Matt Dillon, Taking on a Fictional Alter-Ego

DATE August 10, 2006 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Professor Augustus Richard Norton discusses fighting
between Israel and Lebanon

DAVE DAVIES, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily
News, filling in for Terry Gross.

Negotiations continue in the United Nations over a cease-fire proposal for
Lebanon, aimed at ending the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah which has
resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties. For some perspective on the
crisis, we turn to Augustus Richard Norton. He's a professor of international
relations and anthropology at Boston University. Before entering the private
academic world, Norton had a 27-year military career that included a combat
tour in Vietnam, 12 years on the faculty at West Point, and 14 months as an
observer in southern Lebanon in 1980 and '81. Augustus Richard Norton is a
member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has written widely on Shi'a
politics. He has a forthcoming book on Hezbollah. I spoke to him yesterday.

Well, Augustus Richard Norton, welcome to FRESH AIR.

The incident which touched off the current fighting was this raid by
Hezbollah, apparently quite well planned, to attack Israeli forces and capture
some soldiers. What do you think prompted Hezbollah to undertake this action?

Professor AUGUSTUS RICHARD NORTON: Since the 1990s, Hezbollah and Israel have
developed a very clearly understood set of rules, if you will, rules of the
game, and these rules basically defined how combat would be conducted in south
Lebanon. One of the basic rules was that civilians would not be attacked, for
example, that Israeli territory would not be invaded. In return, the Israelis
would not bombard Lebanese civilians, and so on. These rules of the game were
so well understood by both sides that after various incidents, it would not be
unusual for an Israeli general or Lebanese official or Hezbollah official to
remark that this operation was within the rules of the game.

What happened on the 12th of July was that Hezbollah was trying to stretch the
rules. The operation that was conducted was not in Lebanon; it was actually
inside of Israeli territory, and of course the purpose was to capture Israeli
soldiers as bargaining chips in order to leverage the freeing of Lebanese
prisoners in Israeli jails. There had been a major prisoner release in
January of 2005, but several of the prisoners were excluded from that release
by the Israelis so this was basically the finish of the deal from the
standpoint of Hezbollah. Unfortunately, Hezbollah was trying to stretch the
rules, but for the Israelis this is the straw that broke the camel's back, so
to speak, and they in effect tore up the rulebook at that stage.

DAVIES: Do you believe that there, you know, there was some talk that Iran
might have urged, or ordered, Hezbollah to undertake this to take attention
away from its own difficulties regarding its nuclear program, or that Syria
might have played a role? Was this Hezbollah leaders acting on its own, do
you believe?

Prof. NORTON: I've said from the very beginning that I think it's very
unlikely that this was directed by Tehran, certainly not by the Syrians. The
Hezbollah-Syrian relationship is not of that nature. This is an operation
which had been, in effect, announced and planned some months before. In fact,
there was an unsuccessful attempt to do something very similar in November of
last year. So this was a matter of a target of opportunity. I think that, in
many ways, what's happened of course is not necessarily in Iran's strategic or
geopolitical interests, and I'm doubtful personally that Iran ordered the
action. I also note that US government officials have noted on several recent
occasions that there's no evidence that they've discovered to indicate any
Iranian involvement in directing the July 12th operation.

DAVIES: OK. Clearly Israel responded with an attack that it seemed to have
been planning for some time to go--to sweep in and attack Hezbollah positions
in Lebanon, and you know, a lot of people looked at this and said--Israel was
in a position that no sovereign state could tolerate. I mean, a sworn enemy
with 10,000 rockets right on its border, and an enemy dedicated to the
destruction of its state, and that this campaign, with its regrettable
consequences to civilians, was in effect, a legitimate exercise of national
defense. What about that argument? What do you think of that argument?

Prof. NORTON: Well, I think there's something to that, but before I address
that in more detail, let me remind our listeners that from the year 2000 to
the year 2006--2000 was of course the year that Israel withdrew its forces
from occupation in Lebanon. During that six-year period a total of one
Israeli civilian was killed by Hezbollah fire, and about 25--in fact, it's
actually 25 Israeli soldiers were killed during that period time. While those
casualties are regrettable, that compares to an average number of Israeli
deaths during the years of occupation of about 25 per year. So many Israeli
officials have admitted--it's well on the record at this stage--that that
six-year period was quite quiet by historical standards, and that, in effect,
the border was more or less stable.

