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"Wild at heart"
By Shari Roman

Seated at one of his favorite L.A. haunts, a corner table pool side at the Sunset Marquis Hotel, Stephen Dorff is discussing his desire to make an important, lasting film. He carries a reputation for playing imperfect, wounded souls who carry their scars on the inside. But huddled in a light jacket against a cool wind, sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes, dorff looks positively serene, happy even. He laughs, "It's true, I used to be a lot more belligerent. I'm understanding a lot more now that I'm older." even so, with his blonde tousled hair pushed up under his baseball cap, looking a bit like a young Paul Newman, the only sign of age in the 28 year-old actor is something wise and a little ironic, in the smiling blue eyes. As he fiddles with his coffee. he explains that for him, acting involves such a huge commitment, both personally and professionally and that he tries never to take on a role unless it speaks to him so strongly that he feels he must accept it. Almost impetuously, he explains that his latest release, Deuces Wild, a look at the final days of street gangs, is just one of those movies.

"No matter how great the script, or the people you are working with, if you enter into films that are being made on a big Hollywood level, you get a little bit lost in the mix," says Dorff, the Georgia-born, Los Angeles-raised actor whose repertory includes The Power of One, City of Industry, Cecil B. Demented, Entropy, BackBeat, and I shot Andy Warhol. "Even though, I admit, I really like doing an action picture like Blade, I thought at the time that this one is going to be the end of my career. I've always responded more to the smaller movies, where I can really see the chance to do something. Okay, so Deuces Wild may not be as ground breaking as Coppola's Rumble Fish, but it's a good film, it was great to work on," he slaps the table as he yells out to the world, "and I get to play the good guy for a change."

The film, directed by Scott Kalvert (The Basketball Diaries), is set in 1950s Brooklyn in a small neighborhood just beginning to be touched by the corruption of the outside world. It examines the rough-and-tumble world of two street gangs (the Deuces and the Vipers), their opposing leaders struggle for supremacy of a six-block turf and a love triangle that changes everything. When the head of the Vipers, a cruel, hard living drug dealer (Norman Reedus), blows back into town to exact his revenge, Dorff, looking more moody and soulful than ever as the tough but vulnerable and headstrong home-boy, unflinchingly takes on the new war with so much strength and grace he makes General Colin Powell look like a lightweight. When his hot-headed younger brother (Brad Renfro), who presumably knows better, falls in love with Fairuza Balk, the tough-as-nails sister of one of the more violent members of the Vipers (Balthazar Getty), it causes the delicate balance to shift, setting in motion a series of events that leads to tragedy.

Kalvert uses the gritty New York mean-streets landscape as a metaphor for the highly volatile world of young tough guys. Revealing the hopes and follies of their violent world, he also manages to sidestep a few cliches. Raising subtle questions about guilt and innocence and the nature of the human heart, it all falls into place as his camera dwells on Dorff and the beautiful vulnerable features of his fierce hero.

As an actor, the murkier the territory, the more excited he seems to feel. His growing capacity to easily access his emotions, coupled with the transcendent ability of being completely present in every scene is a rare quality that burns up the screen. In 1992, at only 17, he made a strong mark for his role as the principled English boxer in The Power of One. He's about to begin shooting in Budapest with Bob Hoskins, filming a "Donnie Brasco meets French Connection" caper movie about a young gypsy who infiltrates the Russian mob for the FBI. He concedes he has made a misstep or two in some of his choices, "which is why I would much rather be directed by somebody who knows a million more things than I do, who I can learn from. I can act well, fool a lot of people, but there are always tricks. And if you are good at what you do, you get better and better at those tricks. But you really miss out if you let yourself go down that path." for instance, Dorff had never really done comedy, "and when I was doing Cecil B. Demented, there were these lines I was suppose to deliver, that in the script were funny, but absolutely ludicrous. I mean, I have one scene when I'm in a straightjacket, doing this extreme demonic filmmaker character,' and I asked John [Waters], "How am I going to make this not a cartoon?' He said, 'Just make it as real as possible, to never not believe what I am saying.' I was really putting myself out there, but what else could I do? He was right, of course. I loved every minute of that, I loved the chance to experiment."

It's difficult, says dorff, trying to balance his life, work, and family with his career, having recently lost his longtime girlfriend, model Rhea Durham, to the vagaries of their conflicting lifestyles. "You live all over the place. You're in London doing interviews, for Steal I was in France for a long time. Of course, it was a bicoastal relationship, which was even more difficult. Now that we've broken up, she lives in Los Angeles, which is just hysterical, aye? But I have a bunch of male friends that are all just recently single as well, so when we go out at night it's just this maelstrom of testosterone. Not that I've never really me t a girl that I've really fallen for at a club," he says, "but hey, I'm lonely. I admit it. When you have a girlfriend, you're always thinking about what else is out there.And when she's gone, it's like, Hey, come on back, I need to cuddle."

With all his new spare private time, Dorff has been making music with his buddy Lukas Haas. He does most of that in his old 60's-style pad, way up in the Hollywood Hills, above Sunset, with an "insane view of L.A.," stuffed with his collection of period music equipment: Wurlitzer organs, '60's Martins, and Jaguar guitars. He even wrote a tune with Haas, which made it onto his younger brother Andrew's new album, which he exultantly describes as a combo of "Bob Dylan and Tom Waits."

"But don't get me wrong," he says pointedly, "I don't want to do what Russell Crowe and a lot of other actors do. I'd like it to be focused, just on the music, and do it under a different name, under the radar."

But don't worry, he's not giving up his day job yet. "I've had some films where I've popped in and out, made some money, phoned it in, but did it make me happy? what I love is when I can find these magical moments, where I am just lost in the character and his world," says Dorff, who by his own estimation is "fairly sensitive, but pretty willful." He searches for those surprises, the internal moments that go beyond what is in the script. "It's those moments, for every actor, that make the work all worthwhile. I guess my weakness would be, I've had a tendency to wait for thing to happen in my career." But that's in the past. Sure, he's got two additional films about to open-the caper flick Steal and a thriller FearDotCom, opposite Stephen Rea-but Dorff is into a whole new kind of creative expansion. "Producing, creating my own material..." he says shyly, pulling his coat around him. "Maybe it's a few more meetings maybe it's a little more time on the phone, but why not?" It's a trippy idea for me, but I have so many friends that are really good directors and actors, I figure, why not demand more, make it happen myself, and create a movie for us all to do together?"

Being in charge has it's rewards, as Dorff is learning. "Look at George Clooney, for instance. He has been really smart about the projects he's been pairing up with Soderbergh on. That has been a real inspiration to me. Steve Norrington, who I did Blade with, is a guy I really trust. It's a movie I'm going to produce and that we set up together. It has this kind of modern-day Butch/Sundance kind of vibe, kind of sexy story with great roles. even so, it's still kind of hard for me to do both at once. Friends of mine...actors, directors...they're on the phone doing business, booking the next film, then they go and do a take. Not me.? It's all a risk, he says confidently, "but that's fine, it's part of the game." And like what Soderbergh has done for Clooney, "Maybe when I'm ready, I'll even get Norrington, hopefully," he lights up another cigarette and smiles, "to produce me directorial debut. The whole idea of that scares me I guess, but that's exactly why I'd be willing to take it on."

End

Correction: Stephen has brown eyes not blue. :)