Cristina Chiriac, the wife of director Abel Ferrara and the actor's partner in the film, reveals that they had difficulty convincing people not to call the police when they shot the aggressive scene.
- June 9, 2020
AceShowbiz - Abel Ferrara and Willem Dafoe's neighbours in Rome, Italy were so convinced a real-life drama was playing out before them as the old friends shot new movie "Tommaso", they had to convince people not to call the police.
Filmmaker Ferrara shot the film - his sixth with Dafoe - in his home in Rome and one scene called on his leading man to be violent and aggressive towards the director's real wife and child.
And the "Platoon" star's acting was a little too realistic.
"It was very real and very rough," Ferrara's wife Cristina Chiriac, who plays Dafoe's partner in the film, says. "The neighbours would come out to their windows and stare like, 'What happened!'.
"We live in a building with five floors and a girl from the third floor saw this happening but she didn't understand we were filming with the camera. She thought Willem was really hurting me! She said (through the door), 'Did he do something to you? I'm going to call the police.' We told her we were filming but she was absolutely convinced that Willem was going to hurt us and something happened."
And the director's young daughter, Anna, had a real problem with all the shouting and the drama.
"She usually does two takes but she didn't want to do the second one in this scene where Willem loses his temper and screams, and throws a lamp," Abel explains.
Chiriac adds, "The scene with Anna and Willem, we did one take and she freaked out a little bit because she usually sees Willem as nice and gentle and then when he screamed out of the blue she said, 'No, I don't like it. Why is he screaming?' We would tell her it's not reality, it's for the camera and he's not mean, he's a good man! It's not cool to push something like that."