Now, Israel had ever right to respond to the provocation by Hezbollah on the
12th of July. However, in my view, and I think in the view of many other
foreign policy specialists, what the Israelis have done is really over the top
and is quite counterproductive for reasons that I'll be happy to explain. And
it should also be said that this war, this Israeli war--well, in effect,
hegemony--is really an Israeli-American war. Early on, George Bush called on
Israel to exercise restraint, not to target Lebanese infrastructure, not to
target the Lebanese government. Either the Israelis blew off George Bush,
which is unlikely, or they understood that Bush was saying this with a wink
and a nod and, in fact, the dawdling diplomacy the US has practiced since the
12th of July as well as the large shipment of arms, jet fuel and so on--not to
mention intelligence--clearly indicate this is not simply an action by Israel.
This is an action by the US and Israel together.

DAVIES: Yeah, I want to go back to what you said a moment ago, describing
this action as, in effect, an act to establish hegemony by Israel. You noted
that they did in fact withdraw from Lebanon in the year 2000, and it does seem
that in the period since then that Hezbollah has increased the number and
sophistication of the weapons it has acquired from its international allies,
thereby increasing its ability to strike more deeply into Israel. I mean,
again, coming back to the argument here, I mean, didn't Israel have a right to
attempt to neutralize such a dangerous threat to its own population right on
its borders? How do you see that as an attempt to establish hegemony?

Prof. NORTON: The Israelis have said repeatedly that one of the goals of
this war is to re-establish their, quote, "returns," unquote. And really that
means hegemony, that means their ability to ensure that their neighbors, their
adversaries do not do anything that offends Israeli interests. Now, I grant
your point, and it's certainly true that Hezbollah has acquired a significant
arsenal, and we see evidence of that every day in terms of the weapons that
are being fired and so on. And if the Israelis could have eliminated that
arsenal relatively quickly and cleanly, as Ehud Olmert promised George Bush in
a private discussion, then it would be a different matter. The problem is
that this is difficult terrain. This is a hardened force, which was honed,
basically, under years of Israeli occupation and a force with a lot of social
support. And I think it's important to remember that the Israelis have killed
20,000 Lebanese civilians over the last quarter century, so the people,
particularly of southern Lebanon, have a very strong incentive to have a force
that can defend them. So, you know, if--poof--these missiles and other
weapons could have been made to disappear, that's fine. I didn't not think
from the very beginning that the Israelis would be able to do that. And
whoever the analysts were that advised Ehud Olmert or George Bush that this
would be an easy operation, well, I think what they deserve is a meeting with
the president and the prime minister and perhaps the appropriate comment would
be, `Heck of a job. You're fired!'

DAVIES: Well, I'll note, as you make that comment, that you do have a
military as well as an academic background in this area.

Prof. NORTON: Yeah. I was an Army officer for 27 years. I served two tours
in combat as an infantry officer, a paratrooper. And then, of course, I've
been in other combat zones for fairly long periods of time. I also taught at
West Point for more than 12 years in the social sciences department at West
Point.

DAVIES: You said earlier that Israel was responsible for, I think, 20,000
civilian deaths in Lebanon over the past couple of decades.

Prof. NORTON: That's right. Most of them in the context of the 1982
invasion.

DAVIES: Yeah. Where does the figure come from?

Prof. NORTON: The majority of the deaths occurred in the period '82 to '83
or '84, and these are deaths documented by Lebanese authorities. These are
registered deaths. The figures have been gone over by a number of different
scholars. They're pretty good. I don't remember the exact number from that
period. It was something like 15,900. And then the other deaths are an
accumulation. Of course there are 900 in this conflict already. In '96 there
were 106 killed in a shelling incident at a UN base in Qana, the same Qana
that was bombed last week. So it's an accumulation over a period of time.
And during that time, of course, there have also been many homes destroyed and
people displaced and so on. There's been a sort of constant movement of
refugees back and forth, the south and the south of Lebanon to Beirut and so
on, as these conflicts are going on.

DAVIES: Were you surprised at the ferocity of the Israeli assault?

