Why did you feel like you couldn’t uncork that character in rehearsals?

I want to do it different every time, and if you rehearse it 30 times, you have to think of 30 different ways to do it — even if the first way is probably the best way. I just hate it when I do a second take exactly the same as the first take. They might as well fire me.

Doing it the same feels false to you?

It’s just boring! I mean, I’ve definitely seen actors who love rehearsing and are very good, so there’s got to be some benefit to it. But there’s something about that full commitment when you’re shooting, when it’s do or die, that allows you to be more free. Or maybe I’m just lazy and I can’t be bothered to do it until the day we shoot!

Did “The Lighthouse” strike you as a comedy at first?

I thought the script was hilarious when I read it, but I had a similar experience on “High Life” [a space drama about convicts sent to a black hole]. When Claire Denis and I watched that by ourselves, we were pissing our pants laughing — it’s insane, that movie. But at the premiere of “High Life,” there was this deadly silence as everyone watched it. I was like, “Oh God, no one’s seeing the absurdity of this.”