“It’s really curiosity, and wonder, and learning stuff. If I’ve learned nothing else, it’s about the doing, it’s not the showing.” – Willem Dafoe on Acting
Four-time Academy Award nominated actor Willem Dafoe has become a recognizable face in all kinds of films, from dramas like At Eternity’s Gate and The Florida Project to one of the roles that he will always be associated with, the supervillain Green Goblin in the first Spider-Man movie. He’s particularly known for taking on roles in out-of-the-box indie films, such as director Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse, in which he portrays a lighthouse keeper opposite Robert Pattinson. In an interview with the two actors for Esquire, Dafoe spoke about the “pleasure” he receives from performing.
Dafoe talks about the enjoyment he gets out of acting, and how he feels it even when his roles take him to different places. He explains:
“I shouldn’t make this comparison, but recently I watched Free Solo and Alex Honnold [the death-defying free-climber, subject of that documentary] talks about fun. What he’s talking about, it’s not fun, but it’s pleasure. He found a way to connect with something that he loves and something that is meaningful to him and something that gives his life purpose. That’s what I have with performing, and sometimes it goes south, sometimes it’s silly, sometimes, because of the collaborative nature of it, you can do beautiful things, you can do horrible things, but as long as you know why you’re doing them, for yourself, you’re protected.”
With that said, Dafoe doesn’t mean the word “protected” as something that is harmful “…or that I think that you gotta be reckless, or dangerous.” He continues, “It’s not that. It’s really curiosity, and wonder, and learning stuff. If I’ve learned nothing else, it’s about the doing, it’s not the showing. That’s the most fundamental thing about performing. I abhor this expression, ‘nailing it’. There’s no such f*****g thing. It’s wide open.”