Prof. NORTON: I was surprised because, in my view, it is so obviously
counterproductive for the Israelis to be doing what they're doing. Up until
now, which is to say up until July of 2006, the Israelis have responded to
provocations by Hezbollah with restraint. And the opposite is true as well.
Israeli commentators--for example, one leading journalist, Rising Hardet just
a couple of weeks before the war began remarked on, if you will, irrational
relationships between the Israelis and their adversaries in Lebanon. So I was
surprised by the willingness of the Israelis to pull out many, if not all of
their stops in terms of their assault on Lebanon. And as I've emphasized, I
think that what they've done is patently counterproductive in a context in
which time has actually worked against them because time has allowed Hezbollah
to demonstrate that it can stand up to Israel, that Israel does not have the
overweening military capacity that it would like to have. And, of course,
with the civilian casualties and damages to the infrastructure and so on, this
has had a very negative rippling effect across the region, both to the
disadvantage of Israel and to the disadvantage of the interests of the United
States of America.

DAVIES: But let me just again come back to the Israeli perspective on this.
If you have a dangerous enemy with sophisticated weapons, and they are
deliberately embedded in a civilian population, what's the alternative? What
should they have done?

Prof. NORTON: Well, we have a very difficult opponent in North Korea. And
for various reasons, we're not invading North Korea. There are plenty of
difficult opponents. If it's a simple matter of hitting a switch and making
them disappear is one thing, but the fact of the matter is that that isn't
easily done in this case and in many other cases.

My view is what the Israelis should have done is hit Hezbollah hard--which is
to say carefully, delineated targets--and then use the provocation by
Hezbollah in order to seize the diplomatic high ground. There was, at the
beginning of the war, which is to say the 12th and 13th of July, a lot of
support for cutting Hezbollah down to size. Much of that support--I'm talking
now inside of Lebanon. Much of that support has now disappeared. So what
happened is that we have seen a situation created in which Hezbollah is likely
to emerge from this war dynamic influential and popular throughout the Middle
East. Moreover, because of the destruction that has been inflicted on
Lebanon, Iran, much against US interest, will be a major provider of
assistance to rebuild many of these areas which have been destroyed. I can't
imagine US taxpayers providing the foreign aid necessary to rebuild these
scores of villages, not to mention thousands of apartments that have been
destroyed by Israeli bombing. And as a result, Iran will actually gain
influence in Lebanon. Moreover, the very stability and survival of the
Lebanese government is now in question. So what has been created is a
horrendous situation. Frankly, what the Israelis have done is strategically
counterproductive.

DAVIES: Augustus Richard Norton is a professor of international relations and
anthropology at Boston University. We'll talk more after a break. This is
FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

DAVIES: My guest is Augustus Richard Norton, a professor of international
relations and anthropology at Boston University. He has a forthcoming book on
Hezbollah.

You know, the US experience in Vietnam had profound effects on its own
military and political thinking, and I certainly have to believe that the long
Israeli--long and painful Israeli occupation of Lebanon, in the past, affected
its own leaders deeply. And when this incursion occurred, I had to think that
the Israeli leaders would not have made a decision to go back into Lebanon
without a carefully considered plan that was informed in some way by its
earlier experience. Do you think Israel brought lessons from its past
involvement to the current crisis or is it suffering from amnesia here?

Prof. NORTON: Well, I think that, first of all, this was an operation that
was not conceived in an afternoon. This was a well-planned operation, and it
reflects the desires of the Israelis--as I've emphasized--with US support, to
strike at Hezbollah, to sort of make up for some of the humiliation that has
been imposed by Hezbollah and Israeli forces. And also, by extension, hit
Iran, which of course is the major remaining regional adversary for Israel.
So there was a strategic plan here. They saw Lebanon, but they were really
seeing Iran in a significant measure.

Now there were lessons they should have drawn, but I think the Israeli
overconfidence about what they could accomplish in Lebanon was conditioned
less by a memory of what had happened in Lebanon than by their experience with
the Palestinians, who they move--who they push around fairly easily.

DAVIES: I note that in news accounts, some of the Israeli soldiers' deaths
have come from anti-tank missiles. I mean, this isn't the kind of weaponry
that one associates with a guerilla army really.

Prof. NORTON: No, this is a--these are weapons which no doubt are provided
by Syria and Iran. Anti-tank weapons were used during the occupation period,
frequently against Israeli bunkers and that sort of thing, though many of the
attacks during the occupation phase were lower tech, involving remote control
mines and that sort of thing, so there's no question that they have been
ramped up in terms of the technologies that they are using. But it must be
said, and in fact this is something that's easily verified, many of these
weapons these days are relatively easy to acquire. There's a vast
international market in what is now basically relatively inexpensive guided
weapons systems, precision guidance weapons systems, anti-tank weapons and so
on. So we shouldn't be surprised to see a motivated force like Hezbollah
using these weapons, and we should expect to see them in other places as well.

