Willem Dafoe
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Terrible liar? And when I'm disturbed, people know it. Yeah, maybe I'm a bad actor. Well, definitely sometimes. You gotta be a bad actor to be a good actor, I'm convinced. Ones that are good all the time are no good. To live a good life, I think you have to extend yourself to other people. And you know, we gotta walk each other home. That's the phrase that I always think of, you know. And it sounds kinda Pollyanna and all sweet, but deeply I think that's true. We're here for each other. For now.
I'm Rachel Martin and this is Wild Cards, the show where cards control the conversation. My guest this week is Willem Defoe. Willem Defoe was never the kind of actor to play it safe. He never shied away from using his face and his voice to make people feel like something dangerous might happen. That could mean playing a misunderstood scientist in the arthouse film Poor Things, or the Green Goblin in Spider-Man Blockbusters. His desire to keep challenging himself has made him incredibly productive at the age of 71. He has five films coming out in the second half of this year, including his most recent movie, Late Fame. I'm so happy to welcome Willem Dafoe to Wildcard. Hi!
Hey, hi, hello.
Hi, I'm good. How are you?
Good.
Yeah.
I'm good. I'm good. Yeah. I gotta see what this is. Yeah. It's gonna be
fun. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be something. It's gonna be an experience. I feel like you're a guy who's up for an experience.
That's it. That's it. That's the good battery.
So the first round is memories. I'm gonna pull three cards and you pick randomly one, two,
two,
or three. Two! Two. What did you think adulthood would look like when you were a kid?
Oh my god. Um Лисин, вона вози кід. Uh the no, the tricky part about being a kid is you uh you don't get that far. Or at least I didn't.
Mm.
I came from a big family and I was uh It wasn't really until I was a teenager that I started thinking, you know, there would be a world outside my family and I would uh uh go out into the world. Um So I didn't have I I didn't know You didn't have a temple I had my parents or
an imaginary template. No,
I I I had uh you know, I had my parents as models who worked and loved what they did. Um I had older brothers and sisters, uh, but there was no model for me. So it was really Um
How does Willem Dafoe describe acting as a form of service?
Even even when I, you know, sort of uh Gravitated towards performing and making things, I wasn't sure I could make a living at it. It wasn't, uh I wasn't very career-minded. I always thought. Uh, that I'd do something else, but I'd find it later in life.
That's all.
So I had I had no picture.
When did you start to imagine that performing could actually be a way you made a living.
Uh That came last night.
When you look at your bank account you're like, This is
working out. What's a living? What's a living? Um No You know, once Once I I don't know. Uh Because I had a very unusual path uh becoming a performer. I mean, I went to school very briefly and then I started working uh in very small theaters, um, doing kind of non-traditional work. So that wasn't popular. Uh that wasn't uh you couldn't really monetize that, um, particular in the time I was growing up. So I didn't know. I I was just uh When I was young, I was just doing everything for the moment. I wasn't that career-minded. I was ambitious. I came from a kind of culture in the Midwest that you had to do something. You had to make your way into the world, you know. So I did feel that pressure, but I was not a kid that, you know, had a a picture of Marlon Brando uh, you know, in his room when he was a kid.
Or or that watched a lot of movies actually. Is
that right?
I No, I I like performing a lot and uh you know uh I did plays and things when I was a kid.
Yeah.
And I knew I liked to do that.
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