From director/co-writer Guillermo del Toro and adapted from the William Lindsay Gresham novel, the noir thriller Nightmare Alley follows Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a down-on-his-luck man who finds himself intrigued by the clairvoyant (Toni Collette) at a traveling carnival and everything that world represents. After Molly (Rooney Mara), a performer who can absorb any amount of voltage, agrees to leave with him, Stan decides to use the tricks he’s learned to con a tycoon (Richard Jenkins), but when he finds himself directly in the path of Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), he realizes that she may ultimately turn out to be more dangerous than mysterious.

During this press conference, Willem Dafoe (who plays Clem, the carnival barker who pushes the ethical limits) talked about the appeal of playing this character, his memories of going to circus sideshows, reconciling Clem’s contradictions, immersing himself in this world, how he decides which roles he’ll play, what makes Del Toro a stand-out artist, and why the good guys can often be a pain in the ass.

Question: How did Guillermo del Toro introduce this character to you? What was his pitch to you for who Clem was and what intrigued you about the role?

WILLEM DAFOE: Initially, it was pretty clear. He had a very strong script, which of course, he made another pass at. I know what a carnival barker is. That’s where you start. And then, you fold yourself into that world and you see what the events are. I have very strong memories, as a child, of going to sideshows. They still were around when I was a kid and those carnival people, particularly the people at the sideshows, were darkly romantic figures. They were a little scary, but they were also charming. They seemed, at least to me, as a young kid growing up in Wisconsin, worldly because they were travellers and they could spin a story.

I have a pretty strong imagination from that experience of what it would be like to be a carnival barker. And then, you arrive and you start to accumulate details and exterior things that get you even more deeply into the character, and then you apply yourself to the scenes. Guillermo trusted me to find my way with not a lot of hand-holding, but when we get there, we really start to mix it up. There was a very strong script, but when we’d get there, there would always be some open-ended tweaks here and there, so it was fun. When I was a kid, I had a very formed idea of carnivals, and then there was the reality that was created, beautifully, by the production design, of this very complete, almost truly functional midway with essentially everything working. It was a beautiful world to enter, even though it’s a little dark.

Nightmare Alley Willem Dafoe and Bradley Cooper
Image via Searchlight Pictures

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Clem’s such a versatile character. He’s both warm and horrific, when the occasion calls for it. How do you think he reconciles his brutality and his humanity, and how did that inform your performance?

DAFOE: You can’t judge the character. You can just give him opportunities. You appreciate that he does take care of his own. He’s also a guy that probably grew up and came of age during the Depression and has maybe even been in prison. He’s a guy that pragmatically sees the world as winners and losers, prey and predators. He’s got this dark fatalistic view of the world, but at the same time, he cares about the people around him, so he tries to circle up the wagons. The way he expresses how to turn a man into a geek, which is a cruel story, you also have the sense that he doesn’t enjoy this. He’s just getting on. That doesn’t justify it, bu in his mind, the onus is on the nature of the people, human nature, the nature of desire, the nature of addiction, and the nature of fate. That’s all in the mix. He is a dark character, but he’s not out to destroy people and he’s not unthinking. He’s compassionate towards certain people. He’s human, but he’s a very flawed character, if you judge him morally. That’s not my job, as an actor. My job, as an actor, is try to imagine him as a full person capable of many contradictory behaviors.

How did the production design help immerse you in Clem’s world? What was it like, stepping onto that carnival set? Did you come up with stories for each of the little jars in the tent?

DAFOE: The production design was beautiful because of the detail. You’d drive to the set, which was out built out in the country in an area where they had lots of land to build this carnival, and you’d approach it and, particularly at night, you’d see the lights coming on and you’d enter this world. It was like waking up, as you entered it. People would start to move and the organization of the production itself would become the organization of the carnival. You’d see people that you know and the characters that you know. There was the mirroring of functions and worlds. You’d start your day and the life of the movie was paralleled by the life of the carnival. It was a world that was easy to enter. You have your job and you always have your function, and that’s a wonderful position to start in. You have relationship to other people’s functions because your thing is not only to make the scene, but also to make the carnival work. The production design was very important. As far as the so-called pickled punks, that’s so ingrained in my brain because I was so traumatized by seeing those kinds of sideshows when I was a kid. I didn’t make stories for all of them, but I made stories for a few.

Nightmare Alley Willem Dafoe and Bradley Cooper
Image via Searchlight Pictures

Did you receive one of the backstory biographies that Guillermo deo Toro made for some of your co-stars? Also, were there any films that he recommended for you to watch?

DAFOE: No and no. He didn’t give me a bio and he didn’t recommend any films, but we played a lot on the set. I didn’t feel deprived. There was plenty to play with.

You could have any role you want and work with anyone you want. Obviously, Guillermo del Toro is a great director, but how do you decide which roles you’ll take?

