Actor David Dastmalchian talks to The Inside Reel about approach, instinct, characterization and movement in regards to his new horror film: "Late Night With The Devil" from Shudder and IFC Films.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - Late night with the devil.
00:20 - You know, the thing is you love genre.
00:22 I know you love horror, but genre allows so many things.
00:25 But when you're looking at something to either to develop
00:28 or to like do what you did on this one and star in as well,
00:32 what do you have to look for?
00:33 Is it the director?
00:34 Is it how they pitch?
00:36 Where does that start for you?
00:38 - It starts with, the first thing is who's involved
00:43 because life is so short.
00:47 And if I'm going to give my time and energy to a project,
00:52 the people I'm gonna collaborate with,
00:55 I have to know are kind people who create a space
01:00 in a working environment where, you know,
01:04 people are gonna be treated well.
01:05 So that's where it starts.
01:06 Honestly, at this point in my journey,
01:10 if you told me, well, if you do this movie
01:12 and there's a shot at a big award in there for you,
01:16 but the people involved are kind of,
01:18 and then you said over here's a really cool,
01:21 fun genre picture that is no one's gonna ever consider
01:24 for awards, but is gonna be a blast
01:26 and the people are awesome
01:27 and they're gonna treat you really well
01:28 and they're kind and they're loving
01:29 and they create a family atmosphere.
01:30 I'm going there because it's just my choice.
01:34 It's just the way I'm doing this journey.
01:36 My mental health has always gotta be the priority.
01:39 So that's the first check.
01:41 The second check is obviously the material and the character.
01:44 So for a film like "Late Night with the Devil",
01:46 I had the benefit of the producer being somebody
01:48 that's a friend who I already knew.
01:49 So I knew he's a good person.
01:51 I know he's bringing in good people to collaborate with.
01:54 His name's Roy Lee.
01:55 He sends me this script and deck
01:57 that the Cairns brothers had been working on.
01:59 They had read an article that I wrote for "Fangoria" magazine
02:02 and decided that I was the guy for this role,
02:04 which is wild to me, Tim,
02:06 because I don't see myself as Jack Delroy at all.
02:10 If I was a director producer,
02:11 I think Dave Dismalchin would be the last person I'd call.
02:14 I'd probably call me to play the leader of the satanic cult,
02:18 but not the talk show host from 1977.
02:21 And they had pitched me this beautiful deck
02:26 where they made it look like a 1977 TV guide
02:29 all about Jack Delroy and late night TV.
02:31 And they had Photoshopped pictures of me into it
02:34 to make it look authentic.
02:36 And I knew, because vision is everything in filmmaking,
02:41 I knew that these guys had a great vision
02:44 for the story they wanted to tell.
02:45 And man, was I right.
02:49 - On Halloween night, 1977,
02:52 America gathered around for a live TV event
02:57 that shocked the nation.
02:58 What happened was real.
03:01 - And also visually within the tone,
03:03 but the way you act within different sequences.
03:06 There's like three separate sort of tone structures,
03:09 you know, obviously two at the beginning
03:12 and then one at the end.
03:13 Can you talk about that?
03:14 Because that's, you have to sort of delve into that psyche.
03:17 I mean, and you do so with all your characters,
03:19 but this one, there's so many things going on,
03:22 plus the presentation of who he wants to be.
03:25 Can you talk about that and that approach?
03:27 - Isn't it interesting?
03:28 My therapist said to me,
03:30 "When the student is ready, the teacher arrives."
03:34 In the last few years,
03:37 I have been doing a ton of learning about myself
03:41 and work on myself to be the kind of person I want to be.
03:45 And a lot of that work has involved
03:48 coming to terms with the fact that there is a 10-year-old,
03:53 a 16-year-old, a 21-year-old David that lives inside of me
03:57 that has a lot of unresolved feelings and memories
04:02 and thoughts that oftentimes can take control
04:07 of the present David's steering wheel.
04:11 And that's not to say that I'm some modern day Dr. Jekyll
04:18 and Mr. Hyde, it's to say that I believe we all have
04:22 this spectrum of ourselves that live within us,
04:28 both our past selves and our present self,
04:31 and finding a way to regulate the emotional discord
04:36 and the psychological disruptions
04:38 so that we can be able to be as present as possible,
04:43 even if the feelings are wildly uncomfortable or difficult,
04:47 is a really important part of the human experience.
04:52 So I'm thinking about all of these big ideas,
04:55 learning so much about myself.
04:57 And here I have this opportunity to play a character
04:59 who is a man who is embroiled in the entertainment industry,
05:02 which I've been doing for most of my adult life,
05:05 struggling with all the fear, anxiety, depression
05:08 that comes with the financial insecurity, the criticism,
05:11 the being in the public spotlight and getting,
05:15 constantly compared to people
05:17 who are more successful than yourself.
05:19 - What you are about to see
05:22 is the recently discovered master tape
05:24 of what went to air that night.
05:26 - Just, I know how that feels
05:31 and you create an external persona
05:35 because you want to project a certain picture of yourself
05:40 that is not necessarily a lie or a fabrication,
05:45 but it's not by any means
05:47 the fully fleshed out vulnerable true self that you are
05:50 when say at the end of today's press junket,
05:53 I'll go back to trying to take care of my six-year-old
05:56 who's got a cold and talking to my wife
05:58 about the stress of our daily schedule.
06:01 That guy that I got to bring to life,
06:05 the Jack who is behind the curtain
06:08 is a guy who's wrestling with stuff
06:11 that I can deeply relate to.
06:13 He's an alcoholic,
06:15 I'm 22 years clean and sober this year.
06:18 He has intense anxiety.
06:20 He's a workaholic,
06:21 which is an addiction that I still wrestle with.
06:24 He's suffering unresolved and untreated trauma and grief.
