“you have the grace of martial arts, but then the bang of the gun”
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Willem Dafoe
William James "Willem" Dafoe is an American actor. Known for his prolific career portraying diverse roles in both mainstream and arthouse films, he is the recipient of various accolades including a Volpi Cup Award for Best Actor, with nominations for four Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, and four Golden Globe Awards. He received an Honorary Golden Bear in 2018.
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entertainment · American actor (born 1955) · film actor · voice actor · screenwriter · model · film producer · performing artist · stage actor · television presenter · actor · also Willem Dafoe, Dafoe
Born 22 July 1955 · Q188772
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2026· 8 entries
“quiet moments in the monastery between shoots”
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Far Out Magazine: The classic 1986 movie that derailed Willem Dafoe’s career: “It was very hard to find good roles”
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Yahoo: Nudity Ruins New R-Rated Willem Dafoe Thriller
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Public attention spiked: 16,926 Wikipedia readers in one day, 3.5× the usual 4,794, with 1 article edits. Editors noted: Career | Altered title. | Use this tool. Report bugs. | #UCB_Gadget
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The Guardian: Death in Venice: Willem Dafoe thrills theatre biennale with adventurous shows about ghosts and rebirth
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The Guardian: ‘Distressingly beautiful and disorienting’: the Willem Dafoe film that only one person can see at a time
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The Guardian: Dark Mofo: 2026 festival to show Willem Dafoe film that can only be watched by one person at a time
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2025· 4 entries
The Guardian: The Man in My Basement review – Willem Dafoe is an unsettling guest in eerie psychodrama
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The Guardian: Late Fame review – Willem Dafoe is a natural poet in a slice-of-life New York fable
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The Guardian: The Birthday Party review – Willem Dafoe is the life and soul as menacing Onassis-alike
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Starred in Miguel Ángel Jiménez's The Birthday Party, Kent Jones's Late Fame, Gastón Solnicki's The Souffleur, and the film adaptation of Walter Mosley's novel The Man in My Basement
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2024· 1 entry
Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
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2023· 1 entry
Starred in the Italian period drama Finally Dawn with Lily James
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2022· 2 entries
Dafoe was invited back to his alma mater the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee by chancellor Mark Mone to serve as the keynote speaker for the university's commencement ceremony and to receive an honorary Doctor of Arts
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It was announced that Dafoe would host Saturday Night Live on January 29, 2022, with musical guest singer Katy Perry
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2021· 2 entries
And Robert Eggers's historical epic The Northman, released in 2022
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Which was written to highlight the precaricity of rivers worldwide
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2019· 2 entries
Awarded Romics d'Oro (2019).
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Had a supporting role in Edward Norton's period crime drama Motherless Brooklyn where he played powerful developer Moses Randolph's "beaten and broken" brother
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2018· 2 entries
Won Volpi Cup for Best Actor (2018).
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Won Honorary Golden Bear (2018).
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2017· 2 entries
Dafoe co-starred in Sean Baker's drama The Florida Project as the manager of a motel who houses a toxic mother and her six-year-old daughter
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Dafoe also played and voiced the character of Ryuk, a demonic death god from Japanese mythology, in Netflix's Death Note, and adaptation of the Japanese supernatural-thriller manga of the same name
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2016· 1 entry
Dafoe appeared in another Super Bowl commercial, this time for Snickers, recreating Marilyn Monroe's iconic white dress scene from the film The Seven Year Itch
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2014· 1 entry
Dafoe portrayed a wealthy private banker with connections to the Russia mafia opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman in Anton Corbijn's espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man
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2013· 2 entries
Dafoe played the devil in a Mercedes-Benz Super Bowl commercial and starred in three short student films as part of a competition sponsored by Jameson Irish Whiskey
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Dafoe played a police officer in the supernatural thriller Odd Thomas, starring Anton Yelchin as the titular character that possesses supernatural powers to see the dead
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2012· 1 entry
Dafoe co-starred in the low-budget crime thriller Tomorrow You're Gone with Stephen Dorff and Michelle Monaghan
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2011· 2 entries
Was in Abel Ferrara's apocalyptic drama 4:44 Last Day on Earth, his third film with Ferrara
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Dafoe began narrating a series of television commercials for the company Fage and starred in a Jim Beam commercial titled "Bold Choices"
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2010· 4 entries
Dafoe recalled in 2010, "We were having lunch and I said, 'Do you want to get married tomorrow?'" They did so the following afternoon at a small ceremony with two friends as witnesses.
