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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
Love
Though
Firsts
Everything
Beginner
First
Ideally
Work
Beginners
Every
Amateur
Mind
Approach
Time
Challenges
More quotes by 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 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
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
I've been in very few flat-out comedies. But I feel like I've always made comedies.
Willem Dafoe
I was watching 'Wild at Heart,' and I can honestly say I did nothing for that apart from show up!
Willem Dafoe
I have some sort of affinity for compulsive behavior. The most interesting stories come up from the people on the outside.
Willem Dafoe
I am confident only when I am constantly in motion. Between projects, the doubt creeps in.
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
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
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
There's a real wisdom to not saying a thing.
Willem Dafoe
I love theaters. I love the event of going there and seeing a movie with a lot of people. I like the community coming around the story.
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 prefer shooting on location, just because it always helps you. You go some place, you put your life on hold even more than when you've settled in some place. You can make a new life so it opens yourself up to the make-believe and the imagination in a way when you aren't burdened by things that remind you of your life all the time.
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
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 wish to Christ I could make up a really great lie. Sometimes, after an interview, I say to myself, 'Man, you were so honest - can't you have some fun? Can't you do some really down and dirty lying?' But the puritan in me thinks that if I tell a lie, I'll be punished.
Willem Dafoe
All the time, as an actor, you want to be asking what's next and where things are going. If you're not asking those questions, you're not growing.
Willem Dafoe
Socially, I like the idea of sitting in a theater with a bunch of people.
Willem Dafoe
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