Stephen Dorff is getting somewhere

Stephen Dorff says it is the role of his career. Photo / AP

After being touted as hot property in the Nineties, Stephen Dorff slipped off the Hollywood radar. Now, thanks to his starring role in Sofia Coppola's new film, his stocks are on the rise again.

Stephen Dorff was raised in Hollywood and knows that fast and heady celebrity lifestyle too well. In his youth he had been the next big thing, thanks to his breakthrough in The Power of One, as well as his portrayal as the fifth Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe, in Backbeat.

Of late, the 37-year-old has been best remembered for his villainous turn in 1998's Blade, though he's now changed that perception with an understated performance in Sofia Coppola's Venice Festival prize-winner, Somewhere.

"It's been weird because some people have been asking where I've been," Dorff says with a shrug. In recent years he's appeared in Public Enemies and produced a small prison drama Felon, with Sam Shepard and Val Kilmer.

"Sofia saw me in that movie, which actually did a lot of good for me just in terms of my performance."

Somewhere follows the life of Dorff's hard-living movie star, Johnny Marco, as he resides at the celebrity hangout Chateau Marmont. When his 11-year-old-daughter Chloe (Elle Fanning) comes to live with him he is forced to re-evaluate his existence and realises he is far from happy.

"Even as dark as Johnny gets, or as lonely and isolated and empty as he gets, there is still a sweetness about him," notes Dorff, who once lived at the famed Chateau himself. "He is nice to the valet parker and the room service guy. He is not a dick and there are a lot of dicks!"

Dorff says it is the role of his career.

"I have never had to quite act in every frame of a movie before," he admits, "so there was a lot of pressure. But I think the fact that Sofia embraced me at this time in my life, I was able to approach this role in the perfect way. It was almost like this synchronicity of things I have always wanted to play and my family hoped I would play. They were like, 'When are you going to not play the bad and the nasty guy Stephen, because you are not like that in real life?"'

The son of successful musician/songwriter Steve Dorff and a psychologist mother, Dorff enjoyed a privileged upbringing with parents, who even if they separated during his teens, were both very supportive. "The weird thing was that Sofia gave me the part on the first anniversary of my mum's passing. I felt an emotion that I hadn't felt in a year.

"I think I have learned a lot from Sofia, as a person and a friend. It means so much more than just the movie being strong. This whole experience has given me something that I have never gotten before. It is not about vanity or 'Wow, I have a great starring part!' anymore. It is something else."

Coppola, of course, knows too well the pressures Hollywood presents for young actors, and the newly minted mum seems to have taken Dorff under her wing. She's certainly given him a new confidence even if he is still disappointed about his past.

"There was this stigma that people expected me to be so big, but yet I don't control what happens. Maybe I was a little too outspoken, maybe I said things."

Maybe he annoyed people too.

"Yeah, and the truth is I learned I wasn't great at the publicity, game. I didn't realise it's part of the career."

And possibly inspired by Somewhere, eventually he admits he'd love to have a family.

"I look at myself and I could easily have had a daughter like Chloe from one of my past relationships, but it didn't happen. I'd like it to happen when the time is right."

LOWDOWN

Who: Stephen Dorff , comeback kid
What: Somewhere by Sofia Coppola
When and where: Opens at cinemas today

-TimeOut