Entertainment
Willem Dafoe Breaks Down His Two Very Different Sides in ‘Late Fame’ and ‘The Birthday Party’
Willem Dafoe has perhaps one of the most interesting and impressive resumes of any actor working today. The 4-time Academy Award nominee has played everything from a larger-than-life supervillain in Spider-Man to a humble motel manager in The Florida Project, and in every single one of those projects, he delivers 110% every single time. Dafoe’s legendary dedication to everything he does almost makes his mere involvement a bona fide stamp of approval, and that’s very much the case for his next two projects, Late Fame and The Birthday Party.
The two new films are a near-flawless showcase of Dafoe’s range as an actor, as one portrays him as a quiet and introspective poet while the other has him playing an intimidating and wealthy businessman. Ahead of the films’ release, I had the incredible opportunity to speak with Dafoe about his new roles and how he decided to make them his next projects. Our full conversation also covers Dafoe’s surprising history with the James Bond IP, his ongoing working relationship with Robert Eggers, and what fans can expect from his upcoming horror film Werwulf.
Willem Dafoe Breaks Down His Process for Choosing a Role and Why He Chose to Star in ‘Late Fame’ and ‘The Birthday Party’
“You don’t really know the role until you do it.”
COLLIDER: Let’s just jump right into it. It’s rare that I get to talk to someone about two movies rather than just one movie, and I think that really speaks to how you are always working on something interesting at all times. What does your process of choosing a role look like from the biggest blockbuster to the smallest indie film?
DAFOE: You know, I’ve got a non-answer for that because it’s always different. I think there’s certain tendencies. The director is very important for me, and I think I look for situations, situations where I can find something, or I can learn something, or something can happen to me. So, that’s what I look for.
It’s not really the role specifically because you don’t really know the role until you do it. And sometimes I think even if you see the role too clearly and you say, “Wow, this would be really great for me,” that’s something to avoid because it’s almost like you know what it is. You’ve got to have that space to reach for. You’ve got to have that space that’s a little difficult. You’ve got to have that space that’s full of questions. I think that is what gives you the energy to really extend yourself and forces you in a creative way to find something new, and that becomes the heart and the energy of what commits you to having your world drop away and trying to imagine the situation of another person, another way of looking, another way of feeling. That’s the pleasure of performing.
Because really, the thing that we can do is just share an experience. Have an experience, and share an experience. It’s not really about telling people things. It’s not necessarily about communicating the message. It’s about having an experience to expand the possibility of how we see things.
I wouldn’t call that a non-answer at all. That was a wonderful answer. Let me hone in a little bit more on Late Fame and The Birthday Party, specifically. What drew you to those two roles? Was it mainly the directors involved? How would you describe getting involved at first?
DAFOE: It’s probably complicated. Late Fame, I read the novella. A friend gave it to me and said, “I think this is a movie. It’s really interesting,” — a writer-actor friend in New York named Danny Sippy. He gave it to me basically because I was looking for something to do with Abel Ferrara, who I work with quite often. Abel, it wasn’t for him right off the bat, and I knew it wasn’t because it’s set in Vienna and a period movie. It just didn’t seem like the right material for him, but I was really stuck on it.
Then I started seeking out who had the rights to it, and unbeknownst to me, because I’m not really an industry person and I don’t develop things often, it was already a script. Shortly after I started looking for who owned the rights, they asked me to do the role. It was the script from Samy Burch, who did, among other things, May December a couple of years ago, and the amazing thing about it was it was transposed from Vienna to present-day New York City. Initially I thought, “Bad idea,” because Vienna was such a character in the original, but then I read the script, and I said, “Wow, this is really what’s in the air. This is really pertinent. This is something I relate to because I know something of this.” But there are also a lot of questions that are raised that are really interesting and really are in the air. So, that’s when you feel like you’re going to make a movie that people will relate to and will be rich material. So that’s why the reason I did that.
The Birthday Party, it’s a long story, but I did a movie called Inside with a Greek director, and there was a very good producer on it. The movie was really made in the shooting. There was a good script, but we had to tweak a lot of things in the process, and both the director, Vasilis Katsoupis, and the producer worked very well. And the producer said, “I have this book,” and he told me this story, and I said, “What? That’s fantastic!” It’s 1970s Greece, kind of an Onassis kind of character. It was interesting, but I didn’t think it was right for me.