I should also say that this war that we're playing out--see playing out right
now--is going to have, I suspect, a momentous effect on military affairs in
the region. I mean, basically what Hezbollah has provided is a model for how
one confronts a modern organized military force of great sophistication, such
as Israel has.

DAVIES: What do you mean by that? Where else will one see that lesson
applied?

Prof. NORTON: Well, I think we're going to see--and we are seeing
actually--a sort of overflow of lessons from Lebanon to Iraq. And, of course,
the Lebanon war has very much reverberated in Iraq, both politically and
militarily. I mean, basically what the Hezbollah fighters are doing is
fighting a very mobile war. They're not at all stationery. They're fighting
in small teams, through triangular teams of sometimes three people. They're
people who do not need sophisticated communications. They've been trained to
use lethal but relatively simple weapons and so on. And they're--for that
reason, they're very hard to find. And not to mention, of course, they know
the terrain. This is their--these are their homes. I mean, these people are
not from Mars. These are their homes. This is terrain they've known since
they were babies. So I think the application in Iraq is very obvious. I
think we could see a much more determined and much more difficult to defeat
insurgency actions in Iraq as a result of what's going on in Lebanon right
now.

DAVIES: Augustus Richard Norton is a professor of international relations and
anthropology at Boston University. He has a forthcoming book on Hezbollah.
He'll be back in the second half of the show. I'm Dave Davies and this is
FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies filling in for Terry Gross.

As negotiations continue in the United Nations over a cease-fire proposal for
Lebanon, we're speaking with Augustus Richard Norton, a professor of
international relations and anthropology at Boston University. Before his
entry into academia, Norton had a 27-year military career, which included 14
months as an observer in southern Lebanon in 1980 and '81. He has a
forthcoming book on Hezbollah.

I want to talk a bit about how the United States has responded to the outbreak
of the war in southern Lebanon. You know, the Bush administration, of course,
has effectively no relations with Syria. It regards Hezbollah as a terrorist
group and stood by Israel in the early going, and has begun to try to cobble
together some sort of proposal for a cease-fire in place. What do you think
of the course that the Bush administration has taken in this conflict?

Prof. NORTON: I spend a lot of time--when I'm not in the Middle East or
teaching at Boston University and places like Washington--I have a lot of
interaction with other people who are--they're professional foreign policy
specialists and so on. And I would say that there's one thing that almost all
of these people agree on, as well as many retired diplomats and dignitaries
and so on. In that what the US has done is established a relationship with
its adversary which is totally, totally nonproductive. Which is to say, we
have said to our adversaries that, `We're not going to talk to you unless you
behave like we want you to behave.' Well, by definition, adversaries don't do
that.

We need to have a dialogue with countries like Iran--as unpalatable as that
may be--with countries like Syria, and so on. The fact that we're trying to
deal, for example, with the Lebanon war without having those channels of
communication--we don't even have an ambassador in Syria, and we certainly
don't have one in Iran--means that we have really handicapped ourselves in
terms of the immediate communications to really do the kind of quiet
negotiation and discussion that has to take place.

In 1996 when Israel conducted a major incursion into Lebanon, although much
smaller than the current war, it was a process of negotiation involving
France, the United States, Iran and Syria, as well as indirectly Hezbollah,
incidentally, that led to the closure of that particular conflict period and
established a functioning set of rules that worked pretty well up until the
12th of July of this year.

DAVIES: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was quoted recently as saying
that the current conflict in Lebanon represents the birth pangs of a new
Middle East. What was the context of that remark and its impact on the Muslim
world?

Prof. NORTON: The secretary of state was in Beirut while the country was
under a devastating attack. Infrastructure was disappearing because it was
being blown up, people were being killed by the scores and hundreds. And, in
effect, the Lebanese were experiencing corrective punishment by the Israelis.
Secretary Rice's comment that this represented the birth pangs of a Middle
East struck, to be polite, most listeners in Lebanon and beyond as insensitive
and made many people wonder in what planet she thought she was on. Certainly
I had that feeling.

It may be that Condoleezza Rice and George Bush believes that what they're
doing by supporting Israel in this war is creating a new Middle East, but
believe me, the Middle East they're creating is going to be horrific in
appearance and is going to bear no resemblance at all to the prattle we hear
from administration spokesmen, including the president, I should say.

