NYGossipGirl Exclusive: Willem Dafoe Interview

NYGossipGirl recently had a chance to sit down with Willem Dafoe. The 54-year-old actor opened up about his new film Daybreakers and his upcoming role in John Carter of Mars.

Dafoe has a large variety of roles in his repertoire. He played a villain in Spider-Man, a fish in Finding Nemo and a rat in Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animated film, Fantastic Mr. Fox. In a recent New York Times article, they described him as having a “distinctive growl” and went on to write that “strange is a relevant term when talking about the work of Willem Dafoe.”

“For me, it is what it is,” said Dafoe. “It’s my body of work, it continues, and I don’t feel the need to reflect on it so much. I think the lessons learned; they stay with you. You don’t look back, but maybe you do. I’m reflective, but not that way. For performing, I think it’s instinctive. I don’t have much of an attitude. I do it from the heart, and get ready for the next one.”

For him, choosing which roles he wants is a combination of things.

“The accent, the priorities are always changing,” said Dafoe. “But I will say that it’s often in reaction to what you did before, just as a natural thing. It’s not a question of repeating yourself, you don’t want to keep going on the same route, it’s nice to mix it up.”

Read more after the jump!

Daybreakers is the second time that he has appeared in a vampire movie (he also appeared in The Vampire’s Assistant) during a span of eight months. Although he doesn’t have an immense fascination with the supernatural, it was more the opportunity to work with Assistant director, Paul Weitz.

“I had a really good time working with [Paul] on American Dreamz. He asked me to do this thing, and it was fun, and I thought it would be fun to do a couple of scenes with John C. Reilly. If it went well, there were going to be sequels, but it didn’t go so well, so I don’t think there will be sequels, but that was kind of the idea behind that. We were shooting in New Orleans. The reasons are very specific; it’s by coincidence that they both involve vampires.”

What attracted him to Daybreakers, a horror vampire film, was both the mixture of the character and the scenes.

“The character was sweet. I felt that it was something kind of fun and entertaining. I think it’s pretty unusual that you have a film like this where there are things for actors to do,” said Dafoe. “There are fun scenes. There’s good integration of action stuff with dramatic scenes. It has a good sense of humor about itself, but not so goofy. It walks a lot of lines, but it does it in a pretty skillful way.”

As he gets older, Dafoe sees a change in himself and his acting, which he hopes that others, who follow his work, do too.

“As I get older, there is this cumulative affect, and people see me a little broader. I don’t want to gloat, because things are changing so quick, and who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow,” stated Dafoe. “I’m going through a period where I think people appreciate when actors take small roles. When I do take smaller roles over bigger roles, I’m seen as that guy who’s not doing things for the money or the Hollywood lifestyle. I mean, whatever appeals to people. Like this year, I had a mix of different kinds of roles. If people follow films, I think its fun for them.”

Dafoe is currently ready to begin production for his new film John Carter of Mars, which Andrew Stanton is set to direct. The film centers around John Carter (played by Taylor Kitsh), a Civil War vet, who gets transplanted to Mars, where he discovers a wildly diverse planet. Dafoe will play a Barsoomian warrior, a ten-foot Martian warrior with four arms, who’s also an ally of John Carter.

“For someone to ask you to make a movie, directed by Andrew Stanton, with Disney behind it, a big, temple movie, I know from making Finding Nemo how these Pixar guys work,” said Dafoe. “They’re very thorough, they’re very rigorous, they really get it. It’s a real pleasure, because they’re so well researched and you get so much help trying to make something, so I think I got excited about that. I like to go back and forth, but it’s time to do a big movie again.”

Dafoe is excited, though, about playing a character with four arms, and is getting ready to meet with Stanton to discuss how that’s actually going to happen.

“I saw him recently, because we start in London for studio stuff, and I start next week (the week of Jan. 10, 2010). He showed me some samples just so I can understand what I’m in for, mostly of ideas of how they’re going to film these creatures next to human beings. We’re going to play the scenes, it’s not like some people’s fantasies. It’s not like they put you in a room and sample you and then go off to do this computer magic, and nobody ever plays the scenes,” laughs Dafoe. “It’s not like that, we’re going to play these scenes. He showed me examples of the different variations of how they shoot it, different equipment I’ll have to wear, certain times I won’t have to wear different equipment.”

Posted: January 14th, 2010 under Celebrity Interviews.
Tags: Willem Dafoe

Comments