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If You Know What It Is Before You Even Start, It's Not As Interesting. 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. I Try To Attach Myself To People Who Really Inspire Me, And Directors Who Are Really Passionate. That Way, I Can Give Myself More Fully And Trust The Impulse Behind Why The Film Is Being Made, And I Can Be A Little More Irresponsible In Finding Out What The Character Is. I Have To Worry Less About What The Character Means If I Trust The Director.

-Willem Dafoe

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If You Know What

Willem Dafoe

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If You Know What It Is Before You Even Start, It's Not As Interesting. 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. I Try To Attach Myself To People Who Really Inspire Me, And Directors Who Are Really Passionate. That Way, I Can Give Myself More Fully And Trust The Impulse Behind Why The Film Is Being Made, And I Can Be A Little More Irresponsible In Finding Out What The Character Is. I Have To Worry Less About What The Character Means If I Trust The Director.

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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.

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.

If You Know What It Is Before You Even Start, It's Not As Interesting. 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. I Try To Attach Myself To People Who Really Inspire Me, And Directors Who Are Really Passionate. That Way, I Can Give Myself More Fully And Trust The Impulse Behind Why The Film Is Being Made, And I Can Be A Little More Irresponsible In Finding Out What The Character Is. I Have To Worry Less About What The Character Means If I Trust The Director.

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.

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.

Socially, I Like The Idea Of Sitting In A Theater With A Bunch Of People.

The Best Thing An Actor Can Be Is Ready. Be Flexible, Be Ready.

In My Experience, Sometimes A Movie Just Hits At The Wrong Time, Gets The Wrong Press, Or Gets The Wrong Representation, And It Gets Misunderstood.

Basically, When I Hear The Words 'family Drama' I Run In The Opposite Direction.

I'm An Optimist. I Hope If A Movie's Good That It Will Be A Success, But That's Not Always True, Just Because Of Popular Taste Or Any Other Reasons. When Something Doesn't Do Better Than It Deserves To In Your Mind, It's Pretty Transparent - You Usually Know Why. Is That A Comfort? Yes, Because It's Logical. Does It Make You Happy? No, Because If You Think A Movie Is Beautiful Or Interesting, You Want To Share It. 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.

That's A Frustration Sometimes, That Certain Directors That I'd Like To Work With, They Just Aren't Doing Stories That I'm Sort Of Castable In. Not Always, But Sometimes I Have That Frustration.

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.

Sometimes You Feel Like You Have To Do Research To Make Something, Other Times You Know You Don't Feel It So Much.

Great Theatre Is About Challenging How We Think And Encouraging Us To Fantasize About A World We Aspire To.

The Truth Is, If You're Around Long Enough, You Have A Story About Everyone. But It's Best To Keep Your Mouth Shut Sometimes.

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.

With Theatre, You Have To Be Ready For Anything.

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.

Celebrity Is Okay As Long As You Know It's Not About You.

Any Actor Who Tells You That He Makes Choices, Absolutely, Is Wrong. You Find Work And Work Finds You.

When You Have Something To Work With, Then You Fly With It.

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.

I Was Watching 'wild At Heart,' And I Can Honestly Say I Did Nothing For That Apart From Show Up!

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.

Action Breeds Inspiration More Than Inspiration Breeds Action.

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.

I Like To Work With People Of Different Cultures, Different Points Of View. But Yeah, I Feel Much More Comfortable. That's The Problem I Sometimes Have With Going To Hollywood. I Feel Like They Don't Share The Same Values As I Do. They Aren't Interested In The Same Things. It's Not Always True, But Sometimes, I Feel It Deeply, Because As An Industry, They Celebrate Things That I'm Less Interested In, And It's All About The Business.

I Aspire To Be An Instrument Of The Director. I'm Happiest Like That. The Stronger The Director, The More I'm Willing To Give Them. It's Not Just About Admiration For Their Films, It's How They Deal With You, And Whether They Get You Or The Way You Work. If They Don't, You Better Adjust Your Way Of Working To Suit Them. I Want To Work With People Who Are Good At What They Do, And People Who Are Passionate. 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.