DAVIES: Well, what do you mean by the Middle East that it will create?

Prof. NORTON: The Iraq war has been a catastrophe. What it has done is
destabilize Iraq to the point that it is now in a civil war. We have created
a situation in Iraq where one of our major adversaries in the region, arguably
our major adversary, Iran, has actually been a major beneficiary. And in
fact, Iranian influence in Iraq has grown very dramatically since 2003.

Meantime, people across the Muslim world--but particularly in the Middle East
and the Arab world--have seen this invasion as evidence of America's desire
not to promote democracy and liberal values and so on, but basically to attack
and destroy Iraq. The Lebanon war is similarly exacerbating animosity and
enmity towards the United States. We've seen widespread demonstrations across
the region supporting not Israel and the US, but Hezbollah And we have seen
basically people who are our friends and our allies, including political
reformers in the region, who had been very much put on the defensive because
of the fact that what the US seems to be doing to the region in the eyes of
the people of the region is helping to destroy it, not to build it. So I
think this is very, very counterproductive. It is not, in my belief, in our
interest to create circumstances where our adversary, like Iran, actually gain
influence and where movements like Hezbollah become the most popular political
movement in the region.

DAVIES: Well, Augustus Richard Norton, thanks so much for speaking with us.

Prof. NORTON: My pleasure.

DAVIES: Augustus Richard Norton is a professor of international relations and
anthropology at Boston University. He has a forthcoming book on Hezbollah.

Coming up, actor Matt Dillon. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Actor Matt Dillon discusses new movie "Factotum" and
his career

DAVE DAVIES, host:

Matt Dillon has been playing leading roles in movies since he was 16. Known
in his early years as a teen idol, he's now 42 and can look back on a career
of diverse and challenging roles. He played a heroin addict and thief in
"Drugstore Cowboy," a dishonest private detective on the make in "There's
Something about Mary," and a racist cop in the movie "Crash," a role which
earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His other films
include "My Bodyguard," "The Outsiders," "To Die For," and this summer's "You,
Me, and Dupree." In 2002 he co-wrote and directed the film "City of Ghosts."

Dillon is currently staring in "Factotum," based on the novel by Charles
Bukowski, the late LA writer known for his confessional and painfully
realistic style. Dillon's character, Henry Chinaski, is widely regarded as
Bukowski's alter ego. He's an alcoholic who moves through menial jobs and
failed relationships while pursuing his quest to become a published writer.
In this scene from "Factotum," Chinaski reflects on the challenges of writing,
then interviews for a job in a pickle factor.

(Soundbite of "Factotum")

Mr. MATT DILLON: (As Henry Chinaski) As we live we all get caught and torn
by various traps. Writing can trap you. Some writers tend to write what has
pleased their readers in the past. They hear accolades and believe them.
There is only one final judge of writing, and that is the writer. When he is
swayed by the critics, the editors, the publishers, the readers, then he's
finished. And of course, when he's swayed with his fame and his fortune, you
can float him down the river with the turds.

Unidentified Actor: A writer, huh?

Mr. DILLON: (As Chinaski) Yes.

Actor: Are you sure?

Mr. DILLON: (As Chinaski) No, I'm not.

Actor: Why do you want to work in a pickle factory?

Mr. DILLON: (As Chinaski) It reminds me of my grandmother.

Actor: It does?

Mr. DILLON: (As Chinaski) She used to serve me pickles whenever I visited
her.

Actor: What do you write?

Mr. DILLON: (As Chinaski) Mostly short stories. I'm halfway through a
novel.

Actor: What's it about?

Mr. DILLON: (As Chinaski) Everything.

Actor: You mean, for instance, it's about cancer?

Mr. DILLON: (As Chinaski) Yes.

Actor: How about my wife?

Mr. DILLON: (As Chinaski) She's in there, too.

(End of soundbite)

DAVIES: Well, Matt Dillon, welcome to FRESH AIR.

In this new film "Factotum," you play this character, Hank Chinaski, from the
Charles Bukowski novel, a guy you wouldn't want your daughter to date,
probably. I mean, he drinks too much. He drifts from job to job. He has
these casual relationships. And yet there's kind of something maybe deeper
going on in his head.

Mr. DILLON: Mm.

DAVIES: Tell us about this character and how you got into the role?

