a SIFF 2007 interview

Rescue in the Jungle
Jeremy Davies Hones His Craft for Iconoclastic Director Werner Herzog

For actor Jeremy Davies, filling the role of missing civilian Air America worker Eugene DeBruin in Rescue Dawn wasn’t a difficult to decision to make. “The attraction to this [film] I can some up in one word,” said Davies during a recent telephone conversation, “and that’s Werner Herzog.” 

Jeremy Davies in MGM's Rescue Dawn

Working with the iconoclastic director of Fitzcaraldo and Aguirre: The Wrath of God had been a long-held desire for the acclaimed performer, but not for the reasons you might have thought. “I [have] a very unorthodox approach to my acting career,” he says with a laugh. “I basically hijacked [my career] from day one to try and turn it into Film School.”

“I did this for a number of reasons. I never expected that a misfit like me could get very far in this business. You know how competitive it is. It’s almost like winning the interplanetary lottery to get anywhere within [it]. But, above all, I’ve always had a real strong desire from way back to become a filmmaker, so I’ve actively been taking these acting experiences over the years with the active desire to hijack them and turn them into Film School.”

Considering the actor has worked with the likes of Steven Spielberg, David O. Russell, Lars von Trier, Steven Soderbergh and Wim Wenders over the past decade this approach doesn’t sound so unusual. Still, one does have to wonder what pointers he’s picked up after working with such a class of luminaries as well as what working with Herzog has added to his continuing cinematic education.

“I’ve tried to apprentice with a number of the great filmmakers I’ve been privileged to work with,” says Davies. “Even between films I have actively sought out mentors. For example, I sent a letter to Lars von Trier which actually resulting in a very rewarding and rich apprenticeship with Lars for a number of years now, all of this being the preamble that led to meeting and working with Werner.”

“I had this shortlist of ‘dream filmmakers’ that I wanted to spark an apprenticeship with or to at least get in the vicinity of to witness watching them work; to steal a little of the filmmaking genius from them, if you will. Werner was on this list. And, after Werner got in touch with me I sat down with him and said, ‘I don’t know how serious you are about me for this role but, even if you decide to go another way, it would still be a great privilege to me if I could come and watch you work.’ In my mind, to watch Werner Herzog make a film would have been richly rewarding.”

“As you can see, against Werner’s better judgment he ended up casting me in the film,” finishes up Davies with a chuckle. “And, in fact, he did become one of my dearest mentors and allowed me complete access to the entire process.”

Part of me couldn’t help but be a little surprised by all of this considering Herzog’s supposed history of being one of the most driven and difficult directors to work for. His colorful and volatile relationship with late actor Klaus Kinski is something of a legend, while his desire for absolute authenticity forces his cast to live and work in conditions closely mimicking the bare surroundings in which their characters inhabit.

Director Werner Herzog on the set of MGM's Rescue Dawn

“He does have that reputation,” states Davies, “but for the best reasons. For me, I began my career with what was a creative crucible for some people and that was Spanking the Monkey with David O. Russell who also has a strong reputation for being quite intense. I prefer that, and I don’t mean that in the wrong sense or the worst sense.”

“I feel the most fear on a set that feels like a holiday, like it’s a vacation and there is no disagreement and is very easy-going. For the most part, the films that I have been lucky to experience the filmmakers I have worked with really respect and understand the value of the creative process. The filmmakers who respect you and really demand that you come to the table with something to offer, those are the [ones] I am fiercely drawn to.”

“It doesn’t mean it is always easy. But, when it is not easy, it is for the best kind of reasons. You’ve been allowed to come in and offer a different kind of idea then the filmmaker is thinking. And Werner recognized that it’s invaluable to encourage everyone you’re working with to come with and challenge the very ideas you might have thought were the best ideas to go forward with.”

Considering Rescue Dawn involves the escape of Viet Nam War fighter pilot Dieter Dengler from an isolated prison camp deep within the Laotian jungle, to call the film challenging for actors Davies, Steve Zahn and lead Christian Bale would probably be considered an understatement. Herzog shot the entire production in reverse, allowing his cast to lose massive amounts of weight in order to better personify the barely human forms of their emaciated characters.

