{"id":30982,"date":"2025-04-02T15:32:52","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T19:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=30982"},"modified":"2025-04-03T15:30:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T19:30:31","slug":"in-being-maria-veteran-actor-matt-dillon-brings-marlon-brando-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=30982","title":{"rendered":"In “Being Maria,” Veteran Actor Matt Dillon Brings Marlon Brando Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo: Brad Balfour<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Story by Brad Balfour<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of all the features in Film at Lincoln Center\u2019s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema (held March 6 \u2013 16, 2025), \u201cBeing Maria\u201d was the one that really piqued my interest. Freely adapted from Vanessa Schneider\u2019s 2018 memoir \u201cMy Cousin Maria Schneider,\u201d this 2024 French biographical drama is based on the much-conflicted life of the late actress who died of cancer (1952\u20132011). It particularly dramatizes Schneider\u2019s experience working on the late Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci\u2019s controversial 1972 feature, \u201cLast Tango in Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That film, an NC-17 rated erotic drama (it was initially X-rated), starred Marlon Brando, Schneider and Jean-Pierre L\u00e9aud. It portrays a recently widowed American who begins an anonymous sexual affair with a young Parisian woman. The film is quite explicit with nudity and a scene where Schneider is anally penetrated with butter by Brando. Though it was in the script Schneider had read, the novice actress was caught off guard by the fierceness of the scene and felt she wasn\u2019t treated with respect. She felt violated and it forever affected her and her career. Throughout her career, she passionately fought to elevate the role of women in the world of cinema. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing Maria\u201d stars Romanian French actress Anamaria Vartolomei in the title role, with C\u00e9leste Brunnquell, Giuseppe Maggio, Yvan Attal, Marie Gillain, and Jonathan Couzini\u00e9 in supporting roles. Directed by Jessica Palud from a screenplay by Palud and Laurette Polmanss, veteran Irish American actor Matt Dillon was cast as Brando. The 61 year-old has received various accolades, including two Independent Spirit Awards and one from the Screen Actors Guild alongside nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy (for Best Spoken Word Album for narrating Jack Kerouac’s \u201cOn the Road\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, Dillon spoke before an audience at the Quad after \u201cBeing Maria\u201d was screened shortly after the film opened in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Matt, how did you get involved in this film? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Dillon: I was living in Italy at the time. My Italian agent told me about the movie. Then Marielle and Jessica, the director, came to meet me. We had a long meeting. I read the script beforehand and I liked it very much. I thought it was a very good translation. I have to be honest with you. Sometimes you read scripts that are translated into English and it\u2019s not always the best result. But this was not the case. I liked the nuances\u2026 I was a little bit concerned that it might be a little too focused\u2026 That it might have too much of an axe to grind or something like that \u2014 but that wasn\u2019t the case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was just very truthful and very human. I liked it. I thought the writing was good. I liked the way in which Brando [is portrayed]. It\u2019s a very subjective story from Maria\u2019s point of view. We only see Brando in relation to her and in relation to the making of \u201cLast Tango in Paris.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had a very good meeting with producer Marielle Duigou and Jessica. To be honest, I couldn\u2019t resist playing Marlon. [audience chuckling] It was too much of a temptation for me. I had to do that. I didn\u2019t even question whether I\u2019d do it. Maybe that\u2019s stupid because when I got on the set, and we were shooting the infamous scene, I just went, \u201cOh, no. Why did you agree to do this?\u201d But then I was happy to be a part of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: How does one prepare to play Marlon Brando? That\u2019s sort of an insane undertaking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Dillon: Well, he is one of the most interesting people of the 20th century. And he\u2019s Brando. There\u2019s no way to really \u2026 It\u2019s Marlon Brando! However, the good thing about playing somebody like Brando, or somebody that really exists, is that there\u2019s material. You have a lot to work with. Brando was a gift as an actor, especially in this film because of what they were doing. Even if they made this huge, disastrous mistake in what they did, what they were going for was deeply personal. That\u2019s where they went too far. Brando himself was also affected.  Maria was really traumatized, and he himself regretted a lot of it. I think he revealed so much of himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, that was good for me as an actor \u2013\u2013 to have that as source material. And the way he worked. Brando was very much from the inside out, which is the way I was trained. In preparation, there was a lot to work with. I liked the challenge. It did have its own challenges, of course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: What kind of conversations did you and Jessica have about the characterization of Brando? Obviously, the film primarily comes from Maria’s viewpoint, but it was also quite a traumatizing experience for him, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Dillon: I think their intention was to provoke. And even though we say, yes, they were working that way, it was a different time. It was a very controversial film at the time. And it changed many things about films back then. There were things in that film that had never been done. I think there was a warrant for the arrest of Bertolucci, Maria and Brando in Italy, at one point. Italy destroyed all the prints there. It\u2019s still kind of ironic that it\u2019s controversial for an entirely different reason now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been very polarizing. I think for me, if I may say, when I watched the film, I didn\u2019t see Maria as a young woman, because I was such a kid myself. I started acting young. And of course, early on, I watched Brando\u2019s works. Eventually it came to me when I was in high school. And, you know, the movie affected me in a deep way, because I was studying about the acting and the aesthetics and the performances. And she was great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brando changed the game. I watched the film many times. It had such an impact on me. The one scene I didn\u2019t like in the film, and not for any moral reason, was the scene with the butter. It just seemed out of place to me. It\u2019s funny, because it was out of left field, in a way. That\u2019s how I felt about it. Oddly, I will say if I may, that I feel like it\u2019s much more of a powerful scene in this film than it was in that film, because of what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, I am a big fan of \u201cLast Tango in Paris.