06:30 I have had a number of people that I love dearly
06:33 and close to me pass away in recent years
06:35 and that was something that I was hiding from
06:38 in a lot of ways.
06:39 So the gift of this role
06:42 meant putting myself into places that I was ready to go,
06:47 but that scared the living shit out of me.
06:51 And I'm so lucky
06:54 that it was Colin and camera.
06:56 This goes back to your question
06:57 'cause the first checklist is who's going to
07:01 create that loving safe space
07:03 where you can feel totally safe,
07:05 putting all your guard down,
07:08 letting the camera capture all of your vulnerability,
07:11 all of your weakness, all of your fallibility
07:13 and telling a story
07:16 through as much of an authentic lens as possible.
07:19 That was the gift of this role.
07:21 I really believe playing Jack Delroy,
07:23 which is a challenge I did not believe.
07:25 I was like 49% sure that I could pull this off.
07:30 I was 51% utterly terrified
07:34 that I was going to fall flat on my face with this role
07:36 and taking it on.
07:39 And I'm really proud of myself
07:41 that I overcame my fear of this role
07:43 and I took the challenge
07:44 because I believe whatever people think of it,
07:47 I believe it made me a better actor.
07:49 - Good Mr.
07:58 (crowd cheering)
08:01 - Ladies and gentlemen.
08:02 - Was there like, 'cause you know,
08:04 in any given role in any given scene,
08:05 I know everything shot out of sequence,
08:07 but was there a flash point where you're like,
08:09 I got it.
08:10 And do you ever have that where you're like,
08:12 okay, I get this now I've hit that mark
08:16 or is it always sort of a pendulum
08:17 that sort of moves back and forth?
08:19 - So the thing that scared me the most about this film
08:25 was the monologue.
08:29 Every great late night talk show host delivers a monologue
08:33 night in, night out.
08:35 There's idiosyncrasy to it.
08:36 There's rhythm to it.
08:37 There's banter, there's improv to it.
08:40 There is comedic structure.
08:42 All of these skills are things
08:44 that Dave Dastmalchian does not possess.
08:46 I watched hundreds of hours of Dick Cavett and Don Lane
08:50 and Johnny Carson and David Letterman and Conan O'Brien
08:53 and every other late night show talk show host
08:55 we've ever known and seen.
08:57 The day that came to film this moment,
09:02 they filled our audience.
09:04 I walk out with a live band playing,
09:08 spotlight hits me and here I'm gonna launch
09:11 into a five minute late night talk show monologue.
09:15 I haven't been that scared as an actor in a long time.
09:20 And we got through it and there was so much
09:25 what felt like authentic laughter and reaction
09:28 coming from the audience and Colin and Cameron,
09:31 our directors came up to me and gave me a big hug.
09:35 And they said, that was awesome.
09:39 And I felt so good inside.
09:42 I felt, because they could have come up to me
09:47 and said, that was not so great.
09:49 And I probably would have believed it
09:51 because I just didn't know how it was going.
09:56 I just knew I had practiced this technique
10:00 of manufacturing this kind of musicality
10:05 of what I thought it sounded like to my imagination.
10:10 But you just don't know,
10:15 'cause I'm not the one getting to look at the monitor.
10:17 I'm not the one getting the benefit of seeing any of this.
10:20 So I had to just make a strong choice and go for it.
10:22 And when the look on their face felt
10:24 very authentically happy.
10:27 (upbeat music)
10:32 - Here is Mr. Minish, Dr. Jack Dalton.
10:35 - 'Cause you betrayed empathy.
10:39 And yet, every late night host is a psychologist.
10:42 They know when to listen, they know when to move.
10:45 And even your movement.
10:46 I mean, it's interesting,
10:47 like when you sit down and you're talking
10:48 to the various guests, the crossing of the legs,
10:51 the certain things, these are all important.
10:54 And I know they're conscious on your part,
10:57 but can you talk about that,
10:58 that rhythm of movement is such an important thing as well.
11:02 - That's one of my favorite things about acting.
11:04 I'm a very technical actor.
11:06 I believe the best work I do never comes from like,
11:11 what some people would describe as being in the moment
11:15 and just kind of letting loose.
11:19 I believe internally, I always wanna be letting loose
11:22 and I always wanna be improvisational
11:24 in the way I respond to stimulation.
11:26 But I love approaching acting the way that I think
11:32 a violinist approaches playing a symphony.
11:35 These notes that I wanna hit,
11:37 the way I want the sound to come out,
11:40 the way that I believe I'm gonna give the director
11:43 the tonal vision that they need,
11:45 and the way I can give my fellow musicians
11:49 the keys and the sounds that they need,
11:52 all of that goes into highly specific choices
11:57 about the way you look at a note card
12:01 or the way that you smoke a cigarette
12:03 or the way that you cross your legs.
12:05 So studying late night talk show hosts
12:10 and studying the physicality of people
12:14 who do what Jack does was very important to me.
12:19 And I put a lot of thought and effort into like,
12:24 where would I put my hands in this moment?
12:30 Where would I rest my chin in this moment?
12:33 How do I evoke us?
12:35 And all of that is so performative.
12:38 The juxtaposition to that, Tim,
12:39 and you've seen the movie so you get this,
12:41 is the behind the scenes documentary footage.
12:45 I let all that go.
12:46 Then I tried to strip every calculated movement away
12:51 and just be as open and vulnerable as David could be
12:56 and allow those scenes to hopefully, if the audience,
12:59 if it works, I really hope the audience feels like
13:01 they're not watching acting.
13:03 I hope they feel like they're just watching a guy
13:06 stressing out, getting ready for work.
13:08 (intense music)
13:11 (intense music)
13:14 (intense music)
13:17 (gunshots)
13:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]