“It was ideal as far as I am concerned,” says Davies emphatically. “What Christian, Steven and I share in work ethic is a real powerful desire, especially in this case, to present an authentic performance, particularly when the people you’re representing are real individuals. You want to honor them and, on top of that, if you’re honoring them then you are honoring the men and women in the [military] wearing the uniform.”

“What I respected of both of them was that they also had no desire to look like [stars]. We’re playing prisoners of war, and the last thing we needed to look like were pampered, well-fed Hollywood actors who just stepped out of their trailers. There are actors who are more comfortable working from that territory and having those comforts. For us, it was okay to be without trailers with the set being very realistic and difficult to get to.”

Christian Bale and Jeremy Davies in MGM's Rescue Dawn

“Performance wise, they were very comfortable not being Xerox machines. They were comfortable with improve, they’re comfortable with Jazz, they’re very skilled and very comfortable working in the moment. I sort of pathologically can’t deliver lines the same way twice, I need that freedom and there are some actors you come across who are more comfortable knowing what is going to come next. [Christian & Steven] aren’t like that.”

And how dies Herzog feel about all this free-flowing movement as it relates to his movie? “It is very important to Werner to set up an environment where there is a lot of the unexpected, a little bit of chaos and a lot of unpredictability and as a result happy accidents, or what I like to call an ‘unrepeatable moment,’ occur. That is, for me as an actor, a moment that is really important to aspire to.”

“It is so difficult the typical way modern filmmaking is at the moment, but hopefully not for long, wherein you’re so limited by the cost of the [project] you’re confined to a certain shooting ratio. You know you’re only going to have two or three takes at best to get something interesting. To me, it’s a lot of pressure to be under, to want to take the risk to find an unrepeatable moment or some kind of Jazz moment when you’re not really going to get that many chances to pull it off.”

While most motion pictures are shot out of sequence, as stated Rescue Dawn was filmed completely in reverse. One has to wonder, however, if this kind of shooting style made discovering those “Unrepeatable Moments” Davies strives for even more difficult.

“It’s never been a problem for me [shooting out of sequence],” says the actor matter-of-factly. “But, you’re right, for any filmmaker or actor you want to feel a sense of continuity or shoot in a linear order of scenes. But, I’ve experienced this quite a bit. Films are always looking for ways to save money and they’ll go with locations in the most haphazard order just to save money.”

“Also, I come from a background of pretty subterranean filmmaking and we haven’t always had the luxury shooting things in order. It’s a phenomenon I’m used to but, yes, it’s not ideal and it can be disconcerting. You just have to learn to be extremely over-prepared and have a really good sense of the through-line of your character arc, to understand the progression arc of where you are at any given moment. You just really try to keep focused on the bigger picture and it really helps to have a good understanding of story structure to handle the travails of shooting out of order.”

Considering all of this, how much research, if any at all, did the actor do to help him keep track of his character’s story arc during filming? “There really wasn’t much information available about Gene,” says Davies. “The information I got was of course from Werner’s documentary Little Dieter Must Fly and, beyond that, collaborating with him [on the character]. Werner gave me a tremendous amount, arguably too much, of creative freedom to bring ideas to the table. He let me have a lot freedom with the dialogue. I mean, he had a sketch of what happened based on what Dieter said, but it really wasn’t more than a sketch, and he knew the function of the scene and knew what it needed to accomplish so he gave me a lot of freedom to present an interesting interpretation of this character.”

“For me, Gene turned out to be a very essential component to the story structure. He represented more than anyone else the opposing force. In any good story the opposing force is incredibly essentially to strengthening your hero, in allowing the audience to buy in to the story and believe it to begin with. That’s what we worked hard to honor, to make believable and to make sure [Gene] wasn’t a two-dimensional antagonist. To that end I think we succeeded.”

Additonal Links:

- Movie Review by Sara Michelle Fetters
- Rescue Dawn theatrical trailer