Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Poetry
Roles
Story
Expansive
Rather
Buttons
Stories
Intuitive
Pushing
Telling
Role

More quotes by Willem Dafoe

Image
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
Image
You have to lose yourself to find yourself.
Willem Dafoe
Image
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
Image
Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.
Willem Dafoe
Image
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
Image
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
Image
It's too easy to trivialize people. The Internet does it all the time.
Willem Dafoe
Image
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
Image
I've never had any close male friends. The most important relationships in my life have always been with women.
Willem Dafoe
Image
The mask can be a limitation, but you just deal with it. You do get superhuman strength and pumpkin bombs and all this other stuff to express yourself with.'
Willem Dafoe
Image
I never act. I simply bring out the real animal that's in me.
Willem Dafoe
Image
I love Sam Neill. The thing that I always say about him, and I think it's true, is he's so dry. When he's serious, I think he's joking when he's joking, I think he's serious.
Willem Dafoe
Image
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
Image
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
Image
That's a frustration sometimes, that certain directors that I'd like to work with, they just aren't doing stories that I'm sort of castable in. Not always, but sometimes I have that frustration.
Willem Dafoe
Image
I'm not attracted to naturalism, I'm not attracted to behavior, I'm attracted to dance. I'm attracted to gesture, I'm attracted to singing with your voice, as opposed to having a natural manner. I'm a theater actor first, so that probably influences a lot of my approach. And I think in many ways, naturalism has ruined movies.
Willem Dafoe
Image
I was watching 'Wild at Heart,' and I can honestly say I did nothing for that apart from show up!
Willem Dafoe
Image
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
Image
Film is fragmented and gets into lots of other people's hands. There are a lot of pleasures that theatre gives me. You get to perform uninterrupted.
Willem Dafoe
Image
Each of the actors is quite different, but they're all living in the same world.
Willem Dafoe