When it was time to cast, he called me up and said, “I want you to do this.” And I was a little bit like, “You really think I’m right for it?” And after some talk, he introduced me to a director that I like very much. He was unknown to me, and I loved his movies. So, these things come together, and I say, “Why not?” It’s like you go towards situations, you go towards people, you go to places where you think you can have an experience or contribute something. So, that’s basically the road to how I choose.
Willem Dafoe on Working With Greta Lee in ‘Late Fame’
Lee can also be seen in Netflix’s ‘The Last House.’
Another thing about Late Fame that I loved is Greta Lee is just firing on all cylinders in that movie and is having a blast. What was it like having her as a scene partner in that film?
DAFOE: It’s an interesting story. She’s great. It’s an interesting story because it’s kind of a sidebar to the main story about his relationship with the Enthusiasm Society, and like Ed Saxberger was, perhaps, she is turned on. She’s doing the thing that she loves to do, but she’s having difficulty sustaining herself, not just economically, but finding the right work. She’s still got the hunger. And she’s at that point.
Saxberger, the character I play in Late Fame, at a certain point, the scene kind of moved away. He didn’t get the teaching gig to support him. You can take a job and still continue your art, but he decided to walk away from that life and start another life by working at the post office, having some friends in a bar, living very simply, very solitarily. She is at that point where she has to decide, but she’s not giving up. So, there’s a kind of compassion and desperation.
What’s tragic about her is she’s pushing. She needs the attention, so she’s kicked everything up. But at the same time, you’re kind of touched by her commitment to what she’s doing. It’s what she feels like she’s made for. It’s what turns her on. And I think Saxberger relates to that. And it’s a flirtation with a younger woman, and I think it’s kind of a return to a younger man than he was and a flirtation, so that’s always understandable.
She’s the perfect foil to Sax for the whole time. I especially love, without getting too much into the spoilers, there’s one scene where we get to see a very different side of her character that is a big revelation for him. It’s fascinating to see how both of you worked together in that movie.
DAFOE: She was a good partner. And, yeah, it’s an interesting relationship between the two.
Willem Dafoe Explains His “Tragic Character” in ‘The Birthday Party’
“I feel for him, but I wouldn’t want to be him.”
Speaking of interesting relationships, The Birthday Party is chock-full of them. Marcos as a character is such a larger-than-life figure, and I feel like we learned so much about him just through visuals alone, let alone the dialogue. He almost carries himself as a Bond villain with his big estate. Do you think that Marcos considers himself the hero or the villain of his own story, even though he is very much the protagonist?
DAFOE: Listen, he’s not stupid. But at the same time, he’s so involved in trying to save his life and save the lives of people around him that he’s blinded. He’s also someone who’s been hurt by life, even though he’s very successful and he’s what you call a self-made man, I suppose. He’s concentrated on building this empire, and somehow has lost touch with his wife, with his children, one who has tragically died, and that’s sort of an old story. We all know that: The man who sacrifices the things he loves in the pursuit of something out there. So, he’s difficult. He’s a complex character. I feel for him, but I wouldn’t want to be him. It’s a tough character.
But I think it’s an interesting story just about how people gather around these people of power and what their relationship is, including their family. The central relationship is between him and his daughter, who he loves very much, but it’s tinged by all kinds of complex problems. I also like the relationship with his wife, which is very complicated because there’s a lot of love there, but they can’t stand each other in a way. You see that in a lot of relationships. It’s just a little bigger than life because he’s bigger than life, and his power and the attention and the love and the damage that he can do because of his resources is bigger than life. It’s a very Greek story. He’s a very tragic figure.
But it’s an interesting portrait of power and an interesting portrait of family in a position of power. It’s not a celebration. I remember someone said, “Why do you want to make a movie about rich people?” It’s as much a study of a cautionary tale not only about rich people, but where you place your attention and your relationship to other people. You’ve got to give them space, and you’ve got to get a lot of things to change. You can’t hold on too tightly, or you’ll strangle them. So, I think this is a familiar scene, but it’s played out in a very specific way because it’s a story that happens in the ‘70s with a man of power, an almost Onassis-like character. So, it’s interesting, not only on a personal level, but also, now, particularly, from a political level.
