It was 9AM and the hotel room was hazy with cigarette smoke. Stephen Dorff stood up to greet me warmly and then laid back on the couch, snapping open a can of Diet Coke.

I decided not to tell him that he was my “primo.” You see, the last time I thought about Dorff was in my Grade Eleven Spanish class. My assignment was to make a family tree, en Espanol! Since I didn’t have any photos of my cousins, Mark and Ben, they became Jim Morrison and Stephen Dorff. Girls were jealous of the hot-ass boys in my family.

In Sofia Coppola’s latest slow-moving and style-driven masterpiece, Somewhere, Dorff makes a comeback as Johnny Marco, the hedonistic Hollywood bad boy who drinks and fucks like he’s got a week left to live. But really he’s all sad inside and just wants to play Guitar Hero with his little girl.

How did you first meet Sofia?

We met in the early nineties at a fashion show in New York and it was through our good friend, a mutual friend, Zoe Cassavetes, and, umm, I’d done some work for Frances, her father, he’d always call. He was like God for me

What did you think after watching Lost in Translation for the first time?

I remember being so proud of Sofia. That was my favourite movie of the year. Bill Murray got robbed, as usual. Cause he was fucking amazing.

How did you feel when you received the script?

Sofia could have given me anything and I would have done it. The last time I’d seen them was at my thirtieth birthday. It had been a long time, five years…and the script came out of nowhere.  [Somewhere!] 

Dorff coughs and continues.

I was making Public Enemy forever. Six months shooting guns and playing with the boys…that was fun, but I was craving a part like this, a real character. I needed something to grow into and when she asked me to come to Paris, it was so weird. So much of my career has been about wanting certain parts that I can’t get…and then the hardest one just sort of floats in my lap. There are so many bigger actors that wanted the part or were coming off a bigger hit movie than me, or however it works, and she wanted me! She was like, “No, I want Stephen.” She is very brave and she gave me the best part of my life.   
 

What do you think of Johnny Marco?

I like him. I care about him. I think when you open him up he’s a very confused guy, a very sweet guy. He’s a broken man. He’s numb: self-medicating. He’s not happy sleeping with all these girls. He can’t even stay awake. He’s a guy who, along the way, with his explosion of fame or whatever, he lost himself.

Dorff breaks to pour Diet Coke over ice and cough. 

The end of the movie is like his beginning. He’s going to be a great dad. He’ll probably find himself being a better actor. I’m sure a movie will come to him as it came to me.

So, like, how cool is Sofia Coppola?

I mean, she’s so cool and when she cast me, everyone thinks I’m cool again. I told her, “Sofia, you made me cool again.” I’m doing all these magazine covers, they all like me again. “Well, you were always cool. I just rediscovered you.”

I’ve never been to LA, tell me about the Chateau Marmont:

As a young boy I had heard about the Chateau and Hollywood spots. It was up the hill from where I was growing up in the valley. I had always put pressure on my mom, “I  wanna go to Hollywood, I want to go to the hill.” She was like; “You’ll get over there when you are sixteen. But for now, we live here.”

The Chateau was this iconic place that I’d always heard about, read about. I knew the darker stories about it but I also knew the brighter stories about it. There’s this energy there. It’s not just a dark hole. It’s not just for depressed Johnny Marcos…although that can easily happen at The Chateau. The most depressed I’ve ever gotten at times has been in the most unique, special, beautiful places.

How are you and Johnny similar? Do you relate to his character?

I grew up in the movies. I feel like I’ve been doing this a lot longer than Johnny. I’ve had a different kind of career. I’m not a father. I’m not there yet with a lot of stuff. At the same time, I have felt isolation and loneliness in between movies.

Do you think being a Hollywood celebrity is especially lonely?

The time she (Coppola) chooses to explore in this movie is when Johnny is not working, which I think is more interesting then if he had been on set. What’s it like being an actor when there’s nothing going on? When the lights stop? It’s a weird job.

Any kind of performer, I mean you read about people going downhill but they are so funny. It’s such an intense feeling when a performer is doing their thing but then when gig is over, it all kind of stops.

What was it like to play a Dad?

I never saw myself getting old and now I’m 37. People are dying. Babies are being born…I’m surrounded by children. I have kids responding to me, liking me, and I’ve never had that. I wish I had a girlfriend.

So, you made pottery at Colour Me Mine with Elle Fanning, what else did you do to bond?

I didn’t know how to approach, besides hanging out, I didn’t know. It was weird.  I drove over to pick her up from school. I was alone. I put pressure on myself, I can’t yell at drivers, I can’t have road rage, I gotta clean my car, I have to make sure she’s in a seatbelt. I was also awkward, I didn’t know what she wanted, where she wanted to go so I was like, “Do you want to get ice cream?

And she was like, “No.”

And I was like, “Okay,”

FUCK. SO then I’m like, “..Now what?”

So I asked her, “Yogurt?”

“Yeah, I’ll go for yogurt.” She said.

We went to get yogurt. I had these weird hair extensions. She kept looking at me like I was a freak.

She’s a very talented girl…. what do you think of little Elle?

Elle is more mature than any girl I’ve ever dated.

I wanted to dig deeper into Dorff. I wanted more time to examine him and gaze at his muscles wrapped tightly in a slightly distressed white cotton t-shirt. But I was cut off.

“Yo, you are only giving these girls like five minutes!” He hollered at the publicist.

I reassured him that I’d see him at the promo screening that eve.

“Cool.” He smiled.

I think he would have been happy to talk about Somewhere until nightfall. And, for whatever reason, that made me happy.   

~ Jen McNeely