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

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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
Role
Poetry
Roles
Story
Expansive
Rather
Buttons
Stories
Intuitive
Pushing
Telling

More quotes by Willem Dafoe

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Basically, when I hear the words 'family drama' I run in the opposite direction.
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
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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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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 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
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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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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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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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I am confident only when I am constantly in motion. Between projects, the doubt creeps in.
Willem Dafoe
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I was born William. My father was William. I came from a big family, I hated being called Billy. Willem's a nickname it's a Dutch name, very common in the Netherlands.
Willem Dafoe
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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
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Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action.
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 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
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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 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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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
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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
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It makes me laugh when I hear a guy talking about being in touch with his feminine side. But I gravitate towards women, I identify with them. And I do cry very easily, more and more as I get older.
Willem Dafoe
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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