Mr. DILLON: Well, for me, I guess it all starts with, you know--my

background with Charles Bukowski is that I read him--I read most of his novels
and short stories when I was in my early 20s, and then I put them down and
didn't really--I hadn't really thought much about Bukowski for some years.
And then, all these years later, the producer of "Factotum" and the director
Bent Hamer approached me about playing Chinaski in "Factotum." And my first
reaction was like surprised, but I just didn't feel like something that I
could do and, you know, that certainly Bukowski's a different physical type
than myself. And, you know, and I always thought of him as an older, you
know, as an old--this is the same guy who wrote "Notes of a Dirty, Old Man."

DAVIES: Mm-hm.

Mr. DILLON: And he achieved success so late in the game that I often, you
know, I just thought of him as an older guy. And then they reminded me,
`Look, you're really at the right age to play Chinaski during that period that
chronicled Charles Bukowski, those early years when he was trying to get
published as a poet. And once it was established that they weren't looking
for me to do an impersonation of Charles Bukowski, which would have been a
disaster, then I knew that I could do it.

DAVIES: You spoke to Bukowski's widow to get ready for this. What did you
get from that experience?

Mr. DILLON: You know, one of the things she told me was there was this kind
of misconception, or this idea about Charles Bukowski that he was sort
of--that he was dirty. That he was a slob, that he wasn't clean. And this
was something that really bothered him, because, in fact, he was the
antithesis of that. He was very neat, and he was--he was very clean, very
disciplined. And that's something that really gave me some insight into
Chinaski's dignity, you know, that this is something that, you know, that he
had, you know. He had this sort of pride, that he would keep himself neat,
that he would--you know that--you know, one of the things the director did,
Bent Hamer, was he put in a sequence where you see Hank washing his clothes
and hanging them up and that sort of...

DAVIES: Right. In a cheap room where he does it on the sink actually.
Right?

Mr. DILLON: Yeah. He washes them in the sink and he hangs them up before he
sits down to write. And for me that really, you know, that really--those
little touches were really important to sort of play against what--you know,
the natural instinct for an actor is if you're going to play, you know, a bum
on skid row, is to like, you know, who ends up homeless, to get down into the
gutter and rub your face in it and, you know, and this--she gave me these sort
of insights that were really helpful.

DAVIES: Well, you know, it's interesting because you see Henry Chinaski--you
in this film--you know, drinking, getting fired, going through these casual
relationships, but we see the other side of the character often through these
internal monologues that appear in the film as voiceovers, and our audience
just heard one in the clip we played earlier. What was the frame of mind you
pictured for that character when you were doing those voiceovers? I wondered
at times if you were slurring your words just a bit as if you had been
drinking. Well, what was in your head when you were doing those?

Mr. DILLON: Well, for one thing I really tried to avoid playing drunk, just
more allowing it to happen in the way that it naturally would. For one thing,
he's a maintenance drinker, you know. It's not like--he's not this like
happy-go-lucky kind of Arthur drunk, you know, like from the movie "Arthur,"
you know.

DAVIES: Right. Not like falling down over the piano. Right.

Mr. DILLON: Yeah. Exactly. So there's that, you know. It's like he's
drinking all the time, more or less. And so, you know, there's that part of
it. We did the voiceover stuff before we began shooting.

DAVIES: Oh.

Mr. DILLON: And then we some of it again afterwards. And I, as an actor, I
can tell the stuff I did beforehand and the stuff I did afterwards, but that's
a whole 'nother thing. I think the idea was that that would be the stuff that
was going on that he was writing at the time. The stuff, that, you know, that
he was observing around him, and so I think that's what that represented for
him.

I tried not to be too slurry. But there's a kind of--that was one of the
challenges for me because, you know, I listened to a lot of Bukowski doing
poetry readings. And I think it was something he really didn't take a lot of
pleasure in doing. I don't think he liked doing readings. And so I think
there was a guarded quality to his readings, you know, that's what I picked
up. That there was this kind of affectation in a way. And he had a sing-song
quality, which I kind of liked. It's sort of going against what--when I read
Bukowski, I always imagined this gruff voice that sounded more like, you know,
Warren Oates, or you know, Lee Marvin or something. But, in fact, he has sort
of a sing-song, almost at times effeminate sound, you know, to his voice. So,
for me, I wanted to kind of combine, well, who he really was and his real
delivery and his mannerisms with those of Chinaski, the alter ego that he had
created, if I could combine the two of them, because I do believe that
Chinaski was sort of a, maybe, you know, a sort of idealized version of
himself in a way.