Willem Dafoe Reveals His Surprising History With the James Bond Franchise
Dafoe played the main antagonist of the 2003 video game, ‘James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing.’
When I described him as a Bond villain, that ties a little bit into one of my favorite pieces of Willem Dafoe trivia. You actually played a Bond villain at one point in one of the James Bond video games.
DAFOE: I did. And, you know, I think I never even saw it. I enjoyed doing it, but that was very early when people were making video games. Very, very early. I remember it was a very quick recording session. I kind of invented an accent on the spot. It was very loosey-goosey. But many people have told me they really enjoy it, so it’s a case of sometimes it’s good to jump in and play it loose and fast. Sometimes that has a spirit that may not be precise, but it has a spirit that really brings the character to life.
That’s wonderful. A lot of people think you would make such a great Bond villain, because you’ve had so many great villain roles. With all this chatter of who the next James Bond is going to be, would you ever want to revisit the James Bond franchise in live action at some point?
DAFOE: I don’t want to send a little headline out there, but, you know, in the right situation. I mean, when I was a kid, I remember seeing From Russia with Love and Goldfinger when I was really young, like uncomfortable. I was young enough that the sex scenes, for example, or the romance scenes or whatever you call them, were not cool. They were uncomfortable for me because one of my sisters was babysitting me and couldn’t get me lost and had a date, and they took me along. And I remember I suffered through it. [Laughs]
Then, I’ve watched Bond films through the years. They’re a particular thing. Yeah, it is something that might be fun to do, and I’d really check it out if they came my way.
Willem Dafoe on Working With Robert Eggers on the “Otherworldly” ‘Werwulf’
“We’ve got a very, very full-on movie.”
About two years ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with someone who you’ve worked with quite a bit, Robert Eggers, and he had very wonderful things to say about you. What is it about him as a filmmaker that you really love working with so much, and how has your relationship now evolved going into what we’re going to see later this year in Werwulf?
DAFOE: He gets better and better. He’s just very committed. He’s smart. He knows his passions. He knows his limitations. He knows what he loves, and he knows actors. He was an actor. I love working with him because he gives me fun things to do, and he knows how to punch my buttons, and he’s a world maker, you know? And that’s what you want from a director. You want him to make the world, so when you enter that world, the world speaks to you. And if a great part of acting is reacting, that world tells you what to do, and you do it. It’s always in the doing — the quality of the doing, the authenticity of the doing, and as we know, he’s a nut about research and all that. It’s an ideal situation. I really love working with him.
He’s demanding. It’s not easy. But one thing that he does, that is the reason why I sought him out: I saw The Witch, and then I asked for a meeting with him, and then I’ve worked with him, I guess, four times now. A lot of particular period movies or elevated movies that aren’t naturalistic family drama, these sorts of things, he makes it so easy to enter the world because he doesn’t show. Like a good actor, he inhabits it. He creates things, not to tell you where you are, but because he wants to be there. He has such love for the material and gives you beautiful research that really makes you learn things and puts you in another head. So, that really makes a space. Once you learn those things, you want to pursue them, and that’s the road to inhabiting something. Because once you learn something, you become a different person, and that different person then becomes available to pretend to be this character. So, it’s a growth process. It’s a game.
He’s fun to work with, and just committed and strong, and I enjoy him so much. And I always admire people that really give themselves to their work totally, and he does. He has collaborators that become extensions of him. There’s such understanding and such complicity that he doesn’t delegate anything. He’s everywhere, but he’s everywhere with the collaboration of a team. It’s a beautiful thing to work with him. Not always easy. It’s not a character thing. He just doesn’t sign things; he experiences them.
For example, in the case of Werwulf, we’ve got a very, very full-on movie, and I think it’s going to be very beautiful. I haven’t seen it yet completely, but I have done some ADR, and just some of the visuals and some of the short little clips that I saw are just stunning. Stunning. Otherworldly. So, yeah, you heard it. I’m a cheerleader. What can I say? [Laughs]
Willem Dafoe’s Late Fame is in theaters now, with The Birthday Party set to debut in the U.S. on August 14.
- Release Date
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August 7, 2026
- Runtime
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90 minutes
- Director
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Kent Jones
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