Willem Dafoe, the versatile actor known for roles from Jesus to the Green Goblin, discusses his latest role in the reimagined "Nosferatu." He dives into the depth of collaborating with director Robert Eggers, emphasizing the historical richness and immersive detail of the film. Dafoe aims to restore the vampire's fear factor in an age inundated with vampire tales. He also reflects on how acting shapes personal identity and navigates the evolving landscape of cinema, including the influence of streaming and social media.
Willem Dafoe discusses his versatile acting career, illustrating how roles like Christ and the Green Goblin have different impacts on audiences.
He highlights his collaboration with Robert Eggers, emphasizing the director's meticulous approach that enriches actors' performances through historical and immersive settings.
Deep dives
Willem Dafoe's Versatility
Willem Dafoe showcases remarkable versatility as an actor, spanning roles from iconic villains to complex heroes. He discusses his experience with a variety of films, highlighting how different characters resonate with audiences and how he perceives himself through the lens of various roles. Dafoe notes that the characters he plays leave lasting impressions on viewers, which often shapes how they approach him in real life. He reflects on how his most recognizable role in the Spider-Man franchise tends to overshadow the more nuanced performances in smaller indie films.
Unique Filmmaking with Robert Eggers
Dafoe emphasizes the significance of his collaboration with director Robert Eggers, praising Eggers’ unique vision and meticulous approach to filmmaking. He appreciates how Eggers creates immersive, historically rooted worlds that enhance the actors' performances, allowing them to become genuinely invested in their roles. Dafoe elaborates on how Eggers’ thorough pre-production process and attention to detail provide actors with a structured environment, which he finds liberating rather than restrictive. This collaborative chemistry contributes to the authenticity and depth that characterizes Eggers’ films, including their latest project, Nosferatu.
Reviving the Scary Vampire
In discussing Nosferatu, Dafoe explains the film’s aim to reintroduce the terrifying essence of vampire lore that has been diluted over time. He shares insights into his character, Professor von Franz, and how the film seeks to delve into historical beliefs surrounding vampires, focusing on the horror elements rather than romanticized portrayals. Eggers’ approach leans heavily on folklore and the actual fears of the past, designing the vampire character’s appearance and traits to reflect a more authentic and terrifying figure. This film stands as an exploration of the darker themes of love and death, promising a blend of horror and gothic romance for contemporary audiences.
Willem Dafoe has one of the most distinctive faces and most distinctive voices in movies, deployed to great effect in blockbuster genre movies as well as smaller indie darlings; he’s played everyone from Jesus Christ to the Green Goblin. His most recent project is the highly anticipated “Nosferatu,” which opens Christmas Day. Robert Eggers’s film is a remake, more than a century later, of one of the oldest existing vampire movies, and Dafoe plays a vampire-hunting professor. After “Twilight” and hundreds of other vampire stories, “Nosferatu” aims “to make him scary again,” Dafoe told The New Yorker Radio Hour’s Adam Howard. It’s his third collaboration with the director, after “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse.” “When you do a Robert Eggers movie,” he says, “there’s a wealth of detail and it’s rooted in history. … So you enter it and the world works on you. And I love that.”
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