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
Story
Expansive
Rather
Buttons
Intuitive
Stories
Pushing
Telling
Role
Poetry
Roles

More quotes by Willem Dafoe

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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
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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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Each of the actors is quite different, but they're all living in the same world.
Willem Dafoe
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I'm an optimist. I hope if a movie's good that it will be a success, but as we know, that's not always true, just because of popular taste, advertising, distribution patterns - there's lots of reasons.
Willem Dafoe
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Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can't. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth.
Willem Dafoe
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I was doing community theater, and I was always interested in acting, but I was also interested in sports. I was interested in a lot of things. I was a pretty normal guy. I wasn't like a guy who grew up in a dark theater watching movies.
Willem Dafoe
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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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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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I'm a task-oriented actor. A pretender. And I try to invent my process anew each time I make a new project. So I frown on any method.
Willem Dafoe
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You have to lose yourself to find yourself.
Willem Dafoe
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Plenty of bad movies are very successful, and plenty of good movies are not. And distribution is so crazy, some films won't even get their day in court.
Willem Dafoe
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I have some sort of affinity for compulsive behavior. The most interesting stories come up from the people on the outside. They don't waste energy marching to the same drummer most of us do. It gives us an opportunity to look at things in a different way, which is the purest thing cinema can do.
Willem Dafoe
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Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action.
Willem Dafoe
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I love doing action and stuff the problem is usually action movies are not that interesting. Also as I get older I feel like there's less opportunities for me.
Willem Dafoe
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There's a real wisdom to not saying a thing.
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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Weirdness is not my game. I'm just a square boy from Wisconsin.
Willem Dafoe
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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
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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
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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