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Any actor who tells you that he makes choices, absolutely, is wrong. You find work and work finds you.

Willem Dafoe

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Willem Dafoe
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: July 22
Film Actor
Film Producer
Model
Performing Artist
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Voice Actor
Appleton
Wisconsin
William J. Willem Dafoe
William James Dafoe
Wrong
Actors
Makes
Find
Finds
Work
Tells
Absolutely
Actor
Choices

More quotes by Willem Dafoe

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It's true in the beginning I started playing villains, and I think that's pretty clear, because if you don't conventionally look a certain way and you've got a certain kind of presence when you're young, then what's available to you is character roles, and the best character roles when you're young tend to be villains.
Willem Dafoe
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I set myself challenges every time I work. Ideally I approach everything as though it's the first time - with a beginner's mind and an amateur's love.
Willem Dafoe
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The truth is, if you're around long enough, you have a story about everyone. But it's best to keep your mouth shut sometimes.
Willem Dafoe
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I try to attach myself to people who really inspire me, and directors who are really passionate. That way, I can give myself more fully and trust the impulse behind why the film is being made, and I can be a little more irresponsible in finding out what the character is.
Willem Dafoe
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I don't worry so much about the audience. I want them very much to be involved and enjoy the movie, but I try to just inhabit the character in a full way, where I can create a personal stake.
Willem Dafoe
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The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren't passionate about what they're doing.
Willem Dafoe
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The Midwest isn't somewhere you mix with those from the performing arts. But my mum and dad would go off to Chicago every so often to see shows. They would bring back the albums and the movies, those little eight metres, and we would all watch. I think that was when I fell in love with acting.
Willem Dafoe
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My dad was a surgeon, my mom a nurse, and they were always out working. I had five sisters and a brother. They didn't care what I got up to.
Willem Dafoe
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When I give over to somebody's vision rather than have an idea of what I need to do, it takes me to places I wouldn't have got to by myself. I'm always attracted to a strong director.
Willem Dafoe
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Turn off the sound in a movie, and if you can tell what's going on, the movie should work.
Willem Dafoe
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I'm never in Hollywood! I'm a theatre actor that lives in New York. I'm very seldom in Los Angeles. I don't dislike LA, I just don't think it's a very healthy place for me to be all the time. When I'm shooting a movie there and am working I'm perfectly happy. But when I'm not working or engaged in something it's a place that I wouldn't live.
Willem Dafoe
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I'll never be able to really see a film that I'm in.
Willem Dafoe
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Film is an editor's medium. You can create very good raw material and they can make it horrible, or you can do not so well and they can make it beautiful. You don't really know.
Willem Dafoe
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I think, as I've gotten older, I've been able to be more reckless with my choices, because practically speaking, you get less careful. Your choices become more instinctive, and you feel like if you make a mistake, it won't destroy you.
Willem Dafoe
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I try to do as many of my own stunts as possible. If you keep on taking yourself out of the role you play, you lose the thread of the character.
Willem Dafoe
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I'm one of those people who when I go over a bridge, I want to jump. It's just this intense tickle in the back of my throat. It's like I'm on the verge the whole time I'm walking over that bridge, and I'm not going to get a release until I jump.
Willem Dafoe
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I do want to be in mainstream movies that are going to be seen. I suppose it satisfies the showbiz side of me.
Willem Dafoe
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I'm no different to anyone else I want people to like me. I just don't particularly want them to understand me.
Willem Dafoe
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In films you do a scene, you play around with it and unless you're doing a lot of reshooting, which no one has the luxury to do, you deal with the problem for a day and then you move on. On some level, it never allows you to go very deep into what performing is about.
Willem Dafoe
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Let's hope I never end up on a deserted island, because I could never make a decision on which three CDs to take with me.
Willem Dafoe