Wes Bentley, Star of Roland Joffé's There Be Dragons, Opens Up About His Struggle with Addiction

A lot of people who've followed your career probably weren't aware of what happened if they didn't read that piece. Looking at your filmography over the years, can you pinpoint the last film you did as this other self before you were able to turn it around?

Well, it would have to be the last couple that have come out. I was in a bad state on this movie called The Tomb [pictured above]. For a while I had done films that maybe weren't quite what I should have been doing, or I wasn't right for the film, or maybe the film wasn't right for me. But I wasn't really paying attention. And, you know, I had written myself off because that's what you do when you're in that state. There were quite a few films there in which I wasn't at my best; I wasn't always just messed up but they weren't great choices, and it all came from that state of mind.

Are there big films or opportunities that you feel your addiction led you to miss out on?

Oh, yeah. Definitely. I definitely did. I had a lot of opportunities. When you're in that state you miss meetings, you don't pay attention to what people are asking you to do, which could be great things. I also feared it; I think I feared my success and what I thought were the expectations of me -- which was actually just people believing in you, you know? So your addiction can make you believe certain things are happening that aren't. It also can make you miss things that actually are happening. Your mind is all twisted. I missed a lot of opportunities. I regret how I acted and behaved in those choices, or if I hurt people especially, but I don't regret where I'm at now. I've never been happier, and I could only be here by having made some terrible choices, unfortunately.

Life is a learning process. I really do appreciate your openness; this must be difficult for you to talk about.

Sometimes... sometimes not. I want it to help people, so if somebody reads this I want them to know. If you can recognize it early on, maybe you can help yourself before I helped myself.

Looking towards the future, you've got a number of projects going. What's the status of Hiroken?

I shot Hiroken but that one's a bit complicated; we didn't get to complete that one.

It sounded interesting.

Yeah, that one potentially could be. But we have to finish it to know. You know, there wasn't a lot of money put into that one so it's hard to say where it will end up. There's a number of projects I'm talking about with people now, they're looking to get the money together so it's not officially going yet, that are really interesting. Then there are the ones that I shot; Hidden Moon is interesting -- it's half in Spanish, half in English, which is cool. I didn't speak Spanish, but the actors did. It's a love story, too, which I haven't really done and am more interested in now. It was a cool premise and good people to work with. And I worked on a film called Creeper. It's funny, I worked with Christian Slater again on it and I love working with him, he's a great guy. We had a blast doing it. It's kind of a thriller and I think it could be very different.

Is Gone happening anytime soon?

Gone I haven't shot yet but I'm excited to do. That's with Amanda Seyfried; it's her film, really, so everyone else is in a supporting role. It's an abduction thriller with this great director named Heitor Dhalia. I don't work on that until mid-May. They're shooting now, I think.

You actually did film HBO's Tilda pilot, although the series never came to fruition. What was your involvement on that like and what do you think happened with the project?

You know, I only did one day on the pilot, so I didn't see anything going on. I certainly didn't feel it on the set, but apparently there had been some issues that I didn't know about. But the role was potentially Diane Keaton's lover, who was also her I.T. guy.

So, was that actually based on a real person, that you know of?

Uh... [Laughs] I don't know for certain if it was, but I think everybody kind of assumed it was based on Nikki Finke. But I can't say for certain; no one ever told me that.

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