Willem Dafoe has one of the most distinctive faces and most distinctive voices in movies, deployed to great effect in blockbuster genre movies as well as smaller indie darlings; he’s played everyone from Jesus Christ to the Green Goblin. His most recent project is the highly anticipated “Nosferatu,” which opens Christmas Day. Robert Eggers’s film is a remake, more than a century later, of one of the oldest existing vampire movies, and Dafoe plays a vampire-hunting professor. After “Twilight” and hundreds of other vampire stories, “Nosferatu” aims “to make him scary again,” Dafoe told The New Yorker Radio Hour’s Adam Howard. It’s his third collaboration with the director, after “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse.” “When you do a Robert Eggers movie,” he says, “there’s a wealth of detail and it’s rooted in history. … So you enter it and the world works on you. And I love that.”
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From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough.
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Adam Howard. I'm a producer on the show, and I'm filling in for David Remnick this week. Willem Dafoe is one of the most versatile actors working in Hollywood. He's played everything from Jesus Christ to the Green Goblin.
He also has one of the most distinctive faces and voices in movies, which has been deployed to great effect in blockbusters and smaller indie darlings. Dafoe's most recent project is the highly anticipated vampire film Nosferatu, It's his third movie with the director Robert Eggers, who's known for his ambitious and meticulously researched genre movies, like The Witch and The Northman.
In Nosferatu, Willem Dafoe plays the vampire hunter. So he's a good guy, but with a shadowy disposition.
I have seen things in this world that would have made Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother's womb. We have not become so much enlightened as we have been blinded by the gaseous light of science. I have wrestled with the devil as Jacob wrestled the angel and pendulum. And I tell you, if we are to tame darkness, we must first face that it exists. Minor Hanon, we are here and come.
I spoke to Willem Dafoe about his acting philosophy and his work with the visionary director Robert Eggers. I should start by telling you I just recently showed my three-year-old fantastic Mr. Fox, and your performance left quite an impression on her. As the rat? Yeah, the rat.
Around these parts, we don't take kindly to the side of poachers. You've aged badly, Rat. You're getting a little long in the tooth yourself, Portman. Being security, why are you wearing that badge? What is it? It's my job.
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