One is a veteran of the screen who’s been acting for over 40 years, the other’s career began to blossom after a starring role in Alexander Payne’s 2017 dramedy, Downsizing – Willem Dafoe and Hong Chau meet on-screen in Kinds of Kindness. For Dafoe it was a reunion having worked with Yorgos Lanthimos on Poor Things and playing the bubble-belching God, but for Chau, it was a call that came after her whirlwind year promoting Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, which culminated in an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. They play various roles across each of the film’s shorts, but it is in the third and final segment, R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich, in which they play a pair of uber chill, free-loving cult leaders named Omi and Aka.
LWLies: Do either of you have any personal interpretations of what this film is about?
WD: I’m a battered actor. We talked interpreting. You know, there’s no interpretation. I don’t have the ability to express interpretation because it slides around as I’m watching it. I’m watching these people, and certain things occur to me, because many things happen that are very evocative, you know. And the two times I’ve seen it, it’s presented different things to me. So I can’t. I can’t. I could make something up, but it wouldn’t be true.