DAVIES: Do you want to say a little bit about playing these scenes where you
and Lili Taylor have to play a couple that's kind of maintaining a
relationship, sort of, you know, on the edge of employment and on the edge
of...

Mr. DILLON: Right.

DAVIES: ...on the edge of connection to one another. I mean, it's a pretty
troubled relationship.

Mr. DILLON: Oh yeah. It's interesting, because in a lot of ways this film
is a love story, you know. And, you know, these are characters that are
pretty much set in their ways. And, you know, there's a lot of talk in film
about, you know, character, or character development. And often, you know, in
films--like in "Crash," for example, this film that I did where a lot of the
characters they have this arc where they come to this realization of who they
are and there's some sort of epiphany or this change that comes over them.
And, you know, that's not the case. You know, I think that's like the core of
what's happening, say in "Crash," are these moments, you know. But that's not
what--that's not the case in "Factotum."

"Factotum," these people are pretty much who they are. You know, I think you
basically have these two characters who are people that are sort of set in
their ways. But I think, as a viewer, you discover more about them as you go
along and the way that they interact with each other, because they're two
people that really, I mean, in reality, Jan--the character of Jan who Lili
plays--in real life she was a woman named Jane. And that was the only woman
that Bukowski ever sort of admitted to having been in love with. But they
seemed to be two kind of doomed people. Like, they couldn't stay away from
each other, but they couldn't stand each other. And, you know, in the end,
they just seemed to always be drifting away from each other but kind of coming
back. And I think there's something kind of human about that. I think a lot
of us have been relationships like that. It's never that clean.

DAVIES: Right.

Mr. DILLON: The break isn't, our emotions don't break away that freely.

DAVIES: My guest is Matt Dillon. He's appearing in the new film "Factotum."
We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

DAVIES: If you're just joining me, my guest is Matt Dillon. He is appearing
in the new film "Factotum."

You know, most people with a 25-year Hollywood career have a lot more gray
hair than you do, and I'm sure you've been asked for decades about what it was
like to get into the business so early. But I have to ask you, is the legend
true that you were discovered by a casting director for this film when you
were cutting class at age 14?

Mr. DILLON: Yeah. I mean, it always sounds strange to say "discovered." You
know? Like nobody likes to say...

DAVIES: Right.

Mr. DILLON: ...they were discovered, you know. It just sounds odd, you
know, a little bit weird. But, yeah, I was, like, I guess you could say
that's more or less what happened. I mean, I was in junior high school and,
you know, I was, you know, there were like 10 kids from my junior high school
who were sort of brought down to, you know, to audition for this film that was
being made. But they had--they were looking for--instead of using
professional actors, you know, they were looking for 14 and 15-year-old kids
that were, you know, sort of, I guess what they said were "real kids." You
know? And so, you know, in the beginning I thought, `Oh, wow, this is going
to be great, you know. I'll to be in a movie.' And then I found out there
were thousands of kids who were auditioning for it, and some of them we like
professionals who had been in like "The Bad News Bears" and stuff. And I
thought, `Well, I don't stand a chance against these guys. They're pros.'

DAVIES: And you were in this film "Over the Edge."

Mr. DILLON: "Over the Edge." That was "Over the Edge."

DAVIES: And then you get these, you know, you appear in "My Bodyguard"
playing the bully. And you were in these two great Francis Ford Coppola
films, "Rumble Fish" and "The Outsiders." And then at a really early age
you've got this huge leading man, teen idol thing going. You were here at an
age when most kids, you know, were worried about band practice and acne
treatments, and you've got this huge thing happening. And I would--I--there
are stories of like Roger Ebert interviewing you--that's--you know, well, at
age 18, 19. And I can't help but think, you know, looking back, now that
you've got a little more maturity and years, do you ever look back and just
wonder how you processed all that huge stuff and happening in your life?

DILLON: Well...

DAVIES: Or was it just a blast?

Mr. DILLON: No, it was fun. But, I mean, there were things that I remember
that I look back at, like meeting Shelley Winters when I was 14 years old in
Schwab's. And I remember like, you know, there was something--I think there
were certain principles like some of the people that I was around early on in
my career, you know, I was--for some reason, it seemed like I was surrounded
by people who were affected by the blacklist. You know, they were either red
diaper babies, their parents were blacklisted, or they themselves were
blacklisted. They were married to somebody who was my acting teacher, my
first director, the writer of the first film, Tim Hunter, Jonathan Kaplan.
The thing about a lot of those people--Walter Bernstein--these people really
had principles, you know. And I think that was--I was really lucky to be
around people like that. And, you know, that coupled with the fact that, you
know, I happened to be fortunate enough to get around the right people when I
started, and also I came from a pretty good family background, you know. I
didn't immediately, once I started acting, become, you know, go to a
professional, you know, a school for teenage actors or something.

