Stephen Dorff: Comes into His Own |
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An eclectic career dating back some 20 years, the charismatic and easy-on-the-eyes, Stephen Dorff does not shy away from unfavorable roles. Within the same general sly, manipulative, good-looking realm as Ethan Hawke, Christian Slater and Colin Farrell–Dorff's career has gone in a slightly different direction.
Presently on-screen in two feature films: SHADOWBOXER and THE WORLD TRADE CENTER (WTC); the 33-year-old Dorff may be in the process of resurrecting his career.
Completely different roles, in SHADOWBOXER he plays Clayton, a loathsome gangster-type character whose plot to assassinate his pregnant girlfriend goes woefully wrong. For Dorff fans, the secret tidbit of the film is that Dorff does have a brief, full-frontal nude scene.
Within Oliver Stone's emotion-laden, WORLD TRADE CENTER, Dorff plays Scott Strauss one of the 'good guys', an officer in the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit who joins in the rescue effort to save two Port Authority cops, Will Jimeno (Michael Pena) and John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage), who were among the last of the twenty survivors pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center on 9/11.
In his review of WORLD TRADE CENTER, Rolling Stone Magazine movie critic, Peter Travers, singled out Dorff saying, "Among the actors, Stephen Dorff scores as EMS officer Scott Strauss."
Of playing the real-life part of Scott Strauss, Dorff in an interview with Channel 4 Film said, "Scott Strauss is an extraordinary man with an incredible story to tell, his every word is tinged with awe. To meet him and talk with him has been the experience of a lifetime. And to get to play him and tell his story on screen is such a privilege."
The type of dichotomy that exists between Dorff's two current releases, is reflective of his entire film career, a diverse grouping inclusive of horror flicks, criminal rampages and off-kilter sci-fi stories, as well as, several police officers, an aspiring musician and a demented filmmaker.
• COLD CREEK MANOR (2003) – Directed by Mike Figgis (why?), the film stars Sharon Stone and Dennis Quaid as a Manhattan couple who buy an old, dilapidated country manor in an attempt to escape the pressures of city life. Dorff plays Dale Massie, the creepy former property owner\ handy man who chooses to wreak havoc upon the new owners.
• DEUCES WILD (2002) – Directed by Scott Calvert (THE BASKETBALL DIARIES) and set in 1958, the film tells the tale of ganglife and street kids in Brooklyn. It stars: Brad Renfro (as Dorff's brother), Fairuza Balk, Matt Dillon, Drea de Matteo and Deborah Harry.
• CECIL B. DEMENTED (2000) – As the title character, Cecil, Dorff plays an insane, guerilla-style filmmaker who, along with his renegade teenage crew, kidnap an A-list Hollywood 
Dorff as Deacon Frost in BLADE |
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actress (Melanie Griffith) and force her to star in their underground film. John Waters wrote and directed the film.
• EARTHLY POSSESSIONS (1999) – A made-for-cable movie starring Susan Sarandon, as a bored housewife who gets taken hostage (and for a ride) by a young bank robber named Jake Simms, Jr. (played by Dorff).
• BLADE (1998) – Some call the vampire-film a classic, while others refer to as the LOST BOYS gone urban. Regardless of the classification, Dorff plays the evil goth vampire, Deacon Frost, opposite Wesley Snipes' Blade\ 'The DayWalker'
• CITY OF INDUSTRY (1997) – A gritty, violent tour-de-force film starring Dorff as Skip Kovich, Harvey Keitel, Famke Janssen and Lucy Liu
• I SHOT ANDY WARHOL (1996) – Dorff plays drag queen, Candy Darling, one of the many offbeat characters, in this film which stars Lili Taylor as the perturbed, Valerie Solanas, a homeless lesbian prostitute who shot Warhol when he would not give her back her play, which she had asked him to read.
• BACKBEAT (1994) – Dorff played the supposed fifth Beattle, bassist Stuart Sutcliffe. Who died of a cerebral brain hemorrhage at the age of 21.
And then there were also the somewhat questionable unmentionables —FEARDOT.COM (2002) as a scruffy cop (Detective Mike Reilly), Dorff investigates deaths associated with a haunted web site and in SPACE TRUCKERS, a crew led by one of the frontier space transport experts (Dennis Hopper) encounters problems when it carries suspicious cargo (killer robots) back to Earth.
As Dorff says of his up and down career trek, "It's wonderful the opportunities you sometimes get in this career, to meet genuine heroes who've made a real difference to the world. It's not always about making movies as bad as FEARDOT.COM or SPACE TRUCKERS - no, sometimes you get to meet people like Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, John Waters and Scott Strauss."
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Dorff began acting career at the ripe old age of 12, making guest appearances on such popular television sitcoms as: "Diff'rent Strokes," "Empty Nest," "Married with Children," and "Roseanne". In 1990, Dorff landed his first series, "What a Dummy," playing Tucker Brannigan, the 16-year-old whose family had a talking ventriloquist living in a closet.
In comparison with Dorff's formative days as an actor, he no longer acts opposite a wooden doll. Rather, he now plays more developed characters—that while not always likeable—do have a definite edge to them.
Dorff can next be seen in .45 opposite Milla Jovovich as a friend who steps in to help out the girlfriend of a drug-dealer who is being abused. And, yes, he will own (and shoot) a gun in the film.
Stephen Dorff on MatchFlick
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A Chicago-based freelance writer and film enthusiast, Nancy has an insatiable curiousity and knack for picking out talented, promising individuals.
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