Willem Dafoe told a jam-packed masterclass at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival on Thursday about his work with the likes of David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, and Oliver Stone, among other things.

The star, meanwhile, dodged a question about U.S. President Donald Trump. In an interview with Larry King at the dawning of the first Trump administration, Dafoe had shared that the country was “not going in the right direction.” Asked on Thursday if he still felt that way, he simply replied: “If you know anything about me and you do, that’s not a real question.”

There were many other topics to discuss. ”I don’t have that personality,” Dafoe said when asked if he could one day become a film director. “I like doing things. I like someone to say what they see, and then I like to try to embody it.“I like doing things” and embodying characters. … It challenges your perceptions, your prejudices.” As an actor, “you can act pretty mysteriously, even irresponsibly sometimes,” he added. “It’s a beautiful way to play with testing your limitations.”

Asked about playing the famous death scene in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, Dafoe said “it is a moving scene,” lauding the music, editing and other collaborative work behind the scenes. “The way it was constructed was very simple. It wasn’t really rehearsed,” Dafoe recalled. “I had a very simple task: run for my life. … And also I’m detonating bullet hits on me. So it’s a pure technical task. It’s like an athlete running from here to there. I’m not thinking about interpreting anything. I’m not thinking about effect. I’m just trying to as gracefully and as clearly and as directly do this action.”

Discussing starring in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, “I thought it was strange,” he recalled. As he learned more about its inspirations and focus, he agreed to take on the role.

“This is a beautiful role, because [it’s about] the human part of Jesus, and it’s a guy that kind of rejects this responsibility given to him, and that was an interesting place to be, and it’s one of my favorite roles, I guess, because it was so demanding, because I was almost in every shot, believe it or not, it was a very low-budget movie.”But that worked to the film’s advantage, he argued. “There’s a grace in its simplicity,” Dafoe said.

“You are not THE Jesus Christ. You are one Jesus Christ,” he emphasized in explaining his approach to the role. The biggest challenge was “to free myself of any images and expectation” of and for Jesus Christ.

Dafoe also said he was “shocked” about the backlash to the movie. “Jesus rejects his job and lives as a normal man. He has children, he has sex. That was too scandalous for people, so even without seeing the movie, there were huge protests against it,” the star recalled. “And then it morphed into a very strange thing about Jews in Hollywood. It became an antisemitic thing, and it snowballed. And the perception is that it was the Catholic Church. It really wasn’t the Catholic Church. It was the fundamental right in America that started this, and then it spread to various places.”

His reaction? “I was shocked, because in an age of super-violent movies and porn and all kinds of movies, this is a movie that was trying to address itself to the nature of faith,” Dafoe highlighted. “Yeah, it was a drag, because it was a movie that I was very invested in, in my mind. So it really did keep it from being widely distributed.”

Marvel never has issues with distribution. “The original Spider-Man was a lot of fun because within a scene it could switch from very dramatic to very comic, which is very difficult to do,” Dafoe recalled. “It’s got a great sense of humor, but it’s not light.”

He also shared that he enjoys “doing the action stuff.” For the original Spider-Man, “you were still using wires,” Dafoe said. “There was less CGI, and it was fun because it’s athletic.”

The star is in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina to receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo “in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the art of film” and screen The Birthday Party. Stellan Skarsgard and Ray Winstone have also received the honor at the fest this year.

Dafoe, who next has two films at Venice and one at Toronto, was greeted with a rousing ovation and excited waves from the masterclass crowd.

Dafoe last was at the Sarajevo fest in 2000 with Steve Buscemi’s Animal Factory. “I knew him when he was a fireman before he was an actor,” the star said about Buscemi.

Also at the fest, he spent time with Mike Leigh “who is a very charming guy once you get to know him,” Dafoe said to laughs.

Money “is always a consideration,” but “I never remember what I get paid” and never chase money, the actor emphasized.

Dafoe on Thursday also shared an anecdote about his father. “I liked him a lot, but he was quite conservative,” and he once told Dafoe: “I like that movie where you play the rapist,” meaning David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. “That’s probably funny, because my sweet father, you know, gets a kick out of me playing a really brutal criminal.”

How was working with Lynch? “He wanted me to go to a dentist and get dentures” because his character Bobby Peru has rotten teeth, Dafoe recalled. “Actors do put limitations on themselves. I thought they would just color them, but no, he wanted me to go to the dentist and get dentures, dentures that went over my teeth. I went and got them, and the second I put them in my mouth, I couldn’t close my mouth. … You feel different.”

But Dafoe allowed that to impact the way he portrayed the character. “That became a trigger,” he explained. “That was such a lesson. Sometimes an external thing really opens up something in your imagination that completes the character. And that was the beautiful thing between the writing and … the situation. All those things came together, and I was there to receive it. And I don’t want to sound too spooky about it, but … that’s a beautiful example of sometimes when you need to do research or a lot of work to prepare, you do. But for Bobby Peru, I did nothing, and it was just all the externals that kind of sent me on the way.”

The film was the only collaboration with the legendary director who died earlier this year. ”David Lynch was very unconventional. He was artist,” Dafoe shared. “He would not direct you conventionally. Very easy! Sometimes he’d say very abstract things, like ‘Willem, you know, when you start this, you’re kind of like green, and then you become brown.’ I was good with that.”

Having made over 150 films in his career, “Willem Dafoe is internationally respected for bringing versatility, boldness and dare to some of the most iconic films of our time,” Sarajevo organizers said when unveiling him as a recipient of the honor.

“Willem Dafoe returns to the Sarajevo Film Festival after 25 years,” said Jovan Marjanović, director of the Sarajevo fest. “His body of work is something to which every actor aspires. Every time he steps in front of the camera, he demonstrates that he is a true master of his craft. Whether starring in a Hollywood blockbuster or a low-budget independent film, his characters are always complex, emotional and unforgettable.”

Dafoe has received four Academy Award nominations and won two Independent Spirit Awards, the Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup, and a Berlinale Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement.

The 31st Sarajevo Film Festival runs through Friday, Aug. 22.