Willem Dafoe insisted Emma Stone slap him 20 times off-camera to make a scene in their new movie more authentic
- Emma Stone slapped Willem Dafoe 20 times off-camera for a scene in their new film, "And."
- The New York Times reported Dafoe insisted Stone actually hit him to make the scene more authentic.
Willem Dafoe insisted that his costar Emma Stone slap him 20 times off-camera to make a scene in their new movie "And" feel more authentic.
Stone and Dafoe have been working closely together in the last year after starring in two movies, "And" and "Poor Things."
According to a New York Times profile of Dafoe published Thursday, in one of the scenes in "And," Stone's character slaps Dafoe's character, who is meant to be off camera.
However, to make the scene look more realistic, Dafoe insisted that he participate in the scene and that Stone actually hit him.
Stone told the Times of working with Dafoe: "There's this instinct to perform that many actors have — the 'look at me, look at me!' kind of performer. He's the opposite of that."
When reporter Susan Dominus pointed out that earlier collaborators of Dafoe, Elizabeth LeCompte and Kate Valk said the actor was "hungry to be looked at," Stone added: "Maybe it's changed through the years. A lot of actors I bond with have been doing this for a long time, and you know they've gone from 'I' to 'we.'"
Stone also noted that Dafoe loved being on set, even when he had no scenes to shoot.
"And" director Yorgos Lanthimos said: "That's what you want from actors. To want to be part of it in any way."
Robert Pattinson told GQ last year that working with Dafoe on the 2019 psychological thriller "The Lighthouse" was "like working with a 6-year-old."
"I was kind of a little bit terrified at the beginning because we'd rehearse the entire movie, and then the second we got to the end, he's like, 'Again!' and just start doing it again and his energy hadn't even been dented," Pattinson said.