FROM HIS EARLIEST credited movie appearance in Kathryn Bigelow's 1982 biker drama, The Loveless, through his current role in Robert Eggers's horror epic, Nosferatu, Willem Dafoe has never been one of those "I know that guy!" character actors whose name you have to look up. His slender, angular face is unmistakable. Ditto his gravelly tenor voice, one he's applied to everything from the enveloping kindness of Jesus and the existential self-awareness of a Vietnam War soldier to the tormented genius of Vincent van Gogh and the chaotic evil of the Green Goblin. Calling from Rome, where he lives part time, Dafoe, 69, spoke extemporaneously about the theory and practice of creative work with a plainspoken eloquence that's rare.
You’re in a unique position, having played a version of Nosferatu in one film, E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire, and the man hunting him in Nosferatu. How would you compare the experiences?
You’re dealing broadly with the same source material, but the impulses are very different. And the nature of being an actor is you do one thing and then you clean it out of your system and get ready to do another, so I have a lot of difficulty putting those two things together. I’m a little in denial! Doing projects, the world’s got to fall away. It’s like falling in love. You can’t be with someone and still be all about your past relationships.
What’s the attraction to Eggers’s work for you? You’ve also been in The Northman and The Lighthouse.
Denne historien er fra Dec 2-15, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra Dec 2-15, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Enchanting and Exhausting
Wicked makes a charming but bloated film.
Nicole Kidman Lets Loose
She's having a grand old time playing wealthy matriarchs on the verge of blowing their lives up.
How Mike Myers Makes His Own Reality
Directing him in Austin Powers taught me what it means to be really, truly funny.
The Art of Surrender
Four decades into his career, Willem Dafoe is more curious about his craft than ever.
The Big Macher Restaurant Is Back
ON A WARM NIGHT in October, a red carpet ran down a length of East 26th Street.
Showing Its Age
Borgo displays a confidence that can he only from experience.
Keeping It Simple on Lower Fifth
Jack Ceglic and Manuel Fernandez-Casteleiro's apartment is full of stories but not distractions.
REASON TO LOVE NEW YORK
THERE'S NOT MUCH in New York that has staying power. Every other day, a new scandal outscandals whatever we were just scandalized by; every few years, a hotter, scarier downtown set emerges; the yoga studio up the block from your apartment that used to be a coffee shop has now become a hybrid drug front and yarn store.
Disunion: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
A Rift in the Family My in-laws gave me a book by a eugenicist. Our relationship is over.
Gwen Whiting
Two years after a mass recall and a bacterial outbreak, the founder of the Laundress is on cleanup duty.
