Willem Dafoe's Quotes

Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can't. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth.

That's a frustration sometimes, that certain directors that I'd like to work with, they just aren't doing stories that I'm sort of castable in. Not always, but sometimes I have that frustration.

The bad things about theatre get balanced by the good things in film and vice versa. So to tell you the truth, I love it when I can go back and forth - it feeds different parts of you and exercises different muscles.

The English Patient' is about the coming together of a French-Canadian nurse, an English patient, a Sikh in a turban and me, Caravaggio, and each of us is seeking a resolution to our own problems.

The Midwest isn't somewhere you mix with those from the performing arts. But my mum and dad would go off to Chicago every so often to see shows. They would bring back the albums and the movies, those little eight metres, and we would all watch. I think that was when I fell in love with acting.

When I give over to somebody's vision rather than have an idea of what I need to do, it takes me to places I wouldn't have got to by myself. I'm always attracted to a strong director.

When you work on anything, you want to find the range of impulses - which ones get portrayed is another question, but you want to have that complexity and that fullness, even if you're playing a cartoon character.

The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren't passionate about what they're doing.

I wish to Christ I could make up a really great lie. Sometimes, after an interview, I say to myself, 'Man, you were so honest - can't you have some fun? Can't you do some really down and dirty lying?' But the puritan in me thinks that if I tell a lie, I'll be punished.

I'm one of those people who when I go over a bridge, I want to jump. It's just this intense tickle in the back of my throat. It's like I'm on the verge the whole time I'm walking over that bridge, and I'm not going to get a release until I jump.

The mask can be a limitation, but you just deal with it. You do get superhuman strength and pumpkin bombs and all this other stuff to express yourself with.'

Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action.

All the time, as an actor, you want to be asking what's next and where things are going. If you're not asking those questions, you're not growing.

Any actor who tells you that he makes choices, absolutely, is wrong. You find work and work finds you.

Basically, when I hear the words 'family drama,' I run in the opposite direction.

Celebrity is okay as long as you know it's not about you.

Emotionally men and women are different, but only as a result of the physical differences. It all comes back to our bodies.

Film is fragmented and gets into lots of other people's hands. There are a lot of pleasures that theatre gives me. You get to perform uninterrupted.

Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.

I am confident only when I am constantly in motion. Between projects, the doubt creeps in.

I do want to be in mainstream movies that are going to be seen. I suppose it satisfies the showbiz side of me.

I don't think people want to see me as a regular guy; besides, I'm a regular guy in real life. I guess I just want to be reckless in my work.

I guess they often cast me as the bad guy, because I'm not, er, conventional looking. I look sort of violent. I'm the odd one out, the outsider.

I love theaters. I love the event of going there and seeing a movie with a lot of people. I like the community coming around the story.

I try to do as many of my own stunts as possible. If you keep on taking yourself out of the role you play, you lose the thread of the character.

I was watching 'Wild at Heart,' and I can honestly say I did nothing for that apart from show up!

I'll never be able to really see a film that I'm in.

I'm a task-oriented actor. A pretender. And I try to invent my process anew each time I make a new project. So I frown on any method.

I'm no different to anyone else; I want people to like me. I just don't particularly want them to understand me.

I've never had any close male friends. The most important relationships in my life have always been with women.

In my experience, sometimes a movie just hits at the wrong time, gets the wrong press, or gets the wrong representation, and it gets misunderstood.

It's no fun for an actor to keep repeating what you did before. It's always changing. I'm changing. The target keeps moving. That's the beauty of it.