DAFOE: I look at the whole thing. I don’t think of roles so much as I think of situations. I’m very drawn to strong directors. The truth is, you don’t know a role until you do it. And usually, if you do know the role, that probably means there isn’t room for adventure or discovery or surprise that I usually like. You look for a situation – a situation to learn something, a situation to be transformed, a situation to be useful, and a situation to maybe fulfill a fantasy or something that you’re curious about. I think that’s what you look for. I don’t think in terms of roles. I think in terms of the whole story and the whole idea of the movie. I think, “Do I wanna see that movie? Do I wanna be around those people?” It’s ultimately not so much about interpreting a role, but you look at what happens in the story and you say, “Do I wanna do those things?” A lot of it is intuitive, but it’s moronically simple. You think, “Do I wanna do these things? Is this resonant for me? Does this challenge me? Does this interest me? Can I contribute something? Is it right for me? Is it so far away from me that it’s interesting? Is it so close to me that it’s interesting?” You weigh all of those things.

Rooney Mara and Bradley Cooper nightmare alley movie image
Image via Searchlight Pictures

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What sets Guillermo del Toro’s vision, as an artist, apart in modern Hollywood?

DAFOE: It’s a good question. One of the things that’s interesting about him, and maybe is not so true in Nightmare Alley, but I like how he mixes genres. He takes things that really don’t go together and marries them and does a cross with them and a hybrid. That’s very particular to him. Also, his interest in creatures and misfits and monsters, and people that are outside of our society, I appreciate that because he humanizes those people and pushes our understanding and our compassion, in all ways, in all of his movies. If you look at something like The Devil’s Backbone, it’s a period historical movie with political overtones, and it’s a horror movie. It’s a mix, and that’s pretty interesting. I think only a guy that’s well versed in cinema history and passionate about symbolism and different ways of storytelling can do that. That’s not everybody. He’s got a special talent.

What do you think Nightmare Alley has to say about what’s going on today?

DAFOE: You can look at it lots of ways. It’s a little bit of an indictment for a certain kind of ambition or a certain kind of capitalism or a certain kind of exploitation of other people for your happiness. That’s always something that we’ve gotta talk about.

What do you think it is that drives people to always be wanting more and seeking something that they don’t have?

DAFOE: If you’re chasing after desire, pleasure is found in restraint because we know it, in the simplest terms of food or sex or ambition, or whatever. The more you have, the more you want. It’s something that’s built into us. We don’t know when to stop. That’s also true with political ambition and with business ambition. We see it all the time. So, in that respect, it’s a story that we can relate to. It’s about desire. In the case of my character, it’s also about understanding the nature of desire and addiction, and the relationship one has to the other. That’s a human trait. We’re never happy with what we have. We keep wanting more. That was a depressing spin. It’s not that bad.

Guillermo del Toro, Ron Perlman, Bradley Cooper, Toni Collette, Roony Mara and Mark Povinelli in the film NIGHTMARE ALLEY
Image via Searchlight Pictures

Many people say that you are one of the greatest actors of your generation and your devotion to characters is always deeply felt. How was the character of Clem distinctly unlike any other character that you’ve played before?

DAFOE: That’s a good question. I’m not sure that I have a good answer. The characters are all linked by the fact that they’re me, but they’re also not me. Who I am is conditioned by many things. When I choose to do something, one character has nothing to do with another one. I’ve got selective amnesia. Every time I do a character, I try to forget about any other character I’ve done, so it’s a very difficult question to answer. The truth is that someone outside of me could probably answer the question better than I could. Through the years, I’ve developed a mechanism to make me believe that each time I do something, it’s the first time I’m doing it. It’s the nature of pretending. Once you’ve done a character, you move on. That’s not to disrespect what you’ve done, but it’s done and you don’t linger on it. People ask sometimes, “Do you look at your old performances?” And I never do because that was then, and this is now.

Do you prefer playing characters with a bit of a villainous side versus morally good ones?

DAFOE: Morally good ones can be a real pain in the ass, let’s face it. Villains, at least, have some sort of delicious taboo. We’re trained, all through life, not to be a bad person. Sometimes we’re trained so much not to be a bad person that you end up being a bad person. In imagining if you can play a villain, it addresses you to a different kind of orientation that can free you from certain fears. So, to play villainous characters, ironically, turns you into an angel. I don’t wanna say, flat out, that villains are more fun because you’re talking about a function in a story. Sometimes villains can be flat and they can be a device. That’s not what you want. You wanna play human beings. You wanna play something with contradiction and dimension. Whether it’s good or bad is really so subjective. Those labels help us, in a broad way, to tell stories. For example, people sometimes say, “Oh, you play so many villains.” If I went through my filmography, I bet you that I would fight you and say that I’ve played many more moral, good people than villains. It’s just how you label things and how you identify certain characters.

nightmare alley movie image bradley cooper and Cate Blanchett
Image via Searchlight Pictures

This film is all about the characters discovering themselves and figuring out who they are. What was the biggest point of self-discovery in your own life? Did you have a moment of clarity?

DAFOE: No, that’s coming next week. That’s what all of this pretending and making stuff up is for. It’s to arrive at some better understanding, somewhere down the line. No, I haven’t arrived at it, and that’s probably why I still like doing what I do. I’m still reaching. I’m still trying to figure it out. If I knew and if I was an enlightened person, I probably wouldn’t be performing.

Nightmare Alley is now playing in theaters.