Chatting on stage with Vincent D'Onofrio

TampaBay.com | 4.18.10
by Steve Persall

Vincent D'Onofrio charmed an audience -- and yours truly posing the questions -- as part of the Sarasota Film Festival's A Conversation with... series Sunday, as the 10-day cinema showcase drew to a close.

For 70 minutes, D'Onofrio proved himself as intensely focused on his craft as his Law & Order: Criminal Intent character Det. Bobby Goren. Yet with loose-lipped candor that you'd expect from anyone wearing flip-flops to a public appearance in a chic town.

That role, which recently came to an end, was obviously what drew most of the 160 people in attendance at the cozy Gompertz Theater -- including one woman named Jeannette who came dressed in L&O:CI gear, with handcuffs hanging off her purse. She made D'Onofrio a bit nervous, I think. But he made it out safely.
We got around to that but I was more interested in his movie work, zeroing in on his films with great directors like Stanley Kubrick (Full Metal Jacket) and Robert Altman (The Player) -- making fascinating comparisons between the masters -- and the two occasions he played Orson Welles, in Tim Burton's Ed Wood and his own short film, Five Minutes, Mr. Welles. We got into some of his indie work, like The Whole Wide World, and in one funny section he described how he built his Men in Black character of a farmer infected by an alien bug.

D'Onofrio spoke of buying a pair of athletic leg braces and binding them with duct tape with the joints splayed in drastic positions. He stood up -- which takes some doing since he's 6-4 -- to mimic the spastic gait the best he could. He said the voice ("More sugarrrr!") evolved into a blend of George C. Scott and John Huston.

"The thing was, when I showed up on set and started to do it, it was like this, I mean they stopped shooting. They were like (strokes chin) 'Hmmm. Let's take a break.' They were nervous, very very nervous, like, you know, getting fired nervous.

"But it worked out. And what happened was, it worked out so well that after two weeks of shooting the bosses came into my trailer and said: 'Well, we have to get rid of the (alien) puppets that they made for your character because they can't make them move as interesting as you're moving.' Honest to God truth.

"I tell you, every single time you try to pull off a unique performance, and you do your homework, it causes problems for everybody else."

Source

Thanks Tricia!