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.

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.

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.

The Director's Very Important To Me, Particularly When The Director Has A Recognizable Style.

In Films You Do A Scene, You Play Around With It And Unless You're Doing A Lot Of Reshooting, Which No One Has The Luxury To Do, You Deal With The Problem For A Day And Then You Move On. On Some Level, It Never Allows You To Go Very Deep Into What Performing Is About.

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.

I Feel Like It's Important To Be Flexible, Particularly When I'm Coming In Late In The Game And I'm Connective Tissue In The Story. I'm Not At The Very Center. It's Important For Me To Have A Certain Kind Of Flexibility And Try To Help People Do What They Need To Do.

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.

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.

Each Of The Actors Is Quite Different, But They're All Living In The Same World.

If You Get Stuck And It Feels A Little Stiff, Then You Do Have To Mess It Up To Find It. But Other Times It's Really Written And You Just Stick To Your Guns And Do It As Elegantly And As Concentrated And As Committed As You Can.

I Pride Myself On Being Fairly Polite On A Set So It's Kind Of A Guilty Pleasure To Poke Others On The Set.

I Don't Think People Are Interested In My Personal Life. I've Never Had A Hollywood Life. I've Always Been A Worker.

I Try To Do As Many Of My Own Stunts As Possible. If You Keep On Taking Yourself Out Of The Role You Play, You Lose The Thread Of The Character.

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.

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.

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.

I Do Want To Be In Mainstream Movies That Are Going To Be Seen. I Suppose It Satisfies The Showbiz Side Of Me.

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.

I'm No Different To Anyone Else; I Want People To Like Me. I Just Don't Particularly Want Them To Understand Me.

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.

A Lot Of Critics Are Lazy. They Don't Want To Look Closely And Analyze Something For What It Is. They Take A Quick First Impression And Then Rush To Compare It To Something They've Seen Before.

First Impression

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.

Sometimes You're Wrong, But If I'm A Repeat Customer, It Means I Must Have Valued The Past Experiences.

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.

The Real Difficulty For Smaller Films, When They're Made Independently And It's Time To Go For A Distributor, Sometimes If It's A Tough Film And The People Who Financed It Need Their Money Back Right Away, It's Much Easier And Lucrative To Take A Dvd Deal.

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.

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.

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.'

I Try To Attach Myself To People Who Really Inspire Me, And Directors Who Are Really Passionate. That Way, I Can Give Myself More Fully And Trust The Impulse Behind Why The Film Is Being Made, And I Can Be A Little More Irresponsible In Finding Out What The Character Is.

I Have Some Sort Of Affinity For Compulsive Behavior. The Most Interesting Stories Come Up From The People On The Outside.

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.

The Truth Is I Like The Crazy Ones Better Than The Well-behaved Ones Normally Because They Tend To Be The Passionate Ones. They Never Come After You If You're Holding Up Your End. The Only Thing That's Bad About An Abusive Director Is That They Bully The People They Can.

It's Nice To Go Back With People That You Already Trust.

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.

When I Give Over To Somebody's Vision Rather Than Have An Idea Of What I Need To Do, It Takes Me To Places I Wouldn't Have Got To By Myself. I'm Always Attracted To A Strong Director.

The Midwest Isn't Somewhere You Mix With Those From The Performing Arts. But My Mum And Dad Would Go Off To Chicago Every So Often To See Shows. They Would Bring Back The Albums And The Movies, Those Little Eight Metres, And We Would All Watch. I Think That Was When I Fell In Love With Acting.

I Want To Work With People Who Are Good At What They Do, And People Who Are Passionate.

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.

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.

Truth Is, Generally I Like Film Festivals; Somewhere At Some Level There's An Exchange Of Ideas.

I'm More Interested In Talking About What I Do. And I Don't Think People Are Interested In My Personal Life. I've Never Had A Hollywood Life. I've Always Been A Worker. But It's True: If You Know Something About A Person Outside Of The Movie That Is Really Repulsive To You, It's Hard To Shake. So I Prefer To Do My Speaking Through The Work. 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 These Characters. The Other Stuff Is Personal And Too Easy To Trivialize Out Of Context.

