Actor says ‘True Detective’ role ‘added something to my arsenal’
Stephen Dorff borrows a little for new show
Stephen Dorff admits that when he first auditioned for the third season of “True Detective,” he “didn’t know what the part really was.” What at first seemed to be a straightforward cop character quickly became so much more as the anthology crime story moved between three different decades, requiring some of the actors, including Dorff and his on-screen partner in policing, Mahershala Ali, to sit in the hair and makeup chair for hours to be turned into older versions of themselves.
But because Dorff says he got a “natural feeling” for who is Detective Roland West was supposed to be internally from those first few scenes, he quickly realized “what a great role I had.” And as the months since the show wrapped went on, Dorff realized he loved Roland so much, he didn’t want to fully shake the man. His next small-screen series, “Deputy,” also sees him playing a “horseman lawman,” as Dorff puts it.
Here, the actor reflects on his experience. The following is an edited transcript of the conversation.
Q: In speaking to finding the relationship with Mahershala, it seems like it may have helped to start in the earlier years of their partnership, in the ’80s. But what else did you feel like you needed to work on with him to flesh out the back story and get yourselves as actors to a place where it felt right that your characters were so comfortable with each other that they have nicknames for each other and whatnot?
A: Me and Mahershala flew out there together, in, I think, the end of January, and we left first or second week of August, and I pretty much didn’t leave Arkansas the whole time. We had exchanged really nice emails, and then, really, we met for the first time, in this little terminal, that I’d never even flown out of, at LAX, where it’s the only flight to Fayetteville, Arkansas, direct flight, once a day. From then on, we built something really special together. But I did have a lot of questions about Roland for (show creator) Nic (Pizzolatto). We know he’s of Western culture. We know he’s like an old cowboy, kind of, but I had questions about his family, about things in life. We know Wayne was in Vietnam. We know he was a hunter. He was a killer. We know where he kind of comes from more, and Nic was very forthcoming with (telling me that) Roland grew up on a ranch and came from a rodeo culture, was maybe going to join the rodeo, but then went off to Vietnam and worked in motor pool for a couple years, but he didn’t see any action compared to Wayne, who was in the jungle. Then I would ask him all kinds of questions: How long have they been partners when we first meet them, when they’re shooting rats? Where’d they meet? How did they become partners? I asked just kind of the basics that I just wanted to know, because ... I wanted to really create something special, because I was given something so special.
Q: When the audience meets Roland for the first time in the 2000s, there is a lot of mystery around where he’s been and why he and Wayne haven’t been in touch. So Roland had a lot of experiences that inherently changed him to which the audience wasn’t privy. How did that affect how you treated him?
A: I think he’s the same person. I wanted him to dress the same. Emma Potter, our costume designer who I’d worked with before on a film, is awesome, and we had the idea that he never takes his boots off, no matter how old he is. If we meet him at 85, he’s still in his same boots. Funny enough, a lot of the companies that made his wardrobe, like Wrangler and Levi’s and Lee, they still exist, so they still sell the same stuff, only for older gentlemen, so he went and got older Roland outfits, which were great, which helped me. It was my idea to kind of have a belly. I wanted to have a paunch belly and so we kind of put that on and just started finding the way he walked and moved. I think I approached him as a much lonelier person, though; I think, when we meet him in the ’80s, he’s a lover, he’s kind of a kid, and he’s always had morals. He’s just, overall, the richest character I’ve ever gotten to play.
Q: Does that make you want to carry this experience or this character through to your next one?
A: The weird thing is that the Western culture is following me around! I don’t know what it is, I’m playing a California rancher in this new show that just got picked up (titled “Deputy”), and then I have this movie about a bull rider that I really want to make. I have had a really hard time shaking Roland. Normally, I can just shake the character — in a week, I’m done. But I literally got attached to Roland so much so that I bought a farm outside Nashville. I wanted to have a creative hub, outside of LA and New York, that I could kind of just go to in between projects. I needed to do something. Roland inspired me to get this farm. Roland’s kind of still with me, and I think he’s not letting go.
Q: Is it OK to borrow from Roland for Bill Hollister on “Deputy”?
A: He’s a California rancher man — like a Marlboro Man without the nicotine. He’s a really cool character, too. When I was (shooting the pilot), a little Roland came out still, and I was like, “He doesn’t have this accent. What are you doing, man?” Maybe playing him really added something to my arsenal, so I can say, “What would Roland do?”