“It’s Like Elephant Man Meets A Clockwork Orange”: Stephen Dorff On His Wild New Sci-Fi Film ‘Divinity’
Mary Beth McAndrews
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Actor Stephen Dorff has incredible range. From the sultry Deacon Frost in Blade to his turn in Cecil B. Demented to his appearance in The Righteous Gemstone, Dorff is a chameleon of sorts, turning into strange but fascinating characters with each role. And Dorff is continuing that trend by starring in Eddie Alcazar’s new acid-trip of a film, Divinity.
Read the full synopsis:
Set in an otherworldly human existence, scientist Sterling Pierce (Scott Bakula) dedicated his life to the quest for immortality, slowly creating the building blocks of a groundbreaking serum named “Divinity.” Jaxxon Pierce (Stephen Dorff), his son, now controls and manufactures his father’s once-benevolent dream. Society on this barren planet has been entirely perverted by the supremacy of the drug, whose true origins are shrouded in mystery. Two mysterious brothers (Moises Arias and Jason Genao) arrive with a plan to abduct the mogul, and with the help of a seductive woman named Nikita (Karrueche Tran), they will be set on a path hurtling toward true immortality.
Dread Central spoke with Dorff about what drew him to this project, working with John Waters, how he keeps his career interesting, and more.
Dread Central: I was not expecting anything about Divinity when I saw it. And what was it like to be a part of such a weird, cool movie?
Stephen Dorff: It was just a really unorthodox kind of making way to make a movie. But I mean, I liked Eddie [Alcazar]. I liked his short, The Vandal. We had been talking for a while and he had told me that [Stephen] Soderberg was going to let him do a film and pay for a movie of his, and what was the movie going to be? And I said, “Well, you got to tell me that buddy.” So it was one thing, it was going to be one movie. Then he sent me a script and it was going to be something else.
He really got on this trip about Jaxxon Pierce and this kind of scientist growing up with this man down in a basement and then this chemical that kind of takes over and how we’re in the future and we’re in the desert and a big house. And I was like, “All right, well I still need a script or I don’t know what I’m playing.”
A couple of months later, I started getting pages. And then we had a window where I went down to Joshua Tree and we shot most of the movie and probably did a hardcore three, four-week shoot, I think where most of the stuff at the house was shot. And then there were a lot of empty spaces in the acts and Eddie kind of wrote more and then shot more. I didn’t even know half of these people were in the movie. So I didn’t know Bella Thorne was in the movie until I was shooting a cover of Flaunt Magazine with her and going to Sundance. So it’s a different kind of experience.
I’m an actor that likes to have a script. I like to know exactly what’s going on. I’m very detail-oriented with everything I do, and I like to know what I’m saying, and what I’m doing. And this was really, I mean, this was an uncomfortable part for me. Eddie, I don’t know if he hated me in another life, but in this one, he really put me through the torture chamber. I mean, I’m naked in the movie in spandex shorts. I’m sweating. I have 50 pounds of prosthetics on my head. I’m roped in this chair with Japanese sex rope.
I mean, it’s like anything to do that could have restrained me, he did. Which was pretty awesome for the work. So I don’t really care about being uncomfortable if we’re getting good stuff. And so that’s how it was for me. It was pretty much kind of a torturous experience just because every time I’m pretty much stuck in this chair. And as you know, it’s very complicated to shoot this stock of film, which has only been used I think on four movies in the world. And Kodak has to make special.
DC: Oh really? I didn’t realize that.
SD: So it’s not something that’s really easy. It’s incredibly difficult for Danny [Hiele] the DP to light because once you capture it, it’s done. There’s no way to pull it out later and play with it. But Eddie wanted to challenge that and wanted to go with those things. And I’m all about film. For me, it was just a unique experience. I mean, I’ve seen the movie twice and it’s definitely a mind fuck. It’s definitely a different kind of movie. It’s strikingly shot. I think the actors did a really good job. There’s some really intense stuff going on.
But for me, yeah, it was a hard performance. I don’t really mind makeup and stuff, but it was just the desert, the heat, the house, the amount of makeup, the stages, the fact that we’re not a hundred-million-dollar movie and we have plenty of time to do it. We’re kind of still making kind of an indie movie, but we’re doing it with huge technicians and film and all these things that you would think would be on a bigger movie.
So it was definitely a challenge for everybody involved. But everybody showed up. And Eddie, after the fact brought in incredible talent like Mark A. Mangini who did the sound design, the guy did Dune and won the last couple of Oscars. He’s just brought in all these great people that wanted to support Eddie. So that’s kind of what happens when you get a guy with a vision that’s a little different and a little more unique.
DC: Hell yeah.
SD: That’s what this movie is. It’s definitely not like anything you’re going to see this year. Or maybe next year. I think in that respect, I remember Soderberg telling me at Sundance, “I just love that nobody knows what the hell they’re about to experience.” And then we went down and watched the movie and it was like, in that respect, it’s cool. I mean, for me, I do all kinds of movies so I can do a movie like this very esoteric, crazy performance kind of whatever this movie is. And then I can go do a big comedy with Rebel Wilson, which I just did. So it’s just like for me, I just go into the different camps and try to bring the story to life on camera and then it’s really out of my hands.
DC: Yeah, I love that though. I love your range. You’re in Divinity, and then you’re in The Righteous Gemstones. You have such a cool range in genre.
SD: I loved Gemstones and I love working on Divinity. I love originality. I love just working with great people. Actually, I don’t consider Divinity horror at all.
DC: Divinity doesn’t really exist in a genre.
SD: I think it’s more sci-fi and like Elephant Man meets A Clockwork Orange. It reminds me of Clockwork Orange a lot at the end when it goes to color and the out-of-focus, manic kind of ending. But I don’t know. I love that every movie is different. That’s kind of the journey of an actor. Anybody that understands what we’re doing here, you don’t really know how a movie’s going to turn out. You can feel things. And I knew this was going to be interesting, but I didn’t realize it would be maybe as epic as it became whatever this film is. It was refreshing to see it in Sundance at midnight in that great old theater on Main Street with the crowd. Somebody had a seizure during the fucking opening credits. I mean, it was crazy.
I remember when I worked with John Waters and everybody told me, “Oh, you don’t want to, this movie’s not going to do anything for you.” I’m like, “What are you talking about? The movie that you want me to do is terrible at the time.” And I’ve got John Waters who wrote a movie for me. That’s his biggest-budget movie pretty much. I get to play a deranged filmmaker. Why wouldn’t I work with John Waters? For me, as an actor, the only way to keep it interesting is the body of work, the longevity. And to see at the end of the day, wow, he worked with Waters. Wow. He worked with this one.
I mean, John Waters to me is a totally brilliant filmmaker. The Academy of Motion Pictures has a huge show on him in their museum now. I mean, he, he’s a genius. So of course I wanted to work with him. Then I fired those agents soon after and I did the movie and we had a standing ovation in Cannes, another midnight screening, and the French went ape shit for it. Cecil B. Demented is a movie that kids come up to me about all the time. And I love John. He’s still a good friend of mine.
So I always kind of go with my instincts. And Divinity was one of those movies. I literally met Eddie unorthodoxly like the movie. He’s like, “Do you want to make this film with me?” And I was like, “Yeah.” So I called my agents and just said, “I’m making this movie, figure it out.” And it wasn’t something that was sent to me by the studio. I sometimes like that kind of way of working. And Eddie is a force and I think he’ll be around for a long time. I’m excited to see how he grows from this and what he does next.
Divinity comes to theaters everywhere on November 3, 2023.
Categorized:Interviews
