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A grieving father (Willem Dafoe) takes his wife to a cabin in the woods with disastrous results in the controversial “Antichrist.” |
Most people probably know Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin from the first blockbuster “Spider-Man” movie.
But the two-time Oscar nominee is also a star of what will certainly be the most controversial, polarizing motion picture of 2009: Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist,” opening today at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago.
He and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a husband and wife who lose a child, then go to an isolated cabin in the woods to work out guilt and grief, with shocking, catastrophic results.
I sat down with Dafoe at Chicago’s Wit Hotel in the Loop and asked him the burning question: When shooting the two hard-core sex scenes in “Antichrist,” did he use a “stunt double”?
“I did on those two porn shots,” Dafoe said.
“We did a lot of stuff nude,” he added, “but he (Lars) cut it out because he said it was too distracting.”
“Antichrist” has the ability to really upset some viewers, especially if they’re not prepared for what they’re about to experience.
“I can understand why,” Dafoe said, “if you’re not interested in unfamiliar things. If you’re not interested in some rough, visceral moments, seeing things you’re not usually seeing in films. I understand that. And it’s not so much those rough moments as those unrelenting meditations on guilt, and depression. (Read more…)