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" 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. "

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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

Real Life

Work

Life

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Truth is, generally I like film festivals; somewhere at some level there's an exchange of ideas. "

" 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. "

" Weirdness is not my game. I'm just a square boy from Wisconsin. "

" I knew very little about 'Spider-Man'. I grew up more in the 'Superman' generation. 'Spider-Man' - I didn't know so much. But it is a really successful franchise, and I'm happy to be involved with it. "

Willem Dafoe

Generation

Successful

" 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. "

" The best thing an actor can be is ready. Be flexible, be ready. "

" I'll never be able to really see a film that I'm in. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 was watching 'Wild at Heart,' and I can honestly say I did nothing for that apart from show up! "

" I've never had any close male friends. The most important relationships in my life have always been with women. "

" 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

Bad

Bad Guy

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

Got

Role

" 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. "

" I do want to be in mainstream movies that are going to be seen. I suppose it satisfies the showbiz side of me. "

" 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. "

" Emotionally men and women are different, but only as a result of the physical differences. It all comes back to our bodies. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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'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. "