[Interview] Vincent D’Onofrio Trades Full Metal Jacket for a Slasher/Musical
01/12/2012 23:45
Written by The Horror Czar
Vincent D’Onofrio is going to be best known for different things by different people. This American actor from New York City is loved by millions for his role as Detective Robert Goren in ‘Law and Order: Criminal Intent’, a part he played for 10 years. Vincent has also played in over 50 movies since 1983 including (for those of us inclined toward horror) 976-EVIL II, The Thirteenth Floor, Men in Black and the Jennifer Lopez vehicle The Cell. The most memorable role for D’Onofrio may be “Gomer Pyle” in Full Metal Jacket where his on-screen psychotic break made movie history. D’Onofrio is also the writer and director of the “Slasher/Musical” horror film Don’t Go In the Woods, Due for limited U.S. theatrical relase on January 13, 2012. Vincent talked with The Horror Czar, Don Sumner of Best-Horror-Movies.com about his beginnings in acting, avoiding being typecast as “that crazy guy” after FMJ, and making an absurd movie on a whim using only an idea and a commitment to follow through as the guide.
The Horror Czar, BHM
Rewind to the beginning – looks like you started acting in 1983 with “The First Turn-On” – How did you get started in performing, acting and entertainment in the first place?
Vincent D’Onofrio
My Dad was involved in theater, like Community Theater and stuff when I was a kid, so I used to be a techie. I would do sound or lights or build sets or something. That’s where I saw my first stage performance. I started studying acting in New York, and that’s pretty much how I got into it.
BHM
How does that first job come? You see on TV with casting calls, working as a waiter…
Vincent
Yeah, you have like a million jobs when you’re a kid. I used to be a bouncer in a million different places in New York City. I would work late at night and I would go to auditions during the day. I would get plays where there would be like two or three people in the audience when you performed, and you just work your way up. In my case I got a theatrical agent who would send me up for better plays, and I ended up on Broadway. I was also doing films for NYU, you know, student films and stuff like that, and then eventually I got Full Metal Jacket, and that was without an agent, and when Full Metal Jacket came I got a film agent because I did that film.
BHM
Yeah, Gomer Pyle - who doesn’t remember Gomer Pyle from Full Metal Jacket? That’s got to be the “big break” right…
Vincent
I wouldn’t be talking to you right now…
BHM
Haha! And, you play so crazy in that (movie) that what I find kind of cool about you is that you didn’t end up being “that crazy guy” in everything that you played after that. The next year you did “Mystic Pizza”.
Vincent
Right
BHM
Was that on purpose or did it just happen? Did you decide that you didn’t want to just be “that crazy guy”?
Vincent
No, no, that was... well, I put on all that weight for Full Metal Jacket and I waited about a year before I went on auditions again so I could take it all off. I did get offers to play other bad guys; I don’t remember what they all were. I think one was a James Bond film, looking for this big fat bald guy. I wanted to get to my normal weight before getting back out because I knew I wanted to try my hand at other performances, other things.
BHM
Yeah, I can see how, if you’d taken another “crazy guy” or two after that, you’d just be the crazy guy. Big, scary crazy guy.
Vincent
Yeah.
BHM
So you’ve got a whole lot of things going on now. I always see you in ‘Law and Order: Criminal Intent’ because my Mom loves that show. Is that kind of like the “day job” that keeps the bills paid while you work on your favorite projects?
Vincent
Well I don’t do that show anymore.
BHM
Oh! When did you stop doing that show?
Vincent
I stopped doing it almost 2 years ago. Well not 2 years ago, but almost a year and a half ago.
BHM
Well they must be all in syndication still.
Vincent
Yeah, and I did it for 10 years so there’s plenty of shows to show. It was a great job.
BHM
And now you’re writing and directing. I’m not sure when you first got into that, but the first credit I could find was a short film 5 minutes Mr. Wells in 2005, and then a long period between that and Don’t Go Into the Woods. When did the aspirations to direct and write, expand beyond being the performer, take hold?
