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" 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
Beauty
You
Target
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" 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
New
Process
Time
" Corruption is something you face all the time. Avoid it. "
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You
Time
Face
" 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.' "
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Strength
Mask
You
" 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. "
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You
Want
Character
" With theatre, you have to be ready for anything. "
Willem Dafoe
You
Theatre
Anything
" 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
You
Want
Time
" 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
Walk
Someone
Shoes
" 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. "
Willem Dafoe
Good Things
Truth
Good
" 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. "
Willem Dafoe
Cry
Talking
Touch
" 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. "
Willem Dafoe
Love
True
Think
" 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
Growth
Men
Women
" The director's very important to me, particularly when the director has a recognizable style. "
Willem Dafoe
Very
Style
Me
" 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
Hope
Success
Know
" I think back story can help guide your choices, but when you're playing a scene, you're not making choices; you're just intuitive. "
Willem Dafoe
You
Think
Story
" 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. "
Willem Dafoe
Father
Name
Big
" 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. "
Willem Dafoe
Wrong
Time
Sometimes
" 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. "
Willem Dafoe
Want
Look
Lazy
" 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
Sometimes
Say
Feel
" I do want to be in mainstream movies that are going to be seen. I suppose it satisfies the showbiz side of me. "
Willem Dafoe
Seen
Side
Want
" In order to inhabit a character, you've got to embrace and empathise with them. "
Willem Dafoe
Got
Embrace
Order
" Truth is, generally I like film festivals; somewhere at some level there's an exchange of ideas. "
Willem Dafoe
Festivals
Truth
Ideas
" 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. "
Willem Dafoe
Voice
Think
Singing
" 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
Finding
You
Kid
" I'm no different to anyone else; I want people to like me. I just don't particularly want them to understand me. "
Willem Dafoe
Just
People
Understand
" I was watching 'Wild at Heart,' and I can honestly say I did nothing for that apart from show up! "
Willem Dafoe
Say
I Can
Heart
" Turn off the sound in a movie, and if you can tell what's going on, the movie should work. "
Willem Dafoe
Work
Turn
Tell
" I have no doubt that if I met Bob Dylan, it would be disappointing - and annoying to him. But that's why I like Bob Dylan. "
Willem Dafoe
Annoying
Would
Why
" 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
Me
Bad
Bad Guy
" 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
Beginning
Look
Best
" 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
Work
Doing
Frustration