64+ Willem Dafoe Quotes On Context, Street And Snl

Willem Dafoe is an American actor known for his roles in films such as Platoon, Shadow of the Vampire, and The Florida Project. He has been nominated for four Academy Awards and has won numerous awards including a Golden Globe Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. He is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Willem Dafoe on love, context, street.

Top 10 Willem Dafoe Quotes

1. 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.
2. 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.'
3. Weirdness is not my game. I'm just a square boy from Wisconsin.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. There's a real wisdom to not saying a thing.
7. I have some sort of affinity for compulsive behavior. The most interesting stories come up from the people on the outside.
8. I'm learning in my old age that the only thing you can do to keep your sanity is to stay in the moment.
9. 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.
10. 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.

Willem Dafoe Short Quotes

• I've been in very few flat-out comedies. But I feel like I've always made comedies.
• With theatre, you have to be ready for anything.
• Each of the actors is quite different, but they're all living in the same world.
• Turn off the sound in a movie, and if you can tell what's going on, the movie should work.
• The director's very important to me, particularly when the director has a recognizable style.
• The best thing an actor can be is ready. Be flexible, be ready.
• I never act. I simply bring out the real animal that's in me.
• The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren't passionate about what they're doing.
• It's too easy to trivialize people. The Internet does it all the time.
• I want to work with people who are good at what they do, and people who are passionate.

Willem Dafoe Quotes About People

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

It's nice to go back with people that you already trust. — Willem Dafoe

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

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. — Willem Dafoe

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

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

Socially, I like the idea of sitting in a theater with a bunch of people. — Willem Dafoe

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. — Willem Dafoe

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. — Willem Dafoe

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. — Willem Dafoe

Willem Dafoe Quotes About Film

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

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

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. — Willem Dafoe

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. — Willem Dafoe

I'll never be able to really see a film that I'm in. — Willem Dafoe

Willem Dafoe Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

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. — Willem Dafoe

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

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

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. — Willem Dafoe

Sometimes you're wrong, but if I'm a repeat customer, it means I must have valued the past experiences. — Willem Dafoe

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

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. — Willem Dafoe

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. — Willem Dafoe

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

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. — Willem Dafoe

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. — Willem Dafoe

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

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. — Willem Dafoe

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

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. — Willem Dafoe

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

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

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

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

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. — Willem Dafoe

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

I pride myself on being fairly polite on a set so it's kind of a guilty pleasure to poke others on the set. — Willem Dafoe

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. — Willem Dafoe

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

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. — Willem Dafoe

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. — Willem Dafoe

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

When you have something to work with, then you fly with it. — Willem Dafoe

Life Lessons by Willem Dafoe

1. Willem Dafoe's career demonstrates the importance of taking risks and pushing boundaries in order to stand out and make a lasting impact.
2. He has also shown that it's possible to have a successful career in Hollywood without compromising your artistic integrity.
3. Finally, Dafoe's body of work serves as a reminder that hard work and dedication can lead to great success.