Vincent
It’s just when I have an idea. I’m not really trying to set out as a director really, I just had this idea “5 Minutes Mr. Wells” and I wanted to make it, so I did. And Don’t Go Into the Woods was just basically this just absurd idea about making a Slasher/Musical where everybody sings and everybody dies in it.
BHM
Ha Ha!
Vincent
It was just an experiment really and we shot it for very little money and shot it in 12 days. You know, I’m just doing these things because I like them and, you know, if I found a really cool script that somebody else wrote and they wanted me to direct then I would definitely do that, but I have my hands in other things as well and I really don’t consider myself “a director”, and the reason why I say that is I’ve worked with so many great directors and it’s too bizarre to consider myself one of them. I mean, I’ve worked with some shitty directors who I think shouldn’t call themselves directors, and I feel more like one of them.
BHM
So, who were the shitty directors? Ha Haha! I know you’re not going to tell me that.
Vincent
Of course not, I don’t want to kick anybody while they’re down, but the point is that I’ve had the opportunity to work with probably the best American directors there will ever be, and they’re just too good at their job for me to claim I’m one of them. I feel too shy about it to tell you the truth.
BHM
A bit of being humble is never a bad thing. It’s a lot better than you saying you’re going to be the next ‘Master Director of the Universe’ – and who knows whether that’s in your future or not, but…
Vincent
I don’t think so, but I have fun doing these things, I’ll tell you that.
BHM
So the “Slasher/Musicical.. uh, yeah, that IS a bizarre concept. Was it like a dream or like, sitting around with buddies and saying, “ha ha, you know what would be great?”
Vincent
Yeah, I was actually driving, we have a house in Upstate New York, in the woods, and I was driving back to the city with my wife and I said “I really feel like doing something – what do I have available to me?” We discussed it and we thought that we had woods, and we had friends who were writers and composers, and I had a crew who will just come and shoot whatever I want, and I said “why don’t I just cast a bunch of non-actors, that’s what most horror movies have in them anyway, and just make a Slasher musical? Just take a chance and do an experiment and see if we can actually make this absurd film about people who sing and die. Honestly that’s exactly how the idea came up. Then I pitched it to my friend Sam Bisbee who wrote all the music for the film, and he loved the idea and started writing immediately. Two months from that drive from Upstate we were shooting in the woods.
BHM
Wow.
Vincent
And we shot it in 12 days, and by the time we were finished with post it cost about $100 Grand, the whole thing.
HC
Wow, that’s great! And you sang some in this too, right?
Vincent
Yeah, there’s a song on the radio when the kids are driving in the van – a Country Western song.
BHM
Yeah, I was looking through your history and it looks like you’ve been involved intermittently in the music end, sound tracks and writing songs – is that something that is kind of…
Vincent
Yeah, sometimes. I love singing, especially with a band. It’s just fun to do. Sometimes we do these weird shows at Joe’s Pub in New York. They’re really fun to do.
BHM
Sounds great. Are you a big horror fan generally?
Vincent
It’s one of my favorite genres. I’ve been watching them since I was a kid, I think like most of us. I think the thing I like about horror films most is that they are… not meant to be critiqued? You watch a horror film expecting that you have to take a certain leap of faith with it, and that you know you’re going to see unexplained violence on top of this kind of intense, thriller aspect. It’s the only genre where… I think all of the other genres like Sci-fi, Comedy and dramatic films, you go in with this feeling of “I hope it’s a great film” whereas a horror film you really don’t go in thinking that. You just go in thinking “I’m gonna go see a horror movie”.
BHM
What’s your favorite horror movie of all time?
Vincent
I have a couple. There is a French film called High Tension that I really liked a lot,
BHM
Yeah…
Vincent
And The Shining’s a great film – there’s been a lot of horror movies that I liked.
