CP NEWS: Matt Dillon on Being a Scoundrel

[ddm-news]

-Jeff Wilser

He drinks scotch. He drinks whiskey. He womanizes, gambles, beds every girl in sight, and then drinks some more. At four in the morning he pukes in the gutter.

He's the living embodiment of every "Don't" on CP's list of Clubbing Dos and Don'ts. He's Matt Dillon in Factotum, the new quasi-biopic of the writer Charles Bukowski, one of literature's most legendary drunks. Tanned, fit, and looking nothing like the bearded bum from the movie, Dillon sobers up for a quickie interview with CP.

Clubplanet: You always make a good scoundrel. What draws you to the sleaze, the womanizing, the bad behavior?

Matt Dillon: Probably the same thing that drew me to Bukowski in the first place, back in my early 20s. I like his honesty. He's truthful. He sees things no one else sees. And I like a challenging role, and often those characters have a dark side.

So do you share Bukowski's dark view of the world?

I don’t know if I see him as so dark. I think his view of the world is a funny view. He looks at the humor. He sees the middle of things. He's able to laugh at himself and the world around him. And I always love the way he speaks so plainly.

In between getting kicked out of bars, your character loses bad job after bad job. What's the worst job you've ever had?

Well, you're talking to a guy who started acting at age 14, so I didn't have too many jobs. I did work this job early on--loading trucks.

Yeah?

It sucked. They really worked my jobs off at that job.

In the movie, you physically looked, um…not your best. How'd you look so scuzzy?

I grew the beard. I shaved my hairline back a little bit. I let myself go, put on some weight. But more of it was the behavior, the way he moved.

What do you think was your character's life philosophy?

He was very strong mentally, but there's this other side to him. There's this "defeated effortlessness." These words were written on Bukowski's tombstone: "Don't try." And that really helped me with his character. He doesn't try to keep this job, he doesn't try to quit his drinking.

You've come a long way since The Outsiders. Looking back at your career, what's your take?

I don't try to figure it out too much. I just keep looking ahead. Sometimes I look back at things I did a long time ago and say, "Whoa, I was pretty green, I'd do that differently." But I don't hang on to the past that much.

Favorite drink?

Espresso.

Ahhw. Very un-Bukowski.

Factotum drunkenly staggers into theaters on Friday, August 18th.

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