30 | DirectorJonathanKaplancalledmeMarlon, because I wanted todo everything“realistically”, 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 representedtherolemodel generationforhim whilehewas studyingat the Lee Strasberg school. And then he familiarised himself with the work of Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and James Dean. “FromDean andClift I learnedhow to be vulnerable. Then there was De Niro in ‘Taxi Driver’. Those were some of the rst actors to show vulnerability and intensity of thinking. Later I also admired Spencer Tracy, John Gar eld and James Cagney, because they were very truthful in their approach. I was also striving for all of that, and that excitedmewhen I watched amovie: an actor who transforms into another character and in doing so is honest, not theatrical. I remember the rst Bertolucci and Kubrick movies.” Hewas just 18when hemade his rst lmwithCoppola.Together they shot‘The Outsiders’and‘Rumble Fish’, and Coppola left an indeliblemark on his acting career. “WhenwewereworkingonTheOutsiders, Francis said tome, “You have to watch thesemovies,”andgavemeKurosawa’s‘Seven Samurai’ and other movies that subsequently inspiredSergioLeoneand theSpaghettiWesterns.Francisfamiliarisedmewith the idea of lm and never avoided revealinghis own rolemodels, whether that was JohnFord’s‘The Informer’withVictorMcLaglen, the silent movie ‘The Last Laugh’ by F.W.Murnau,withthefamousEmil Jannings, or Carol Reed’s‘TheThirdMan’,”says Dillon, revealing thatTheThirdManalsohappens to be his favourite lm. His career todatehas includedaround sixty roles. Byhis 20s, he alreadyhad 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 30th 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 experience I gained while lming it. I was happy when Emir Kusturica toldme that he’d chosen that speci c title as an illustration of my career.” And his latest role, that of Jack the serial killer in the Lars von Trier lm ‘The HouseThat Jack Built’, has provoked ery reactions. “Yes, yes, I scared you all [laughs]. Honestly, it wasn’t a topic that interestedme, but I admire vonTrier as a director and thought of this as an opportunity to make something good. I love challenging tasks, and with von Trier there’s an overabundanceof 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 America, but he’s never been to the U.S., as he says he has a fear of ying, but he also toldme that he once ew in a helicopter, so I don’t knowwhat to think... We didn’t have a single rehearsal, and that was the rst time inmy life that had happened to 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 countingMećavnik, 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.”
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