The Uncommon Pretender - Willem Dafoe

Arguably one of the most prolific and recognisable actors of this generation, Willem Dafoe shows no signs of stopping. But despite nominations, award wins, critics’ praises and an enviable CV, Dafoe would prefer if no one knew who he was.

- Wayne Cheong

There’s order and there’s chaos.

They are concepts but they are everywhere: the laminar flow of the smoke of an extinguished candle before it curls into random knots; individual six-branched ice crystals that make up the flurry of a snowstorm. Even our entropic universe is governed by the laws of thermodynamics.

Look up at the constellated wilderness—light from long-dead planets—but we can trace each seemingly randomly scattered pin dropped star. Lo there’s Orion, the mighty hunter. And over there we see Aquarius the cup bearer. And that distinct ‘W’? That’s the vain queen Cassiopeia. It’s human nature to divine patterns in disorder. In an act of hindsight, we connect the desultory dots to make sense of our lives.

Out of every random permutation, how did we end up with our own personal narrative?

Willem Dafoe wasn’t always Willem Dafoe.