BHM
Yeah, those are two good ones that I love too. So, in making Don’t Go In the Woods you wrote it, you directed it, you hadn’t done that a whole lot…
Vincent
Yeah, just once before.
BHM
Yeah, so, what were the big surprises, or disasters or “lessons learned”, something you didn’t expect about actually being the filmmaker?
Vincent
Well, I was pretty confident going into it, and we casted off the street. We didn’t use a casting director – I wanted all non-actors, I just wanted singers to do all the parts, and I knew we had to get away with this really absurd thing and I wanted all the acting to be really flat, and I wanted all of the music to add production value to all of these flat performances so that it would create this weird tone in the movie. And so I knew that the whole idea… I mean, we wrote the script with a “B” horror film structure, then put that music to it… so we knew that the whole idea going into it was absolutely absurd, and that you were either gonna love this movie or hate it, and it didn’t really matter in the end. It’s just made for pure entertainment. I also knew that the songs had to be really good, but unlike some of the other kind of ‘horror operas’ that have been out, other than Rocky Horror which the music is great in, the music is kind of cringing, but Sam’s music has a lot of melody and is really good music, great pop songs. When you make a film like this, just kind of going in, shoot the shit out of it for 12 days and hope for the best, which is basically what we did. So, I knew all that going in so there weren’t really any surprises other than “Jeeze, how are we gonna get away with this?” on a daily basis. Like “How are we gonna get away with this” and “how are we gonna get away with that?” Scene after scene after scene – so every day was approached like that, just to see how we can get away with it any way that we can. Am I making sense? Do you know what I mean?
BHM
Yeah, I do.
Vincent
I mean if you’re going to make a Slasher/Musical, which really hasn’t been done before where everybody sings and everybody dies, it’s really a challenge going in. So you expect the worst every day, and you just do it. You just commit, and you do it, much like I do with my acting. A lot of people have enjoyed my performances throughout the years and a lot of people have hated it. It’s like the character in ‘Criminal Intent’ for instance – I did that show for 10 years, and when I walk around cities in America and cities in Europe, in Israel and in the most obscure countries, people love that character that I did on that show. I don’t know why they do, but they do. But there are also people that don’t. So you go into every project like I did with my acting; People are either going to like it or hate it so you might as well just commit and do your best.
BHM
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So, Don’t go in the Woods, it’s out on VOD now, it came out right after Christmas.
Vincent
Yeah, the day after Christmas.
BHM
Then there is a limited theatrical release on January 13th. Where can people see it, do you know?
Vincent
I don’t know which theaters it’s going to be in.
BHM
Are you doing a big opening?
Vincent
I think we’re doing a big screening of it in New York on Friday.
BHM
Great! I think a lot of people are looking forward to this film. There’s been a lot of talk about it, I think because of the crazy concept of Slasher/Musical, I mean, good God…
Vincent
Yeah, I think that… well, before Tribeca got involved in this film I took it around to colleges all over the country, and that’s really who we made it for. These days in colleges they have these great and technical screening facilities, really great screens and great sound systems, and I was able to show the film to 3, 4, 5 hundred kids at one shot, and they loved the movie. It’s geared toward that kind of crowd. That’s who the music is popular with and the movie is just completely absurd and pure entertainment. Hopefully the right audiences will get to see it.
BHM
Vincent, what are you working on now? What’s the next big project that we have coming from you?
Vincent
I have two films coming out, I guess, the end of Winter? And then I’m writing this other thing that I’m probably going to make into a film.
BHM
What’s that called, working title?
Vincent
It’s called “Johnny and Me”. I’m trying to get that right before we shoot it, so it might take a little while longer, but it’s coming together pretty good.
BHM
That’s not horror, doesn’t sound like horror to me.
Vincent
No, it’s not a horror movie, but it does have an intense musical aspect to it.
BHM
Sounds great. Well Vincent, thanks for all of the information and the time. We’re looking forward to Don’t Go In the Woods, and wish you all the best with that one.
Vincent
Aw, thanks man.
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