Willem Dafoe

William James "Willem" Dafoe is an American actor with a career nothing short of spectacular. Awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor and nominated for four Academy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a British Academy Film Award, Dafoe is a household name and an icon of the silver screen. His collaborations with some of the most renowned directors in the industry, such as Paul Schrader, Abel Ferrara, Lars von Trier, Julian Schnabel, and Wes Anderson, have produced some of the most memorable films in cinematic history. Dafoe got his start in the experimental theater company The Wooster Group and made his film debut in the 1980 classic Heaven's Gate. Despite being fired during production, he was determined to make his mark in the movie industry. His first leading role as an outlaw biker in The Loveless (1982) and his portrayal of the antagonist in Streets of Fire (1984) and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) soon made him a household name. But it was his role as Sergeant Elias Grodin in Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986) that earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. 1988 saw Dafoe take on one of the most controversial roles in cinematic history, Jesus Christ in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. It was the same year that he starred in Mississippi Burning, another hugely controversial film. His second Academy Award nomination (as Best Supporting Actor) came in 2000 for his role as Max Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire, and soon after he became a superhero icon with his portrayal of Norman Osborn / Green Goblin in the Spider-Man films, earning him the Guinness World Record for the "longest career as a live-action Marvel character". But Dafoe is no one-trick pony. He has taken on a huge variety of roles, including Carson Clay in the hilarious Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007), and several real-life figures such as T. S. Eliot in Tom & Viv (1994), Pier Paolo Pasolini in Pasolini (2014), Vincent van Gogh in At Eternity's Gate (2018) (for which he received an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, his first in that category), and Leonhard Seppala in Togo (2019). With an unmistakable presence, an iconic voice, and a talent for playing both the hero and the villain, Willem Dafoe is a force to be reckoned with. As he once said, "I'm a fan of the dark side. I always joke that I'm the joker in the deck of cards."