[20] In 1982, Dafoe starred as the leader of an outlaw motorcycle club in the drama The Loveless, his first role as a leading man. Is the second youngest of eight siblings. Quite possibly has the most on-screen deaths of any mainstream actor. Dafoe was critically lauded for his performances in a number of controversial films released in the late 1980s. Frequently cast by Paul Schrader and Wes Anderson. [51] In 1995, he played an 18th-century writer in the period drama The Night and the Moment. Willem Dafoe, original name William J. Dafoe, (born July 22, 1955, Appleton, Wisconsin, U.S.), American actor known for his versatility and willingness to appear in controversial roles. Esteban was eaten! [61] Following a villainous supporting role in the romantic mystery drama Lulu on the Bridge,[62] Dafoe starred alongside Christopher Walken and Asia Argento in Abel Ferrara's cyberpunk drama New Rose Hotel in 1998. Removable, kiss-cut vinyl stickers. Filming & Production He's right-hand man to Bill. "[26] Principal photography for the film took place in the Philippines and required Dafoe to undergo boot camp training. Encounter with highly abnormal shark-like fish! His performance drew raves from film critics. Dafoe flourished as an actor in such big-budget mainstream films as Spider-Man (2002) and three of its sequels (2004, 2007, and 2021), in which he played the comic villain the Green Goblin; the animated Finding Nemo (2003) and its sequel, Finding Dory (2016), for which he provided the voice of a fish; and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Wes Andersons comedy about an idiosyncratic marine documentary crew. I don't know. Klaus Daimler [183][184] Also, like Alfred Molina (who reprised his role as Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus in the film), Dafoe was digitally de-aged for the character's 2002 self. Klaus Daimler I'm not trying to say I'm a totally intuitive kind of guy. Willem Dafoe on Why It Took So Long to Host 'SNL' and How He Kept 'Spider-Man' a Secret. : Steve Zissou [143] In Scott Cooper's Out of the Furnace (2013), starring Christian Bale, Dafoe played the supporting role of a bookmaker running an illegal gambling operation. [164], In 2017, Dafoe co-starred in Sean Baker's drama The Florida Project as the manager of a motel in Kissimmee, Florida who houses a toxic mother and her six-year-old daughter. A founding member of The Wooster Group, she has directed that ensemble since its emergence in the late 1970s. [56] In 1997, Dafoe returned to playing a villainous role in the action thriller Speed 2: Cruise Control, expressing the necessity of appearing in both independent and blockbuster films. : So, you really think you're a Zissou. : Please don't let any one make fun of me for saying so. His performance as a hotel manager in the latter film earned Dafoe his third Oscar nomination. What's the deal? That adventurous spirit continues with upcoming films including Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch, Abel Ferrara's Siberia, and Paul Schrader's The Card Counter.Dafoe is one of the founding members of The Wooster Group, the New York based experimental theatre collective. Willem Dafoe is one of these actors, and in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, he plays one of the movie's most beloved characters, Klaus Daimler. While we have a very strong popular culture, the roots of our culture are very shallow, and we put emphasis on how a movie does as far as the box office goes. Born at 7:30 PM (CST). In the film, Dafoe played a perverse businessman who hires Charlotte Gainsbourg's character to work as a debt collector using sex and sadomasochism. They say you've got crazy-eye! His character was described as a "diminutive version of Dick Cheney, with wire-rimmed glasses and a fringe of white hair" by The Times writer Caryn James. At the same time, when you arrive, you've got to be able to abandon those preconceptions and be mercurial. William James Dafoe (/dfo/;[1] born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. [117] During an interview with L Magazine, it was revealed Dafoe had a stand in for scenes where his character's penis was on screen as his own was too big. But basically, my impulses are the impulses of a child. Roger Ebert praised Dafoe's "gifted" portrayal of LeTour and Owen Gleiberman opined that "even when the film doesn't gel, one is held by Willem Dafoe's grimly compelling performance. But it's important to me. [3][4][5] One of eight children of Muriel Isabel (ne Sprissler) (November 29, 1921 September 14, 2012) and Dr. William Alfred Dafoe (July 21, 1917 November 21, 2014),[6][7] he recalled in 2009: "My five sisters raised me because my father was a surgeon, my mother was a nurse and they worked together, so I didn't see either of them much. Speed 2 was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics,[58] with Dafoe himself receiving a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actor. 