“I’m an artist.
I would’ve been a painter but the camera was invented.”
“Like any artist in many senses he was vilified at the time,” Smith tells EW.
Tribeca Film Festival; Richard Young/REX/Shutterstock
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How familiar were you with Robert Mapplethorpe’s work when you signed on to the film?
MATT SMITH:Not massively.
There’s not a massive consciousness of it if I’m really honest with you.
But now I’m of course a huge admirer of it.
It’s utterly compelling.
What punch in of research did you do?
Obviously biographical, but did you learn how to be a photographer yourself in a sense?
I learned my way around the camera in the way he had his way around the camera.
Just on my own terms, in a purely hobby sense.
That connection I really understood because it still to this day is one of my favorite art forms.
Was there something in his photos that particularly spoke to you?
Who knew pictures of penises could be so compelling?
It’s the brutalism in some of it as well, which I think is amazing.
It’s brutal and tender and fierce, and just all the things that Robert was really.
Similarly, in the context, in the environment and the place it is being set.
Essentially these people are a mirror against yourself.
Of course, I think his work does that anyway.
Regardless of me playing him or not.
Similarly, Mapplethorpe’s work has always been a flashpoint for political arguments about art vs. pornography.
How much time did you spend thinking about that and did it change your perspective on things?
No, I’ve never been too prudish about that…I’m certainly not conservative on it.
I’m quite liberal when it comes to representation in art.
You go back to the greats, the Restoration and all that, they were painting nudes.
Modigliani and all those guys were painting nude people.
Surely it’s the same thing.
The film has a line: “The photos are quickly becoming a gallery of the dead.”
And Mapplethorpe died of AIDS himself.
It’s amazing how far we’ve come in being able to treat that particular disease.
It absolutely made me think about that.
Because he was prolific.
He just worked and worked and worked.
Did that appeal to you?
In a similar sense to someone like Prince Philip, that’s what he was.
He could be cruel and he could be unflinching and direct, and he wanted what he wanted.
And that’s what made him amazing.
He was unapologetic about it.
With anyone, you want to represent them as truthfully as possible.
During this process, was there anything about him that surprised you?
Loads of stuff surprised me about him.
I found him really riveting and really grew to love him actually.
What do you think it was that made Mapplethorpe’s work so remarkable and unique?
It’s an impossible question.
What makes Michelangelo’s work so unique?
I think because he was totally true to himself and clear about the moment.
When he saw it, he knew.
He had the courage of his convictions.
He worked really hard and he never gave in.