\u201d I really believe that. Yet I\u2019m very proud to have been part of this film, because I think it gives voice to Maria for what she went through. I\u2019m empathetic to that, because I was a young actor, very young, younger than her when I started. I didn\u2019t go through what she went through, but I understand that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m empathetic to her objectification. I think she was marginalized. She was made to feel like\u2026 I don\u2019t think they even considered her side of things. I don\u2019t think that they were trying to do something diabolical. I think they were just inconsiderate and insensitive to what [she was feeling.] They pushed it too far. In that way, that\u2019s where I feel empathy for her, because I think that had to be very painful. I mean, obviously it was. We know that from seeing this film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: As a fan of \u201cLast Tango,\u201d was it kind of a surreal experience, recreating so many parts of it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Dillon: It was a big surprise for me. Not to recreate, because once you get to the set, we already know we\u2019re going to be doing that. But when it came to me, it was not something I ever expected that I would be involved in, anything related to that film. Yet that film had a big impact on me. So it was really a lot of things coming together at once. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On one side, there was Brando, and there was a young actor influenced by all of that. Being in one of her films, it really had an impact on me. And then there\u2019s this side of Maria, which was her trauma, and what she went through. And not that I suffered from anything like that, but the feelings that I had, and I am sensitive to that, because I started young. It\u2019s something that I\u2019m very aware of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: How was it for you working with Anamaria [Vartolomel] who played Maria? She\u2019s absolutely phenomenal in this as Maria \u2014 especially for you, Matt. You shoot some very intense scenes with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Dillon: I love Anamaria, and wish she was here. She was with us in Lincoln Center a couple of days ago, but now she\u2019s in Japan. I just love working with her. She was great, and it was a really nice experience with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s a fighter. She gets better as the movie goes. She\u2019s so good. Though she doesn\u2019t look like Maria Schneider, it doesn\u2019t matter, because she\u2019s so good. I loved working with her, but I was there only a week, and it was the toughest week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Matt, you\u2019ve had such an incredible career. So many people look to you as an acting legend in the way that people look at Brando. Was there anything (audience laughs) that you felt came up for you that maybe you haven\u2019t already unearthed throughout your career playing him? I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve learned so much throughout, but did you feel like you learned anything specifically from playing this role? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Dillon: I learned some French (laughter), and then they cut it out of the movie! I had to learn some French, and I know from experience that Brando, first of all, Brando spoke really good French. Really good, in fact. I think he was fluent in several languages. He was amazing in that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t speak any French. I had to learn things, not phonetically, because I knew what I was saying, of course. But that aside, to me, there was so much there to work with. I like that as an actor. You don\u2019t often get to play somebody who\u2019s a real person, so you have this source material to work with. You really disappear more in the character, which I liked being able to do. It\u2019s interesting, because it\u2019s the opposite of what Brando would do. Brando really was revealing a lot of himself, and that\u2019s what\u2019s so powerful about that performance. I don\u2019t know if I said it right. I always like to think I learned something from everything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a hard thing, because you have to do that. We all know Marlon Brando. How many people do a Marlon Brando impersonation? (Audience laughs.) It\u2019s just through him, because you can\u2019t avoid him. You can\u2019t say, \u201dWell, I\u2019m not doing Marlon Brando,\u201d and then finding that balance. The thing with Brando is that his inner life was so strong. So, yeah, I had that to work with \u2014 what he brought, that\u2019s why he was the greatest.

At one time, I played the alter ego of [the raunchy beat poet] Charles Bukowski in a film called \u201cFactotum.\u201d Have you seen that? [clapping] Thank you. That was great for me. Another surprise, you know. But I was like, I can\u2019t. I\u2019d read him when I was younger and I was like, \u201cI can\u2019t do this?. I don\u2019t look like him.\u201d Then I agreed to do it. I thought it was good, the script and all. I spoke to Linda Bukowski and said, \u201cOh, this is great, because it\u2019s like the alter ego. It\u2019s not really Bukowski.\u201d And she goes,\u201d Oh no, this is very much like him. This is Charles, this is Hank. you know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m like, \u201cOh, okay, okay, I\u2019ve got to go there.\u201d It\u2019s nice because there\u2019s plenty of material again. You know not to do an impersonation \u2014 it is an alter ego. Another surprise, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll get anything better than that, you know. The same with Brando.<\/p>\n

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