167 Quotes by Willem Dafoe

Plenty of bad movies are very successful, and plenty of good movies are not. And distribution is so crazy, some films won’t even get their day in court.

Truth is, generally I like film festivals; somewhere at some level there’s an exchange of ideas.

I never act. I simply bring out the real animal that’s in me.

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.

I aspire to be an instrument of the director. I’m happiest like that. The stronger the director, the more I’m willing to give them.

There’s a real wisdom to not saying a thing.

It’s too easy to trivialize people. The Internet does it all the time.

Turn off the sound in a movie, and if you can tell what’s going on, the movie should work.

Central to being an actor is pretending, and the adventure of it all. That’s why you become a junkie for different kinds of situations.