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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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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
Working
Surgeon
Didn
Surgeons
Care
Sisters
Always
Nurse
Dad
Mom
Brother
Five

More quotes by Willem Dafoe

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When you work on anything, you want to find the range of impulses - which ones get portrayed is another question, but you want to have that complexity and that fullness, even if you're playing a cartoon character.
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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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 director's very important to me, particularly when the director has a recognizable style.
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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It's fair to say that if you have a lot of experience, your power is greater. You have more of an opportunity to roll up your sleeves with younger directors.
Willem Dafoe
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Socially, I like the idea of sitting in a theater with a bunch of people.
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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You have to lose yourself to find yourself.
Willem Dafoe
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Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.
Willem Dafoe
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Sometimes I say I feel more like a dancer than an actor, because there are things implied about being an actor that I don't really like. I feel more comfortable with the word 'performer'. I like being the thing. I like being the doer. There's a factualness to it. And then certain resonances happen out of how you apply yourself physically.
Willem Dafoe
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You can be intuitive when you've got a more expansive role. You can get into the poetry of telling the story rather than just pushing buttons.
Willem Dafoe
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I've been in very few flat-out comedies. But I feel like I've always made comedies.
Willem Dafoe
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The bad things about theatre get balanced by the good things in film and vice versa. So to tell you the truth, I love it when I can go back and forth - it feeds different parts of you and exercises different muscles.
Willem Dafoe
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Sometimes you make very interesting movies that aren't meant for everybody. But this is a capitalist society, so everything conspires to put value on whether it sells or not.
Willem Dafoe
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I pride myself on being fairly polite on a set so it's kind of a guilty pleasure to poke others on the set.
Willem Dafoe
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Usually when you meet with a director, just meeting them after you've seen something you're interested in, they say, Oh I'd love to work together, and sometimes you never hear from them again.
Willem Dafoe
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I don't think people are interested in my personal life. I've never had a Hollywood life. I've always been a worker.
Willem Dafoe
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Central to being an actor is pretending, and the adventure of it all. That's why you become a junkie for different kinds of situations.
Willem Dafoe
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For every role, you have to always find a different way to approach it, one that's specific and suits what the key is. Every role's a mystery. I think if you know what it is, you probably shouldn't even do it.
Willem Dafoe