Willem Dafoe

Willem Dafoe was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, USA, on July 22, 1955. Curiously, it is the day of Saint Mary Magdalene, and he would play Jesus 33 years later in The Last Temptation of Christ , the scandalous film by Martin Scorsese (1988), controversial and not very stimulating, which adapted the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis and showed the carnal temptations of the Messiah with the Magdalene. Willem was the sixth of eight children in a family where the father was a surgeon and the mother a nurse. He decided to study theater at the University of Wisconsin, and after passing through the avant-garde Theater X group, he would found his own in New York in 1977, The Wooster Group, also of an experimental type.

His first job in the cinema was under the orders of Michael Cimino in Heaven’s Gate (1980), but his little presence would remain on the editing table of this cursed film, although some say that he can be seen as an extra. In any case, his career was not evident at first, his face undoubtedly influenced, some marked features, a wide mouth, which did not respond to the usual canons of beauty, but which would make him the perfect man to compose the tormented characters that populate his career, he really appropriates his anxieties.

It is curious to see how renowned filmmakers chose him in his first films for supporting roles. Tony Scott counts on him for The Craving (1983), Walter Hill for Streets of Fire (1984) and William Friedkin for Living and Dying in Los Angeles (1985), here already a more important role. Fame and recognizability for the viewer come definitively with Platoon (1986), a Vietnam film by Oliver Stone where the “good” Sergeant Elias is opposite the “bad” Barnes, played by Tom Berenger. Curiously, both actors were nominated for an Oscar for best secondary performer. Stone would count on Dafoe again for his new Vietnamese foray Born on the Fourth of July (1989).

The actor begins to fascinate filmmakers-authors of the most diverse kind, although they are almost always distinguished by their restless soul, and their desire to explore the darkest recesses of the human being. This is how the collaboration of Scorsese and Paul Schrader in The Last Temptation of Christ is understood . With the first he would repeat in The Aviator (2004), about the mysterious millionaire Howard Hughes , and with the other in Possibility of Escape (1992), about the world of drug addiction, and Out of Focus (2002), about the actor Bob Crane. Among the unhealthy films that have required Dafoe’s presence, Wild Heart ( David Lynch , 1990),eXistenZ ( David Cronenberg , 1999), American Psycho ( Mary Harron , 2000), and Antichrist ( Lars von Trier , 2009).

Of course, it cannot be said that Dafoe chooses easy roles. Undoubtedly the most commercial and successful thing he has done is his liaison role with the CIA in Imminent Danger (Philip Noyce, 1994) and the Green Goblin in Spider-Man (2002), under the orders of Sam Raimi ; Well, his compositions in the most popular films, so to speak, as Mississippi Burns ( Alan Parker , 1988), The English Patient ( Anthony Minghella , 1996), The Chosen Ones ( Troy Duffy , 1999) The Mexican ( Robert Rodriguez , 2003), The shadow of a kidnapping (Robert Redford , 2004), Hidden Plan ( Spike Lee , 2006), The Farewell Affair ( Christian Carion , 2011), are linked to at least great directors, and their success among the public in some cases was not guaranteed from the outset. Curiously, in blatantly commercial titles such as El cuerpo del delito , Speed ​​2 and xXx, estado de emergencia , they have come face to face with failure at the box office, in what could be interpreted as a sign that they should look for more “artistic” films. Like Life Aquatic (2004), a “marcianada” by Wes Anderson that has its audience; or the directorial debut of the writerPaul Auster Lulu on the Bridge (2005). In any case, the actor has enough humor to laugh at his own image in Mr. Bean’s Holiday (2007), on account of the auteur cinema that is usually seen in Cannes.

No, Dafoe is a born explorer with his films, and he likes a challenge. Like putting himself in the shoes of Max Schreck , the actor who played Nosferatu in FW Murnau ‘s classic German expressionism , in The Shadow of the Vampire (2000), which earned him a second Oscar nomination. Other “different” film explorations to consider would be So Far, So Close! ( Wim Wenders , 1993) and Basquiat ( Julian Schnabel , 1996).

Discreet in his personal life, he has been romantically linked for many years to Elizabeth LeCompte, theater director of The Wooster Group, with whom he had his only son, Jack, in 1982. In 2004 they broke up and the following year he married Giada Cologrande, an Italian screenwriter and director.