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. [123] His final appearance of the year was in Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, another film centring around vampires in which Dafoe played the foppish vampire Gavner Purl. There's a funny perception that I play bad guys, but if you really know my movies, the big and small ones, the truth is often I play good guys. [59] For his next film, Affliction (1997), Dafoe worked with Paul Schrader for a second time, playing the brother of Nick Nolte's character and served as the film's narrator. : Dafoe was an early member of experimental theater company The Wooster Group. Klaus, don't call me "sonny.". Dafoe played John Clark, a CIA agent conducting a covert operation against a drug cartel in Colombia with Jack Ryan. [191] The couple worked together on her films Before It Had a Name and A Woman. Ned Plimpton Esteban was eaten! I try to avoid anyone that pokes around-filmmaking should be an opportunity to make something that's very thrilling and, you know, exciting. You said cross the line if. No! I always like to mix it up. Although the film was largely dismissed by critics,[63] critic David Stratton found there to be "compensation" in the performances. In the simplest terms, it's a pleasure to borrow someone else's body and someone else's life. [12] There he apprenticed under Richard Schechner, director of the avant-garde theater troupe The Performance Group, where he met and became romantically involved with Elizabeth LeCompte. [76] Dafoe's role in the film was generally well-received, including a New York Daily News reviewer who felt he put "the scare in archvillain" and Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian who deemed him "strong support". [40] In the same year, Dafoe co-starred in David Lynch's crime film Wild at Heart with Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. I simply bring out the real animal that's in me. ", [on why he became an actor]: "You know, it shifts. I can't guarantee that, Klausie, but I'll try. [161][162] His final film of the year was the monster film The Great Wall, a Chinese-American co-production directed by Zhang Yimou starring Matt Damon as a European mercenary in China defending the Great Wall of China from a horde of monsters, in which Dafoe played a former adventurer working as a teacher in China. He recently completed work on Marina Abramovic's opera 7 Deaths of Maria Callas. [126] Also in 2010, Dafoe began voicing Clarence, the Birds Eye polar bear mascot in the company's television commercials in the United Kingdom,[129] and narrated Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World, a Ric Burns documentary about the history of the whaling industry in the United States. Expand your network and get to know new people! : Dafoe played a criminal who engages in a robbery with Cage's character before demonstrating his dark side. I said get your ass the hell off of my boat! Dafoe voiced the Australian ABC-television documentary 'River' in 2022,[178] which was written to highlight the precaricity of rivers worldwide. : Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg played a couple whose relationship becomes increasingly sexually violent and sadomasochistic after retreating to a cabin in the woods following the death of their child. Sometimes I have a desire to control what I do a little bit, especially when I do a smaller movie. He was listed as a suggestion in the Worst Supporting Actor category for his performance in the film, He was offered the role of Senator Ethan Roark in, Visited the Sarajevo International Film Festival together with, He was a candidate for the role of the Joker in. Well, you traveled a long way for "I don't know," sonny. It follows X (Dafoe) and Fox (Walken), a pair of corporate raiders attempting to lure a Japanese scientist from one megacorporation to another. I'm an optimist. It is beautiful Steve. | : Steve Zissou Dafoe said in 2010, "We were having lunch and I said: 'Do you want to get married tomorrow?'" [29] Dafoe provided his voice to the documentary Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam (1987) and, in 1988, Dafoe starred in another film set during the Vietnam War, this time as Criminal Investigation Command Agent Buck McGriff in the action thriller Off Limits. [66][67] The film performed poorly at the box office, but has since been branded as being a cult film. Oh Do it again. [121] Dafoe had a voice role in Wes Anderson's stop-motion animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox starring George Clooney as the titular Roald Dahl character. | : : He did most of his own stunts on the glider in, He was delirious for 24 hours after coming down with yellow fever on the set of. Many years ago, it would have been vulgar to print box-office grosses in the paper. [41] Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman felt the role proved Dafoe as a "master of leering, fish-faced villainy". Klaus Daimler [124] Between October and December 2009, Dafoe appeared in Richard Foreman's surrealist play Idiot Savant at The Public Theater. [shouting] Willem was born William James Dafoe on July 22, 1955, in Appleton, Wisconsin, USA, to William Alfred Dafoe, doctor, and his wife Muriel Isabel. [159] In the same year, Dafoe reprised his voice role as Gill, a Moorish idol fish, from Finding Nemo in its sequel Finding Dory. Osborn is a family friend of Spider-Man's secret identity Peter Parker as Osborn's son, Harry Osborn (played by James Franco), is a close friend of Parker. We're in the middle of a lightning strike rescue op, Klaus. [127][128] and starred in his wife Giada Colagrande's film A Woman. We'll split into two groups. - On preparation for the characters he plays. Since then, he worked with Richard Foreman in Idiot Savant at The Public Theatre (NYC), with Robert Wilson on two international productions: The Life & Death of Marina Abramovic and The Old Woman opposite Mikhail Baryshnikov and developed a new theatre piece, directed by Romeo Castellucci, based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Minister's Black Veil. 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