In the 40 years that Matt Dillon has been an actor, he's been through many ups and downs.

With films like "Die Outsider" or "Rumble Fish" he became a cool teen idol in the early 1980s. Later he established himself as a serious actor with a cult following with "Drugstore Cowboy", "Singles - Together Lonely" or "To Die For". -Factor.

He starred in hit comedies like There's Something About Mary as well as in the Oscar-winning LA Crash, for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor himself.

Most recently, the 58-year-old, who was also nominated for a Grammy for his audio book version of Jack Kerouac's "Unterwegs", has appeared alongside Eva Green and Lars Eidinger in "Proxima - Die Astronautin" and in Til Schweiger's flopped US remake of "Honig in the head” to see.

At the film festival in Locarno he was just awarded an honorary leopard for his life's work.

You can admire him twice this fall on German screens: in Shirin Neshat's "Land of Dreams" (in cinemas from November 3) and in "Asteroid City", the new film by Wes Anderson.

Mr. Dillon, at this year's Locarno Film Festival you will receive an honorary award for your life's work.

Do you suddenly feel old?

Well, actually one of my first thoughts when I found out about the award was actually: wait a minute, I'm still in the middle of my life's work.

I'm far from finished.

At the same time, of course, I was also happy, after all, something like this is a wonderful recognition.

And actually I've been at it for quite a long time.

After more than 40 years in this job, such an honor might be appropriate after all.

You were still a teenager when you made your first film in the late 1970s.

How do you remember it?

We were filming Over the Edge

in Greeley, Colorado, where McDonald's has its major slaughterhouses

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I was particularly impressed by the people I met there while working on the film.

For example, I met a set painter who had worked on The Wizard of Oz 40 years earlier.

I could just as well have met Mozart

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for me he was someone from a completely different time.

Others in our crew had done westerns with John Wayne.

And many on the team were what Hollywood called "red diaper babies."

Red Diaper Babies?

Yes, that's what people from communist families were called.

Or rather: children of parents who were involved in the communist movement or party - and were persecuted and blacklisted in the film industry by Senator McCarthy in the 1950s.

Director Jonathan Kaplan and screenwriter Tim Hunter, for example, both had parents who were no longer allowed to work at the time.

The husband of my first acting teacher was also affected.

These were all people who would rather not work than betray their ideals.

Hearing these stories made quite an impression on me as a teenager.

How quickly did you realize back then that acting could become more than just a hobby for the summer holidays?

I walked this path from the start all by myself, my family had no connection to show business and I never cared about the limelight or anything.

I was discovered by accident and got this first roll of film, but as soon as I got in front of the camera it felt right.

There was not one moment when I decided that I wanted to do this professionally.

Much more it just never crossed my mind to want to do anything else.

It was more than a job from the start.

More of a calling.

And definitely a great passion.

Did you have role models that you emulated?

The big three, of course: Marlon Brando, James Dean and Montgomery Clift.

It is not for nothing that they are considered the founders of modern film acting, the triumvirate par excellence.

Robert de Niro, Al Pacino or Gene Hackman were inspired by them and their inner playing, and they were the ones I watched and learned from.

That authenticity we've all strived for ever since didn't exist in Hollywood before them.