Lars von Trier: I don’t know, but thank you for the magazines. The Mental Illness Issue—very subtle. You’re welcome. What about your own mental-illness issues? What are you afraid of?
Well, I’m a serial neurotic, a hypochondriac, and I’m frightened of everything I can’t control. I guess my mental filter is screwed up, it takes in way too much stuff and it overwhelms me. Some people are just born with crappy filters. So I take a shitload of pills and I see my therapist on a regular basis. What kind of pills?
Listen, I have a very good psychiatrist and I’m not going to discuss my medication with you. The drug I take now is old school, from before the golden age of Prozac. It seems to be working a bit, so I’m reluctant to change it. I’m not afraid of pills. I’ve tried loads of different antidepressants and I don’t have any moral scruples about taking them either. What about artistic scruples? Aren’t you afraid of losing your creative edge if you fix your crappy filter?
When I feel bad, I feel monumentally bad. So if a pill could make me feel better but rendered me a boring filmmaker, well, I couldn’t give less of a shit. But it’s not like I pop Valium and down a six-pack. I don’t get all numb. Your latest film, Antichrist, stayed in preproduction for a long time, and when it finally got going everyone in Denmark was like, “Lars is back on top!” But back on top from what exactly?
Two years ago I had a full-on depression. I couldn’t get out of bed. I think my fears and phobias just became too much and my system needed to reset and recharge. It was like my body passed out to save me from my mind. I’m a compulsive control freak, but at a certain point you just have to give up, and doing that was actually not unpleasant for me. So were you all better when you started filming Antichrist?
Not at all, but to get out of a depression you eventually need to see yourself through different eyes, force yourself out of the funk, and insert some rituals. When we made Antichrist, it was me rebelling against my mental state, but I was far from back on top. Antichrist was out of my hands, and I just went with it and tried to shun my usual control issues. It was a horrible experience. Do you utilize your personal struggles as a director?
Of course. It has to be a battle, and not only with my personal demons. I often set up limitations like we did with Dogme. By removing some options in certain areas, you’re able to focus fully on other areas and rethink how you go about things. Tarkovsky made his best movies under Soviet censorship. When did your mental issues become apparent to you?
Quite early. As a young boy I was horribly afraid of dying in my sleep, you know, not waking up. School was awful for me too, and I had a hard time. I felt the classroom was a very claustrophobic space. I was also terrified of going, because I would be bullied relentlessly. I wasn’t physically able to defend myself, but at the same time I was a bit snooty and I wouldn’t back down. That’s a shitty cocktail, so at some point I just stopped going to avoid the confrontations. And you had these very liberal parents who didn’t think you should do anything against your will?
Yeah. School, dentist, or whatever, I was the boss of all that from an early age. Anyway, after ditching school for some time I got called up to see the school psychologist. I must have been 12. He told me the next time I did it, the cops would come to pick me up. I mean, that was the sum of his wisdom. I knew it was bullshit. Let’s talk some more about your childhood. You had this 8-mm camera and your commie parents kept taking you to nudist camps…
[laughs] I see where you’re going with this, and the answer is “No.” I didn’t film it. To me as a kid, it was perfectly normal, because my parents weren’t shy or embarrassed about their bodies. And in Antichrist you got to sample the hardships of a porn director. Can you tell me about Willem Dafoe’s dick double?
Oh yeah, Horst. He was this porn actor we were using for close-ups in the ejaculation scene. He got jacked off for 15 minutes and none of us could understand why he couldn’t cum. Turns out he was just waiting for us to cue him. My bad, I guess.
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