18 Unexpected Facts About Willem Dafoe Most People Don't Know
Vote for the most surprising Willem Dafoe facts.
Willem Dafoe has done stellar work in films like Platoon, To Live and Die in LA, Spider-Man (the first one - not the second or third one), and Boondock Saints (the first one - not the second one). But you have to balance that against his performances in Speed 2: Cruise Control, Body of Evidence, and Howl. There’s a lot on either side of the fence.
Dafoe is nothing if not prolific. Many Willem Dafoe facts seem to center around the size of the actor’s manhood, which Lars von Trier described as “too large and confusing” to put on screen. One might find Willem Dafoe strange because of the way his biography gets hashed around a lot by reporters looking to make the actor weirder than he actually is.
Who is Willem Dafoe? He’s a professional who knows how to keep his wits while he’s losing it onscreen. He’s a dad. A husband. And he likes to giggle.
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He Was Expelled From High School For Making An Adult Film
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While this is totally a thing that happened, Dafoe defended his expulsion in a conversation with The Mirror.
Dafoe contended, "I was just a young boy in Wisconsin - anything to get out of there.”
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Lars Von Trier Had To Cut Dafoe’s Manhood Out Of 'Antichrist' Because It Was "Too Large And Confusing"
There’s really no way to lead into this story. It's just one of those things that exists independent of context. Here’s an excerpt of von Trier discussing Dafoe’s problematic member during the filming of Antichrist with Boston Phoenix film editor Peter Keogh:
PK: Willem Dafoe, and I think you’ve mentioned this in another interview, is probably the worst therapist in the history of movies. How would you advise him to treat the Charlotte Gainsbourgh character, and what does he do wrong?
Lars Von Trier: Yeah, first of all, I have been undergoing this cognitive therapy for three years, and... I think it’s quite typical for me to be sarcastic. You can say that one of the main ideas behind any treatment of this also is that a fear is a thought, and, you know, it doesn’t change reality. You can say in the film it’s changed reality. All that was kind of what you could read up about the film. I wouldn’t let him treat her in any other way than with his d*ck, he has an enormous d*ck, but that maybe I took also... he’s extremely well-equipped. And we had to kind of take the scenes out of the film, we had a stand-in for him, we had to take the scenes out with his own d*ck.
PK: Hold on - You had a stand-in d*ck? You had to have a stand-in d*ck for Dafoe?
LV: Yes, yes, we had to have, because Will’s own was too big.
PK: Too big to fit in the screen?
LV: (laughs) No, too big because everybody got very confused when they saw it.
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According To Him, He Was Raised By Five Horny Sisters
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If you believe Dafoe’s account, his five sisters taught him about sex at the age of 6. He recalled:
It was a sexual education, because my sisters were the horniest little girls. They would tell me stuff that, when I was small, I didn't want to hear. I remember one of my sisters talking about fellatio and cunnilingus when I was 6 years old. I said, "Only dirty people do that, right?" She just laughed. When I told my friends what I knew about the birds and bees, they beat me up because they found it so disgusting.
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He Loves What He Does
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Dafoe is far from jaded about his profession. When asked if he was rejuvenated by the acting process by IndieWire, Dafoe happily responded:
I am. It’s a defect - a beautiful defect that works in my favor. The other day Paul Schrader said to me, "You know what your problem is? You actually like doing this." Every set is different. I still believe in cinema. There’s a fight to be fought.
Interesting? - 5
He’s Not A Tough Guy
When HuffPost asked him, “If you and Nic Cage ever actually got together and wanted to do a heist, what would you go for?” Dafoe responded, “[Laugh] I don’t think that’s gonna happen. Deep down we’re two big sissies.”
Despite his intimidating outward appearance, apparently Dafoe regards himself as a bit of a wimp.
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He’s Tired Of Hearing About His Huge Unit
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Willem Dafoe was once asked if he was the most well-hung star in Hollywood. He gave The Guardian’s Stuart Jeffries a curt, "I don't really work in Hollywood anymore," which, Jeffries noted, “isn’t a denial.”
After numerous jokes about Dafoe’s genitals in Antichrist at the Gotham Awards, Dafoe was over it. When asked just how over it he was by a Vulture reporter, he said, "What do you think? I mean, it's fine if that's what they want to focus on. It's a movie that I think is beautiful and was a joy to make. But I can only make it. If people want to make that the thing they want to talk about, it's distressing, but that's their business."
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