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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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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
Mind
Approach
Time
Challenges
Love
Though
Firsts
Everything
Beginner
First
Ideally
Work
Beginners
Every
Amateur
More quotes by Willem Dafoe
The truth is I like the crazy ones better than the well-behaved ones normally because they tend to be the passionate ones. They never come after you if you're holding up your end. The only thing that's bad about an abusive director is that they bully the people they can.
Willem Dafoe
If you get stuck and it feels a little stiff, then you do have to mess it up to find it. But other times it's really written and you just stick to your guns and do it as elegantly and as concentrated and as committed as you can.
Willem Dafoe
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
When you have something to work with, then you fly with it.
Willem Dafoe
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
I guess they often cast me as the bad guy, because I'm not, er, conventional looking. I look sort of violent. I'm the odd one out, the outsider.
Willem Dafoe
I was watching 'Wild at Heart,' and I can honestly say I did nothing for that apart from show up!
Willem Dafoe
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
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
Mounting those red stairs [in Cannes] is something I've done with a very different intention many times. So it's interesting any time you witness those shifts of perspective. The beach scenes were also fun. It felt very strange and very theatrical to kind of commandeer it and have La Mer booming over the speakers.
Willem Dafoe
The director's very important to me, particularly when the director has a recognizable style.
Willem Dafoe
The real difficulty for smaller films, when they're made independently and it's time to go for a distributor, sometimes if it's a tough film and the people who financed it need their money back right away, it's much easier and lucrative to take a DVD deal.
Willem Dafoe
I think on some level, you do your best things when you're a little off-balance, a little scared. You've got to work from mystery, from wonder, from not knowing.
Willem Dafoe
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
I want to work with people who are good at what they do, and people who are passionate.
Willem Dafoe
Sometimes you feel like you have to do research to make something, other times you know you don't feel it so much.
Willem Dafoe
I am confident only when I am constantly in motion. Between projects, the doubt creeps in.
Willem Dafoe
I feel like it's important to be flexible, particularly when I'm coming in late in the game and I'm connective tissue in the story. I'm not at the very center. It's important for me to have a certain kind of flexibility and try to help people do what they need to do.
Willem Dafoe
Trust is always a factor. You've just got to look at the big picture, and you've got to look at the small picture - the small picture in the sense that you've got to make every scene work and you've got to deal with what people are presenting you with, too.
Willem Dafoe
I've been in very few flat-out comedies. But I feel like I've always made comedies.
Willem Dafoe