So I had this kind of dual thing going on. I was growing up, you know, in the
suburbs, hanging out with my friends, doing all that kind of stuff. Some of
it was getting in trouble. Some of it was, you know, it was just whatever
kids do. And then there was this part of me who was going down, studying at
the Lee Strasberg, going to auditions, and going to premiers of films, and
doing stuff like that.

DAVIES: In 2002 you directed the film--I guess, co-wrote and directed the
film "City of Ghosts."

Mr. DILLON: Hm.

DAVIES: It's sort of a story of intrigue and duplicity. You're the central
character, Jimmy, sort of at a point of reevaluating life. This is after
you've been questioned by the FBI in an insurance scam, in, I guess, in the
states--I guess in New York.

Mr. DILLON: Mm-hm.

DAVIES: But a lot of the film is actually set in Cambodia. Why Cambodia?

Mr. DILLON: Well, you know, I'll tell you. I had visited Cambodia in about
1993 with a friend of mine, a childhood friend I'd grown up with who was
studying in Japan. And it wasn't--I hadn't planned on going. You know, I was
on my way to, actually, to Vietnam to, you know--I was really--I was in
Thailand and I was traveling around southeast Asia. And it was suggested,
that, `Hey, you ought to go to visit Angkor Wat and see Cambodia while you
still can because, you know, the UN is there so there's a degree of
stability.' You know? `And, but that might not stick, you know.'

And so when I got there, I was taken with the country. There was something
very cinematic about it, and beautiful, and also kind of dangerous, and on the
verge of sort of a dramatic transition itself. And for whatever reason, it
just stayed with me. And there was also something very, sort of, totally
atmospheric and there was like--it had a fairy tale-like quality to me, the
city of Phnom Penh, with its beautiful stupas, and the palace, the royal
palace, and the pagodas and, you know, along the Mekong River. And then there
was this sort of, at the time, this, you know, this sort of, you know,
darkened streets. And there was this sense of kind of forboding there, as
well. And it just stayed with me.

And it wasn't until a couple years later that I decided that I wanted to write
a film that was set there. And it was based on some of the people that I had
met in travels in Southeast Asia, during that couple of months when I was over
there, and some of the things that I witnessed. And that was the basis for
this film. To me, it was always going to be set in Cambodia. I mean, it
really was always one of the characters of the film, and the atmosphere is
every bit as important to me as the structure and the plot.

DAVIES: One of the moments in this film, which I just love, is a bizarre
evening. James Caan, the mentor, the kind of the leader of this scam artist,
is at this night club. And there's sort of this menacing situation, and he
does a karoke song, singing in Khmer. Where did that come from?

Mr. DILLON: Well, to me that's one of the magic moments of having made that
film, you know, for me, was when Barry and I were writing that scene, we
wrote, OK. And at that point Marvin puts his head back, closes his eyes and
begins to sing in fluent Khmer. And I liked the way it sounded, and of
course, in my mind, I thought, `Well, depending on what actor we get to play
Marvin, we can always change it to a Tony Bennett song if it has to be, or
whatever it has to be, you know.' And, of course, then I said that to James
Caan. I said, `Look if you're uncomfortable learning to sing this in Khmer.'
He says, `Matt, why do you think I took the friggin' job?'

So Jimmy embraced it whole heartedly. He's an intrepid actor and that's what
he did. And he's actually a talented singer. When we were sitting there and
I was watching it, I was sort of--I was mesmerized and I had to pinch myself
to see that I was watching this. And one of the Cambodian actors turned to
me, who was not really an actor, but he was stunned. He said, `His accent is
perfect. He's fluent. He sounds like a Khmer.' So that was a great moment
for me to be able to watch Jimmy do that.

DAVIES: Well, we'll be watching to see what you come up with next. Matt
Dillon, thanks so much for talking with us.

Mr. DILLON: OK.

DAVIES: Matt Dillon. He stars in the new film "Factotum." It opens next
week.

(Credits)

DAVIES: For Terry Gross, I'm Dave Davies.
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