#Why Nightmare Alley Star Willem Dafoe Hates Day One Of Shooting [Interview]

Kim Morgan and Guillermo del Toro’s dialogue is really fun. What was enjoyable about delivering it?

Well, the nice thing was there was a very strong script when I signed on to do it, and then in the process of making it, we kept on tweaking the language, because both Kim and Guillermo became much more interested in finding the period vernacular and finding slang and expressions that you may not exactly understand, but had a texture of that world, almost a coded kind of language. There’s not a lot, but there’s enough that it was fun. It helps you enter the world, because it’s so specific. It doesn’t remind you of anything. You’re making a world with that new language.

Any slang or expressions you particularly enjoyed?

No, I was trying — I anticipated this, because it’s interesting. I was trying to think today, and none comes to mind right away. I’m sorry.

That’s okay.

Yeah, but apparently it’s distinct enough that you did notice there was some slang, and very specific carny talk.

You probably get the most detailed carny talk when Clem explains how to make a geek, and just how casual he is in that scene, it makes it more horrifying.

That was the first thing I shot. I’d just arrived, and it’s a dialogue-heavy scene, and it was baptism by fire, you know? I just jumped in. But it’s basically a story, and when you have a long text like that, you get pretty familiar with it, and you find a rhythm and you find a music, and that’s your place that you start. Then of course, once you get there and you’re in that place, it gets textured by the experience.

Particularly when you do a text-heavy scene, it’s got to be considered much before, because not only just to memorize the text, but to have a sense of what you’re trying to convey. And this is a story. It’s got a logic to it, it’s a way of being, it’s an expression of his objectivity, and tells a lot about his worldview and his philosophy of life, in the sense of his special relationship to the character of people and the character of their desires and their addictions, and how they can be reduced very easily. You know, they can lose their humanity if you know how to play them.

How do you usually feel on day one of shooting?

I hate day one shooting, because you’re seldom relaxed. But it was fine, it was fine, and Bradley’s a good partner. And also, it’s quite a simple scene in the respect that we’re seated down at a table, and other than the business of eating, it’s a pretty direct scene. You’re talking to the guy, you’re telling him the story. So it wasn’t a bad way to start, but first days are always hard, because you’re folding into the world. Also, if people have been shooting before, they’ve got their rhythm and you have to kind of hop on board. You got to suss out what they’re doing and join them. It’s hopping on a moving train, you know? It’s difficult that way.