William James “Willem” Dafoe (born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. He is the recipient of diverse accolades, together with the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, in addition to receiving nominations for four Academy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a British Academy Film Award. He is also recognised for his common collaborations with filmmakers Paul Schrader, Abel Ferrara, Lars von Trier, Julian Schnabel, and Wes Anderson.
Dafoe turned into an early member of experimental theater company The Wooster Group. He made his movie debut in Heaven’s Gate (1980), but turned into fired all through production. He had his first leading function inside the outlaw biker film The Loveless (1982) and then played the main antagonist in Streets of Fire (1984) and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). He obtained his first Academy Award nomination (as Best Supporting Actor) for his function as Sergeant Elias Gordon in Oliver Stone’s conflict film Platoon (1986). In 1988, Dafoe played Jesus in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and costarred in Mississippi Burning, both of which had been controversial.
After receiving his 2nd Academy Award nomination (as Best Supporting Actor) for portraying Max Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire (2000), Dafoe portrayed the supervillain Norman Osborn / Green Goblin within the superhero movie Spider-Man (2002), a function he reprised in its sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), and the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). He also portrayed the villains in Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) and XXX: State of the Union (2005), as well as Carson Clay in the film Mr. Bean’s Holiday (2007). In 2009, he starred inside the experimental film Antichrist, one of his 3 movies with Lars von Trier. Dafoe then appeared in The Fault in Our Stars, John Wick, The Grand Budapest Hotel (all 2014), The Great Wall (2016), Murder on the Orient Express (2017), The Florida Project (2017) (for which he acquired his 0.33 Academy Award nomination inside the Best Supporting Actor category), and The Lighthouse (2019), portraying Nuidis Vulko in the DC Extended Universe movies Aquaman (2018) and Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021).
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Dafoe has portrayed numerous actual-life figures, inclusive of T.S. Eliot in Tom & Viv (1994), Pier Paolo Pasolini in Pasolini (2014), Vincent van Gogh in At Eternity’s Gate (2018) (for which he acquired an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, his first in that class), and Leonhard Seppala in Togo (2019). Dafoe holds dual American and Italian citizenship.Early life and schooling[edit]
William James Dafoe turned into born on July 22, 1955, in Appleton, Wisconsin.[2][three][4] One of 8 children of Muriel Isabel (née Sprissler) (November 29, 1921 – September 2012) and Dr. William Alfred Dafoe (July 21, 1917 – November 21, 2014), he recalled in 2009: “My 5 sisters raised me because my father changed into a healthcare professional, my mother turned into a nurse and they labored collectively, so I didn’t see both of them an awful lot.” His brother, Donald Dafoe, is a transplant health care provider and researcher.[eight] He has English, French, German, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. His surname, Dafoe, is the Anglicized model of the Swiss Thévou. In excessive faculty, he acquired the nickname Willem, that’s the Dutch version of the name William. During an interview he defined that approximately 1/2 of the Dafoe circle of relatives places the emphasis on the first syllable in their surname, and the alternative half on the second. Only after becoming an actor, he took the second interpretation as his stage name.
After attending Appleton East High School, Dafoe studied drama on the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, but left after a 12 months and a half to enroll in the experimental theater company Theatre X in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, earlier than shifting to New York City in 1976. There he apprenticed under Richard Schechner, director of the avant-garde theater troupe The Performance Group, in which he met and have become romantically worried with Elizabeth LeCompte. She, along with her former romantic companion Spalding Gray and others, edged out Schechner and created the Wooster Group. Within a yr Dafoe became a part of the business enterprise. Dafoe would preserve with the Wooster Group into the 2000s.[15]Career[edit]Nineteen Eighties
Dafoe started his film career in 1979, while he became forged in a assisting role in Michael Cimino’s epic Western movie Heaven’s Gate. Dafoe became only gift for the first three months of an eight-month shoot. His role, that of a cockfighter who works for Jeff Bridges’ individual, become eliminated from a majority of the movie at some stage in enhancing however become seen in the course of a cockfight scene. Dafoe did no longer get hold of a credit for his work on the film.[18] In 1982, Dafoe starred as the leader of an outlaw motorcycle membership in the drama The Loveless, his first role as a leading man. The film was co-directed through Kathryn Bigelow and Monty 1st viscount montgomery of alamein and paid homage to 1953 film The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando in a similar function.
Following a quick look in the horror movie The Hunger (1983), Dafoe again played the chief of a biker gang in Walter Hill’s 1984 movement film Streets of Fire. His man or woman within the movie served as the main antagonist, who captures the ex-girlfriend of a mercenary, played through Diane Lane and Michael Paré, respectively. Janet Maslin of The New York Times felt there have been no wonderful performances inside the film, however praised Dafoe’s “flawlessly villainous” face. Dafoe starred alongside Judge Reinhold in Roadhouse 66 (1985) as a couple of yuppies who grow to be stranded in a metropolis on U.S. Route sixty six.[21] Later in 1985, Dafoe starred with William Petersen and John Pankow in William Friedkin’s mystery To Live and Die in L.A., in which Dafoe portrays a counterfeiter named Rick Masters who is being tracked by way ofSecret Service sellers. Film critic Roger Ebert recommended his “robust” overall performance inside the movie.
Dafoe’s sole film release of 1986 changed into Oliver Stone’s Vietnam War movie Platoon, gaining him his widest publicity as much as that point for playing the compassionate Sergeant Elias Grodin. He loved the opportunity to play a heroic function and stated the movie gave him a danger to show his versatility, pronouncing “I assume all characters live in you. You simply frame them, supply them circumstances, and that man or woman will manifest.” Principal images for the movie passed off inside the Philippines and required Dafoe to go through boot camp training. Los Angeles Times creator Sheila Benson praised his performance and located it to be “specifically first-rate” to look Dafoe play “some thing apart from a psychopath”. At the 59th Academy Awards, Dafoe turned into nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, but the statuette become presented to Michael Caine (for the 1986 movie Hannah and Her Sisters). Dafoe provided his voice to the documentary Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam (1987) and, in 1988, Dafoe starred in some other movie set in the course of the Vietnam War, this time as Criminal Investigation Command Agent Buck McGriff inside the action mystery Off Limits. His 2nd release of 1988 was Martin Scorsese’s epic drama The Last Temptation of Christ, wherein Dafoe portrayed Jesus. The film was tailored from the novel of the identical name and depicts his struggle with diverse varieties of temptation during his existence. Like the radical, the movie sparked controversy for departing from the biblical portrayal of Jesus and became branded as being blasphemous. Dafoe’s overall performance inside the movie was broadly praised, but, with Janet Maslin opining that Dafoe brought a “sparkling depth” to the role.