You Have To Lose Yourself To Find Yourself.

Finding Yourself

Losing Yourself

I Think On Some Level, You Do Your Best Things When You're A Little Off-balance, A Little Scared. You've Got To Work From Mystery, From Wonder, From Not Knowing.

Film Is An Editor's Medium. You Can Create Very Good Raw Material And They Can Make It Horrible, Or You Can Do Not So Well And They Can Make It Beautiful. You Don't Really Know.

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.

There's A Real Wisdom To Not Saying A Thing.

I'll Never Be Able To Really See A Film That I'm In.

Emotionally Men And Women Are Different, But Only As A Result Of The Physical Differences. It All Comes Back To Our Bodies.

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.

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.

The English Patient' Is About The Coming Together Of A French-canadian Nurse, An English Patient, A Sikh In A Turban And Me, Caravaggio, And Each Of Us Is Seeking A Resolution To Our Own Problems.

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.

One Of The Pleasures Of Being An Actor Is Quite Simply Taking A Walk In Someone Else's Shoes. And When I Look At The Roles I've Played, I'm Kind Of Amazed At All The Wonderful Adventures I've Had And The Different Things I've Learned.

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.

I Am Confident Only When I Am Constantly In Motion. Between Projects, The Doubt Creeps In.

I've Never Had Any Close Male Friends. The Most Important Relationships In My Life Have Always Been With Women.

Important Relationships

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.

I've Been In Very Few Flat-out Comedies. But I Feel Like I've Always Made Comedies.

Performing Is About Developing Empathy, Which Leads Us To A Broader View Of The World And Encourages Us To Develop Compassion; So We Can Comfort Each Other And Not Be So Brutal With Each Other.

I Never Act. I Simply Bring Out The Real Animal That's In Me.

I Like The Idea Of Sitting In A Theater With A Bunch Of People. With Technology Now, People Are Getting More And More Isolated. I Like The Community Coming Around The Story. You Don't Have That With A Dvd. People Go Home, They're Tired From Work, They Can Turn It Off. It Doesn't Make You Commit The Same Way, If You Can Control The Movie. More Difficult Movies, It's Too Easy To Turn Them Off. All The Time, I See Movies I Know If I Had Seen It On Dvd, I Wouldn't Have Hung With It. If You See It On The Screen, You Hang With It And It Pays Off Better Than A Movie You Can Easily Sit Through On Dvd.

When I Was A Kid I Was Very Interested In The Idea Of The Will, Finding Out What You're Capable Of. I Liked Those Kind Of Challenges.

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.

It's Too Easy To Trivialize People. The Internet Does It All The Time.

I Aspire To Be An Instrument Of The Director. I'm Happiest Like That. The Stronger The Director, The More I'm Willing To Give Them.

I'm Learning In My Old Age That The Only Thing You Can Do To Keep Your Sanity Is To Stay In The Moment.

Weirdness Is Not My Game. I'm Just A Square Boy From Wisconsin.

Turn Off The Sound In A Movie, And If You Can Tell What's Going On, The Movie Should Work.

The Worst Thing Is To Get Involved With People Who Aren't Passionate About What They're Doing.

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.

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.

While We Have A Very Strong Popular Culture, The Roots Of American Culture Are Very Shallow, And We Put Emphasis On How A Movie Does As Far As The Box Office Goes. Many Years Ago, It Would Have Been Vulgar To Print Box - Office Grosses In The Paper. Now The New York Times Does It, And It's The Big Story For People Interested In Arts And Entertainment On Monday. Which Is Why Emphasis Has Shifted Away From Filmmakers And Fallen On Movie Stars And Business People.

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.

I'm Never In Hollywood! I'm A Theatre Actor That Lives In New York. I'm Very Seldom In Los Angeles. I Don't Dislike La, I Just Don't Think It's A Very Healthy Place For Me To Be All The Time. When I'm Shooting A Movie There And Am Working I'm Perfectly Happy. But When I'm Not Working Or Engaged In Something It's A Place That I Wouldn't Live.

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.

Working Together

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