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
The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren’t passionate about what they’re doing. – Willem Dafoe
I think, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to be more reckless with my choices, because practically speaking, you get less careful. Your choices become more instinctive, and you feel like if you make a mistake, it won’t destroy you. – Willem Dafoe
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
I’m one of those people who when I go over a bridge, I want to jump. It’s just this intense tickle in the back of my throat. It’s like I’m on the verge the whole time I’m walking over that bridge, and I’m not going to get a release until I jump. – Willem Dafoe
All the time, as an actor, you want to be asking what’s next and where things are going. If you’re not asking those questions, you’re not growing. – Willem Dafoe
I guess they often cast me as the bad guy, because I’m not, er, conventional looking. I look sort of violent. I’m the odd one out, the outsider. – Willem Dafoe
Emotionally men and women are different, but only as a result of the physical differences. It all comes back to our bodies. – Willem Dafoe
Let’s hope I never end up on a deserted island, because I could never make a decision on which three CDs to take with me. – Willem Dafoe
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
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
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
I do know that I like to play characters that are sometimes a little on the outside – that’s because it feels kind of romantic and sexier to me. I really think they are the people that we learn lessons from. – Willem Dafoe
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
My dad was a surgeon, my mom a nurse, and they were always out working. I had five sisters and a brother. They didn’t care what I got up to. – Willem Dafoe
I was watching ‘Wild at Heart,’ and I can honestly say I did nothing for that apart from show up! – Willem Dafoe
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
