I recently had the opportunity to speak with busy actor Dave Vescio. We speak about some of his upcoming films, his thoughts on playing villains all the damn time and how he wants the audience to hate the despicable characters he plays. He also talks about some horror movies he loves and his Christmas plans. Please enjoy.
So Dave, tell me about some of the new movies you have coming out.
I have four coming out in 2012. Three are coming out in the spring. One is called Hick. It’s got Alec Baldwin, Blake Lively, Juliette Lewis, Chloë Grace Moretz, Rory Culkin and Eddie Redmayne. It’s a dark comedy about a 13 year old girl who runs away from home because she comes from a very dysfunctional family, and the consequences of that. So, I’m basically one of the villians in the film who doesn’t do nice proper things towards a 13 year old girl. But that’s the whole idea of the story. It’s based on a novel by the same name written by Andrea Portes and it’s somewhat an autobiography… it’s sort of like a forewarning to girls — think twice before you do this. So that comes out in the movie theaters this spring.
I have another movie I did with Michael Eisner, called The Millionaire Tour, he wants to be one of the first to release a movie just to the internet only. He feels that’s where the future is for all movies.
Then I did a sci-fi film called Air Collision. The sun sends out a solar blast, but because of that everything electronic doesn’t work anymore, so they have satellites falling out of the sky, they have Air Force 1 crashing into another plane, or at least that’s the way it looks. And I’m on the other plane predicting that all this shit’s happening. But I come across as a very crazy controversial type of guy. Like he’s nuts.
And then Lost Souls. It’s a film about an older man who really loves this woman and he wants to be with her, but he grew up in a very dysfunctional family, and he doesn’t know how to cope with normal human beings because he wasn’t treated normally as a child. So he feels the only way he can have her is by killing her. And so he does that, but then he gets killed, and now they’re both trapped in the world between this world and the afterlife. It’s very spooky, but I love it. [Check out the trailer here]
You’ve been very busy.
Trying to be!
It seems like you’ve been doing a lot of villain roles. Do you like playing the villain?
I do. When I first started acting at the age of 32 — and I’m 41 now — I wanted to be the hero. But my face is cut a certain way, my voice is a certain way, my acting style is a certain way, so everyone from the beginning — starting from when I went to David Mamet’s school in New York — they all told me “You’re going to be the villain; is that okay?” And I was fine with it, and I’ve been fine ever since. The reality of the game is human beings judge each other from the minute they see one another and for some reason when people see me as a performer, as an artist, they think something’s off, so it works with the characters I play. But at the same time, these people do exist, they are hunting and preying on us constantly. Every single day there’s crimes being committed throughout the world, so I feel it’s my job to tell their story truthfully and honestly to prepare the world for what may or may not happen in their own future. Because there’s con artists in all forms and shapes and sizes. It’s a crazy world we live in. But that’s why I love horror films. Because horror films, if done properly can be like the old fairy tales. It’s a life lesson to prepare you for how to be the hero of your own life, and how to not be the victim or victimized by these people. I love telling these types of stories.
What’s the most interesting/scary/bad ass character you’ve ever played?
You know for me… playing the child molesters are the worst. Because the reality of the game is, and I’ve done a lot of research on this, the vast majority of them were raped and molested as kids. They’re victims of the circumstances but at the same time as this has happened to them they feel that it’s okay for them to continue to do this to others. I just don’t see kids that way at all. Kids are innocent creatures, that shouldn’t have sex until they want to have sex and that’s usually for most kids when they’re 16, 18 or 21-22, or even later. So to have a human being take that from another human being… I can see why it’s screwy. It just screws with everything. That for me is the hardest. But at the same time they do exist, so I have to go there. I have to allow myself to go to these screwed up places. But by doing that I’ve learned that I do screw up the audience members when they watch this. So I think that’s the whole agenda. That’s what I need to do to the audience. I don’t need them to think that this is okay, that this is normal, that this should continue to be, I want them to hate it, to be disgusted by it, to despise it. So that way if they see anyone in this situation they’ll stop it.
I know that Hollywood likes to play villains as very one-dimensional, two-dimensional, sometimes you want to root for the villain like Dexter and all them. But I don’t like that story; I think you’re telling the wrong message to the audience. They should be punished somehow for the crimes they did because what they’re doing is wrong. They’re taking power into their own hands and they’re saying that they’re better that everyone. But in real like we don’t do that. In real life we put them in jail or we terminate them.
Looking back at movies you know and love, who has been the most despicable and horrifying villain you’ve ever seen?
Some of the performances I love the most are Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List, I love Gordon Gekko in the the first Wall Street, and Anthony Perkins in Psycho as Norman Bates. The character I really love the most and he’s never really talked about and was never given any awards or recognition for is the guy who plays Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs. It’s like these characters they come across as so real, so truthful. You can see that they’re being victimized themselves by being these characters. But I think that’s what scares the audience even more. Because you don’t know… he comes across as a good guy but he’s not a good guy. That’s scary. Or he wants to change or he wants to stop doing this but he can’t stop himself from doing it. Ted Levine plays Buffalo Bill so raw, he’s so vulnerable. It’s like he’s crying. He’s like “just put the lotion on. I’m crying here, just please do this. I don’t mean to hurt you but I want my dog back…” To me that’s the best you can be as a villain. Don’t get me wrong, I like being entertained by Heath Ledger as the Joker or Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter. But it doesn’t really change me, it doesn’t really make me scared of them. It just entertains me. I do know that the audience wants that as well. My brother’s always telling me that, he’s like “why don’t you just entertain the audience?” I’m like “that’s not my job.”
There are some villains who you just want to root for, where others you simply can’t. They’re too gritty, too awful.
In real life you don’t root for them. If you have someone bad living next door you’d likely do something about it. Maybe I think this way because I grew up in a military family, my dad was a fighter pilot, I joined the army when I was 18. So I was sort of just taught that I’m here to protect society.
Do you have a favorite horror movie?
That’s a tough one. The ones that tend to scare me are the ones that deal with paranormal type stuff. Because in my own life I’ve had paranormal incidents and that stuff scares the crap out of me. Because it’s like how do you protect yourself from something you can’t even see or detect, but you can sense it? These other dimensions that may exist within our own dimension is what screws me up the most. I liked Mothman Prophecies. There’s another one, Session 9, that scared the crap out of me. I love movies based on true stories, those scare me the most.
Do you like the Paranormal Activity movies?
I love the idea of them but I used to be a TV photojournalist for CBS news so when they say they’re only shooting on one camera but then I see another camera angle being shot from another direction… then I’m like okay that’s bullshit. I know the audience usually falls for it but it loses me. Blair Witch did that to me, Paranormal Activity, Open Water… it’s like okay, if these are supposed to be realistic then why is there more than one camera? But I love what it does to the audience, because the audience believes this stuff, and that’s the whole point of it.
I remember as a kid watching illegally (because we were all underage) Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Halloween movies, Friday the 13th and all them and my friends used to be so afraid watching these movies and I wasn’t because it’s like… whatever. But it was fun watching them be afraid of these movies because it’s like whoa… look at the power of this movie. Look what it can do.
What are you doing for the holidays?
I actually go home every year. My parents grew up in Pennsylvania and I think my family is one of the few black sheep families that we moved away and never really went back. I haven’t lived in Pennsylvania since I was 2 years old in 1972. But they all live there so every year for Christmas I go back to see everyone. I love Christmas, it’s one of my favorite holidays. One of the great things about our family is we still have young little kids so it’s fun watching them still believe in Santa Claus and watching them get excited for the tree.
