Dane DeHaan is having a great year.  After appearing on TV series like In Treatment and True Blood, DeHaan starred this year in Josh Trank's Chronicle, then acted alongside Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy in Lawless, and now he's one of the leads in director Derek Cianfrance's much buzzed about new film, The Place Beyond the Pines, which premiered to glowing reviews at this week's Toronto International Film Festival (watch two clips here).  In addition, he recently wrapped on director John Krokidas' Kill Your Darlings, where he starred alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Elizabeth Olsen.

Shortly before the premiere of the film at TIFF, I sat down with DeHaan for an extended interview.  We talked about the past year, how he prepares for his roles, what it was like to work for Cianfrance and make The Place Beyond the Pines, who he plays in Kill Your Darlings and what its about, and what he might have coming up.  Hit the jump to watch.

Dane DeHaan Time Index:

  • DeHaan has been enjoying the great reception for The Place Beyond the Pines.
  • 0:40 – DeHaan is also enjoying his big year after Chronicle, Lawless, and now The Place Beyond the Pines.
  • 1:20 – He first gets to script he tries to get into the mind of the character.  For Place, he actually built the bike that his character rides in the movie.
  • 2:40 – Pitches the movie as “having the gritty realism of Blue Valentine but being much more epic in plot.”  However, he doesn’t want to talk about it too much because part of the experience is how it unfolds to a first-time viewer.
  • 4:00 – DeHaan has not worked with anyone like Cianfrance before.  The script is there so each actor knows what they need to achieve, but they can throw the script away if they think of a better way to reach that end result through improv.
  • 5:30 – Cianfrance always shot a lot of takes.  They do it once and talk about it.  “What feels fake?”  But they usually stayed under about 15 takes.
  • 6:50 – There is a lot of stuff that they shot that didn’t make it in the movie, especially since each scene was shot 15 different ways.
  • 8:10 – Says his job is to act, and others’ job to edit.  He trusts Cianfrance enough to not worry about how his performance will be edited.
  • 8:45 – DeHaan talks about Kill Your Darlings, “the story of how Allen Ginsberg became Allen Ginsberg.”  Daniel Radcliffe plays Ginsberg.  DeHaan plays Lucien Carr, who introduced Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Kerouac to each other.
  • 10:10 – He is reading a lot of scripts right now.  He is looking to challenge himself and identify the people he wants to work with.