reasons not to read the script, and I didn’t know who I was being offered. When I read that, I assumed it would be the dad – I thought it would be Tony’s part, just because they kept describing Krug as a hulking figure, and I [said], “well, that’s not me.” I might be fit, but I’m not hulking (laughs). But when I watched Hardcore, it really surprised me. It looked really fantastic and it opens with this Roman soldier with that thing on their helmets on fire, and he’s kind of spinning through in slow motion while this girl is just sort of looking at him with this benign look. And it was pretty graphic too – it’s about teenage prostitutes in Greece, these two 17-year-old girls who go on a shooting spree, they go nuts after all of this abuse. The sex scenes in that were handled, I guess I’ll say tastefully in that you didn’t really see anything, kind of like ours, but yet you know exactly what’s going on, and when it was not supposed to be appealing it was not appealing.

And then when they said to me, “I want you to be Krug,” I was really surprised, and sort of excited by that. Then I met with Wes because he had final say, of course, and I wore a big padded shirt, and he was fine with it. I think I’m oddly proud of the result; I ultimately don’t know what its value is, but I think it has some. I don’t think it will speak to everybody, but I think it will speak to a lot of people. We all worked our asses off; I think it’s a good group, like we all had something to prove almost. I certainly felt like I did, that I could play that guy. I know Dennis did, it’s his first American film.

What did Dennis and Wes say to you about what or who they wanted Krug to be? Was everything in the script already?

Dillahunt: We had a week of rehearsal, which is surprisingly rare. Actually the script changed a lot. I guess we sort of all found it together. [But] I read up a lot on serial killers and FBI cases, and I sort of pieced together a guy that I found interesting. I’m a big believer in scripts – I love writers, I need them – and I think it’s in the script most of the time. That’s why ours can’t be the same as the original, there’s just no way. If one element is different then the whole thing is different, but it is pretty close. I don’t know if I answered your question but that’s how it kind of evolved.

When you look at a character like this, do you say I want to humanize this guy? It seems like when you have a horror movie monster, that humanizing him can be a double-edged sword. In Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake, for example, they spend an hour offering explanations for him and then just sort of admit, “but he’s crazy.”

Dillahunt: Oh yeah. I did want to – I like that. This isn’t that kind of horror movie. I don’t think it was in ’72 either; it wasn’t in The Virgin Spring. It’s more about the parents, and what they’re willing to do. In general, I’m not that freaked out by things that are just completely impossible, although zombie movies, you could make that case for, and I find them [fascinating]. But the supernatural stuff in general – I don’t know. I feel like stories more terrifying that I feel like might actually happen, for better or worse. That might not be the escapism that a lot of filmgoers want. But it’s where I instinctively go for better or worse as an actor: I try to make him more human, and I love that. Krug has to suffer the consequences, even if you do feel sorry for him. Like, yeah, poor guy, the world has dealt you a sh*t hand, but so what?

Do you come up with a profile or back story about his life, or is it just more important to be present in each scene?

Dillahunt: You have to come up with something, but you have to make sure that the things you come up with are things that you respond to emotionally. Otherwise it’s just biography. Because with a lot of those things, it’s like, okay, that’s what happened to him, but that didn’t make me better. I think it was important with him to do those things; you want to know where [Krug’s son] Justin’s mother is, why doesn’t Justin know the things we do. I think he’s relatively new – we’re catching Krug at a time when he’s just sort of learning to kill, and starting to enjoy it or find it a handy way to deal with trouble. But I think they would be caught in short order if they weren’t killed by the Collingwoods.

How do you preserve a sense of continuity with a role like this given all of the interruptions and downtime that is part of shooting a movie without just staying in character all of the time?

Dillahunt: I guess it’s about creating an atmosphere and a lot of that is up to the director. A lot of that is up to the cast as well. In the best case scenarios, you’re all on the same page, but sometimes you’re not and it’s all up to you to create a place where you can do your work. I’m not one of those who walks around in character, because I think it’s exhausting, and also it’s not really possible. You can do little bits like that, but how am I supposed to walk around like Krug? If I was really doing that, I would be chased by cops, you know what I mean? It’s not really possible. In this case, it was a really good environment all around; it was a place where you weren’t penalized for creating or trying something different. It was an atmosphere where everyone was prepared, so you just needed to know your character and then you could sort of be thrown into any situation.

How difficult was it to shoot the scene involving the sexual assault? It was almost unbearable to watch.

Dillahunt: I worried about that – how much do we actually have to show to tell that same story. It’s not easy. It’s certainly not fun. No sex scene is fun, and that is not that, this is an assault. This is a power game. There should be nothing appealing about it. I remember Dennis said a good thing. I don’t remember the guy’s title, but they were watching dailies in Africa [where the film was shot], and this guy who works for the film company, his job is to load up the dailies for us to show them. I wasn’t there, but on the dailies of that day, he doesn’t know what he’s about to see, and he left the room angry. He said, “I’m offended by this. I don’t want to watch this.” I said to Dennis, “does that make you nervous? That could be our entire audience.” He got very thoughtful and he said, “no, it would make me nervous if people masturbate.” He said it made him happy that it was properly affronting. There’s no end of perverts out there, there probably will be someone who does find it [exciting]. It was awful to do, but by the same token it was probably the most, in a shoot that I felt very focused, this was the most focused day. I felt prepared, ready to do it in as few takes as possible. I think it’s because all of my attention was on Sara [Paxton], as it should be, I think. She’s the one who really has to go to the dark place, and expose a bit of herself figuratively and literally. I’m friends with her, I was friends with her before the shoot, which is not necessarily an advantage because I wanted her to stay my friend after we were done. But I knew that I was going to go there, so it was just be ready, keep my leg in the right place, when we were not shooting, pull her pants up or get a blanket for her. Just make it as least weird as possible. There’s people that take advantage of those situations, I’m sure, and I didn’t want her to think I was one of them.

What for you is the mark of success with each movie or show you appear in? For example, if your goal is to continue making movies and you make one so that it makes money that’s completely valid, but is it enough for you to be happy with your performance in a movie whether or not the movie itself is a success? Do you think the whole movie needs to be good?

Dillahunt: Well, I would certainly like that, but I think in those situations [when a movie is good] everyone is better. I just mean that all I can do is do a good job, but I think it’s a little bit of a cop-out too because there is a way to do your part in creating that environment that I spoke of earlier where everyone can be better. I mean everyone – the cameraman, if you’re in the right state of mind you can excite other people. Those experiences, I like best, but it’s a bit of a disappointment if you hinge your success on the success of the movie. I mean, I loved Jesse James, and I’m really proud of that movie, which by business accounts was a failure. I think that’s unjustified. I just want to be proud of my work, I want to do projects I’m proud of, that I feel have some point, I suppose. I feel like since Deadwood I’ve gotten into that mindset, educated to that, and I want to repeat that. I don’t think that can always happen, but it’s worth striving for.