Willem Dafoe

The film was co-directed by Kathryn Bigelow and Monty Montgomery and paid homage to 1953 film The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando in a similar role.

William James Dafoe (born July 22, 1955) is an American actor.

Known for his diverse roles in film, he is the recipient of various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor as well as nominations for four Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and four Golden Globe Awards.

He has frequently collaborated with filmmakers Paul Schrader, Abel Ferrara, Lars von Trier, Julian Schnabel, Wes Anderson, and Robert Eggers.

Dafoe was a founding member of experimental theater company The Wooster Group.

William James Dafoe was born on July 22, 1955, in Appleton, Wisconsin, the son of Muriel Isabel (née Sprissler; 1922–2012) and Dr. William Alfred Dafoe (1917–2014).

After attending Appleton East High School, Dafoe studied drama at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, but left after 18 months to join the experimental theater company Theatre X in Milwaukee, before moving to New York City in 1976.

He then apprenticed under Richard Schechner, the director of the avant-garde theater troupe The Performance Group, where he met and became romantically involved with director Elizabeth LeCompte.

Following tensions between Schechner and other members after they started staging their own productions outside of the group, Schechner left and the remaining members (including LeCompte and her ex-boyfriend Spalding Gray) renamed themselves The Wooster Group.

Dafoe soon joined the new company and is credited as one of its co-founders.

He made his film debut in Heaven's Gate (1980), but was fired during production and was uncredited despite one of his scenes making it into the final cut of the film.

Dafoe made his film debut in a supporting role in Michael Cimino's 1980 epic Western film Heaven's Gate.

Dafoe was only present for the first three months of an eight-month shoot.

His role, that of a cockfighter who works for Jeff Bridges' character, was removed from a majority of the film during editing but was visible during a cockfight scene.

Dafoe did not receive a credit for his work on the film.

Dafoe's early roles include in The Loveless (1982), Streets of Fire (1984), and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985).

In 1982, Dafoe starred as the leader of an outlaw motorcycle club in the drama The Loveless, his first role as a leading man.

Following a "blink-and-you-miss-it" cameo in The Hunger (1983), Dafoe again played the leader of a biker gang in Walter Hill's 1984 action film Streets of Fire.

His character in the film served as the main antagonist, who captures the ex-girlfriend of a mercenary, played by Diane Lane and Michael Paré, respectively.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times felt there were no great performances in the film, but praised Dafoe's "perfectly villainous" face.

Dafoe starred alongside Judge Reinhold in Roadhouse 66 (1985) as a pair of yuppies who become stranded in a town on U.S. Route 66.

Later in 1985, Dafoe starred with William Petersen and John Pankow in William Friedkin's thriller To Live and Die in L.A., in which Dafoe portrays a counterfeiter named Rick Masters who is being tracked by two Secret Service agents.

Film critic Roger Ebert commended his "strong" performance in the film.

He earned his first Academy Award nomination for the war drama Platoon (1986) followed by Shadow of the Vampire (2000), the indie-drama The Florida Project (2017), and the biopic At Eternity's Gate (2018).

Dafoe's sole film release of 1986 was Oliver Stone's Vietnam War film Platoon, gaining him his widest exposure up to that point for playing the compassionate Sergeant Elias Grodin.

He enjoyed the opportunity to play a heroic role and said the film gave him a chance to display his versatility, saying "I think all characters live in you. You just frame them, give them circumstances, and that character will happen."

Principal photography for the film took place in the Philippines and required Dafoe to undergo boot camp training.

Los Angeles Times writer Sheila Benson praised his performance and found it to be "particularly fine" to see Dafoe play "something other than a psychopath".

At the 59th Academy Awards, Dafoe was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, but the statuette was awarded to Michael Caine (for the 1986 film Hannah and Her Sisters).

He earned acclaim for his roles as Jesus Christ in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and FBI agent Alan Ward in Mississippi Burning (1988).

His other notable roles include in Clear and Present Danger (1994), The English Patient (1996), American Psycho (2000), Finding Nemo (2003), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Antichrist (2009), The Fault in Our Stars (2014), John Wick (2014), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), The Lighthouse (2019), The French Dispatch (2021), Nightmare Alley (2021), The Northman (2022), and Poor Things (2023).

He continued his work with the group into the 2000s, well after establishing himself as a Hollywood film star.

Dafoe gained wider attention for his role as the supervillain Norman Osborn / Green Goblin in the superhero film Spider-Man (2002), a role he reprised in its sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), and the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).

He recalled in 2009, "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."

His brother, Donald, is a surgeon and research scientist.

His surname, Dafoe, is the English version of the Swiss-French surname Thévou.

During an interview, he said that half of his family puts the emphasis on the first syllable of the surname while the other half emphasizes the second syllable.

In high school, he acquired the nickname Willem, the Dutch version of the name William.

He later took the new interpretation as part of his stage name because he had become more used to it than his birth name.

He also portrayed Nuidis Vulko in the DC Extended Universe film Aquaman (2018) and Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021).