Fri, 2018-05-04
Matt Smith has seen cocks of all shapes and sizes. To step into the shoes of famed photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, he had to, but he’s quick to point out how compelling they’ve become to him. “That’s what’s clever about [Mapplethorpe]. You don’t know why, but it’s compelling even though it’s just a penis,” he explains as we sit down to talk the night after Mapplethorpe’s Tribeca Film Festival debut.
The star, who previously played Prince Philip on The Crown and the titular Doctor Who, is as unrecognizable now in a hoodie and sporting facial hair as he was screen in an unsettlingly accurate take on Mapplethorpe. Filmed in just 19 days by documentarian Ondi Timoner, the biopic took on the tall task of compressing Mapplethorpe’s life into 102-minute film — with the weight of the portrayal squarely on Smith’s broad shoulders.
By all accounts, and luckily for everyone involved, it succeeds. From the first shot of him in the cramped quarters of a Pratt University room as he fled military life to the final moment of his life as he died of AIDS in a hospital bed and all the BDSM and anal fisting in between, Smith embodies the volatile — and problematic — spirit of one of America’s most compelling photographers.
As he eased into his chair and reminisced about the whips and dicks he was surrounded by on set, we caught up with the actor to talk the delicate job of portraying AIDS on film, why straight actors should be able to take on gay roles, and the intrigue of leather culture.
OUT: Did you buy a harness after the movie finished?
Matt Smith: No, I probably should have. Just stick a whip up my ass.
Maybe not that far, buy a whip. Buy a harness.
Even that, something about the image. It’s cool, isn’t it? It’s cool. I have a lot of straight friends and a lot of them find it quite hot. Then, the picture with the finger [in the hole of the penis]. You kind of go, ‘Aaah!’
Yeah, and the fisting one, too.
Yeah! You can’t help but return a glance. It’s compelling.
Have you spent a lot of time looking at photographs of erect—
Cocks, yeah. When I first started with the photographs, I was like, ‘Ugh, penises,’ but actually, who knew that they’re so compelling? There’s something just right about it. That’s what’s clever about [Mapplethorpe]. You don’t know why, but it’s compelling even though it’s just a penis.
There’s a lot of nudity in the film, how did it feel to always been nude and be around…
Cocks? I know, I was like, ‘what’s happened to my life?’
Craziest 19 days of your life?
Yeah, up there. I’ve seen ‘em before.
I feel like in America, people are more averse to nudity than people abroad.
Really?
Yeah, here it’s a lot easier to have violence in a movie than—
Than nudity?
Yeah.
That’s interesting. With that movie, when you’re talking about Robert Mapplethorpe, you can’t not have people being naked. You can’t not see people having sex. It’s hard to do well, sex. It’s a difficult thing. It was just another day at the office for me. It’s sort of weird, that kind of stuff, but then you get over it and you just fucking do it. The story required it so I just cracked on with it.
And you did a great job.
Thank you.
I think this might be your most intense role yet. How’d you prepare for it?
Like anything really, you immerse yourself as much as you can in the history, the context, the culture, the people, the photographs, the sex, the music. The politics of the time. Once you’ve soaked as much of that into yourself, you try and be impulsive.
Were you afraid of the challenge? You’ve played gay before, as Christopher Isherwood in Christopher and His Kind. Were you afraid of the challenge? People have become very critical of that.
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