“My god, this is horrible”: the Vincent D’Onofrio performance his director couldn’t stand
While getting a big break with a major role in a Stanley Kubrick war film would have seemingly set him up for tremendous success, Vincent D’Onofrio defied expectations by becoming a character actor.
D’Onofrio has always seemed to be aware of how his physical presence can be conveyed onscreen and has been smart in choosing the type of roles that best suit his abilities. In the cases where he didn’t make the right choice, D’Onofrio has been quite ready to admit it.
D’Onofrio was certainly booked and busy in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, as he appeared in many films that would go on to have cult followings; he played a dashing romantic lead in the coming-of-age classic Mystic Pizza, and filmed a memorable scene playing Orson Welles in Tim Burton’s unorthodox biopic Ed Wood. Still, D’Onofrio was in a position where he could take on some unconventional opportunities, which is what led Barry Sonnenfeld to cast him in 1997’s Men in Black.
Although it would become one of the most popular blockbusters of the ’90s, Men in Black was by no means a guaranteed success when it was announced. Sonnenfeld had made The Addams Family films, but he had never dealt with this much action and special effects.
The original comic book that Men in Black was based on was not particularly well-known, and there was no guarantee that audiences would buy into the premise – Will Smith had not yet had his breakthrough in Independence Day by the time Men in Black went into production, and while Tommy Lee Jones was an Academy Award winner, he wasn’t exactly anyone’s first choice to be the lead of a comedy.
Against all odds, Men in Black ended up working, mostly because it successfully created a compelling universe of aliens that could exist under the radar of society. D’Onofrio had one of the most challenging roles in the film as Edgar, a farmer who is infected and made to host the alien villain known as “The Bug”. Although the Bug is able to control Edgar’s body, it’s abundantly clear that he isn’t quite human.
D’Onofrio pulled off a difficult task with his performance in Men in Black because he had to convincingly be both funny and scary at the same time, but Sonnenfeld did not immediately see the genius in the performance, and D’Onofrio said that he struggled when the director admitted he was not impressed.
“He goes, ‘Are you going to do that the whole time?’, and I said to him, ‘Yeah, it’s pretty much my plan,’” D’Onofrio recalled. “‘Like, I don’t have a plan B, this really is it.’ I think I’m done, it’s my last hurrah with Barry, and he said, ‘My god, this is horrible.’ He just kept shaking his head, and he said, ‘But let’s continue and see what happens.'”
While D’Onofrio’s extremely unusual physical performance may have baffled Sonnenfeld on set, it ended up being the perfectly gross villain needed for the film; Men in Black showed a lot of aliens that were friendly, and Edgar needed to be distinctly aggressive and evil. Although Sonnenfeld returned to direct two more Men in Black films, neither was as well-received, which might be because their villains weren’t nearly as good.
