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I don't want people to know anything about me, because that's not important. I'm more interested in the me that takes shape through the characters.

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
People
Shape
Shapes
Characters
Interested
Takes
Character
Anything
Important

More quotes by Willem Dafoe

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There's a real wisdom to not saying a thing.
Willem Dafoe
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As you get older, you suffer fools less easily. That's why there's all those cranky character actors. I'm an exception. I'm a sweetheart.
Willem Dafoe
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I don't have a preference between theatre and film I like to do both. But I will say that there's something about theatre that is more nourishing and sustaining than film ever can be.
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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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 don't think people want to see me as a regular guy. Besides, I'm a regular guy in real life. I guess I just want to be reckless in my work.
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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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
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It's no fun for an actor to keep repeating what you did before. It's always changing. I'm changing. The target keeps moving. That's the beauty of it.
Willem Dafoe
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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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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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The best thing an actor can be is ready. Be flexible, be ready.
Willem Dafoe
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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
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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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With theatre, you have to be ready for anything.
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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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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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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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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Any actor who tells you that he makes choices, absolutely, is wrong. You find work and work finds you.
Willem Dafoe