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Making a brief appearance in Julian Schnabel's political thriller Miral, which some reviewers found to be distracting
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Dafoe began voicing Clarence, the Birds Eye polar bear mascot in the company's television commercials in the United Kingdom, and narrated Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World, a Ric Burns documentary about the his
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"We were having lunch and I said, 'Do you want to get married tomorrow
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2009· 2 entries
"My five sisters raised me because my father was a surgeon, my mother was a nurse and they worked together, so I didn't see either of them much
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The first of which was in Lars von Trier's experimental film Antichrist
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2008· 1 entry
But was not released theatrically until 2011
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2007· 1 entry
Dafoe played a pretentious film director in the British comedy film Mr
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2005· 2 entries
Awarded Donostia Award (2005).
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Dafoe began another actor-director collaboration, this time with Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier
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2004· 3 entries
And were never married, with Dafoe later explaining that he and LeCompte "never married because to her marriage represented ownership, and I respected that"
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They separated in 2004 and were never married, with Dafoe later explaining that he and LeCompte "never married because to her marriage represented ownership, and I respected that".
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Dafoe narrated the documentary Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate, chronicling the production of Heaven's Gate and co-starred in the direct-to-video thriller Control (2004) alongside Ray Liotta and Miche
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2002· 1 entry
Dafoe starred with Greg Kinnear in Paul Schrader's biographical film Auto Focus, Dafoe's third collaboration with Schrader
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2001· 1 entry
Awarded Film Independent Spirit Awards (2001).
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1999· 1 entry
Dafoe gave a supporting performance in David Cronenberg's Existenz, a science fiction thriller in which he played a gas station owner named Gas
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1997· 2 entries
Dafoe returned to playing a villainous role in the action thriller Speed 2: Cruise Control, expressing the necessity of appearing in both independent and blockbuster films
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Dafoe took on a voice acting role in an episode of the animated sitcom The Simpsons titled "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson", voicing the commandant of a military academy that Bart and Lisa Simpson are attending
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1996· 1 entry
Dafoe made a cameo appearance as an electrician in the biographical drama Basquiat
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1995· 2 entries
Played an 18th-century writer in the period drama The Night and the Moment
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“I don't give advice. Everybody's gotta find their own way. Just, uh, enjoy.”
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1994· 1 entry
And premiered in Europe in 1996, but was not released until 1998—Dafoe played a European living on an island in the Southeast Asia who becomes the target of redemption after preventing a woman, played by Irène Jacob, fro
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1993· 1 entry
Dafoe appeared in a supporting role as Emit Flesti in the German fantasy film Faraway, So Close
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1991· 2 entries
But the film was canceled during production
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Dafoe starred with Danny Glover and Brad Johnson in the action film Flight of the Intruder
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1989· 1 entry
As Jewish Greek boxer Salamo Arouch, an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate who was forced to fight other internees to death for the Nazi officers' entertainment
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1988· 2 entries
His mother, Muriel, told the Orlando Sentinel, “He was brought up in a Christian home, and he believes in God
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Dafoe starred in another film set during the Vietnam War, this time as Buck McGriff in the action thriller Off Limits
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1985· 1 entry
Dafoe starred with William Petersen and John Pankow in William Friedkin's thriller To Live and Die in L
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1982· 1 entry
Dafoe starred as the leader of an outlaw motorcycle club in the drama The Loveless, his first role as a leading man
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1977· 2 entries
In 1977, Dafoe began a relationship with director Elizabeth LeCompte.
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Dafoe began a relationship with director Elizabeth LeCompte
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1955· 2 entries
Born 1955-07-22.
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In Appleton, Wisconsin, to Muriel Isabel (née Sprissler; 1921–2012) and Dr
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