Top 80 Willem Dafoe Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You have to lose yourself to find yourself.”

— Willem Dafoe

2. “Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.”

— Willem Dafoe

3. “One of the pleasures of being an actor is quite simply taking a walk in someone else’s shoes. And when I look at the roles I’ve played, I’m kind of amazed at all the wonderful adventures I’ve had and the different things I’ve learned.”

— Willem Dafoe

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

— Willem Dafoe

5. “Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action.”

— Willem Dafoe

6. “There’s a real wisdom to not saying a thing.”

— Willem Dafoe

7. “With theatre, you have to be ready for anything.”

— Willem Dafoe

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

— Willem Dafoe

9. “I’ve never had any close male friends. The most important relationships in my life have always been with women.”

— Willem Dafoe

10. “The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren’t passionate about what they’re doing.”

— Willem Dafoe

11. “I’m learning in my old age that the only thing you can do to keep your sanity is to stay in the moment.”

— Willem Dafoe

12. “I am confident only when I am constantly in motion. Between projects, the doubt creeps in.”

— Willem Dafoe

13. “Performing is about developing empathy, which leads us to a broader view of the world and encourages us to develop compassion; so we can comfort each other and not be so brutal with each other.”

— Willem Dafoe

14. “I was born William. My father was William. I came from a big family, I hated being called Billy. Willem’s a nickname; it’s a Dutch name, very common in the Netherlands.”

— Willem Dafoe

15. “Let’s hope I never end up on a deserted island, because I could never make a decision on which three CDs to take with me.”

— Willem Dafoe

16. “I feel like it’s important to be flexible, particularly when I’m coming in late in the game and I’m connective tissue in the story. I’m not at the very center. It’s important for me to have a certain kind of flexibility and try to help people do what they need to do.”

— Willem Dafoe

17. “I guess they often cast me as the bad guy, because I’m not, er, conventional looking. I look sort of violent. I’m the odd one out, the outsider.”

— Willem Dafoe

18. “I think on some level, you do your best things when you’re a little off-balance, a little scared. You’ve got to work from mystery, from wonder, from not knowing.”

— Willem Dafoe

19. “I don’t have a preference between theatre and film; I like to do both. But I will say that there’s something about theatre that is more nourishing and sustaining than film ever can be.”

— Willem Dafoe

20. “It makes me laugh when I hear a guy talking about being in touch with his feminine side. But I gravitate towards women; I identify with them. And I do cry very easily, more and more as I get older.”

— Willem Dafoe

21. “I’m one of those people who when I go over a bridge, I want to jump. It’s just this intense tickle in the back of my throat. It’s like I’m on the verge the whole time I’m walking over that bridge, and I’m not going to get a release until I jump.”

— Willem Dafoe

22. “I think, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to be more reckless with my choices, because practically speaking, you get less careful. Your choices become more instinctive, and you feel like if you make a mistake, it won’t destroy you.”

— Willem Dafoe

23. “I don’t want people to know anything about me, because that’s not important. I’m more interested in the me that takes shape through the characters.”

— Willem Dafoe

24. “I’m no different to anyone else; I want people to like me. I just don’t particularly want them to understand me.”

— Willem Dafoe

25. “The truth is, if you’re around long enough, you have a story about everyone. But it’s best to keep your mouth shut sometimes.”

— Willem Dafoe

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

26. “A lot of critics are lazy. They don’t want to look closely and analyze something for what it is. They take a quick first impression and then rush to compare it to something they’ve seen before.”

— Willem Dafoe

27. “My dad was a surgeon, my mom a nurse, and they were always out working. I had five sisters and a brother. They didn’t care what I got up to.”

— Willem Dafoe

28. “I’m an optimist. I hope if a movie’s good that it will be a success, but as we know, that’s not always true, just because of popular taste, advertising, distribution patterns – there’s lots of reasons.”

— Willem Dafoe

29. “Basically, when I hear the words ‘family drama,’ I run in the opposite direction.”

— Willem Dafoe

30. “I set myself challenges every time I work. Ideally, I approach everything as though it’s the first time – with a beginner’s mind and an amateur’s love.”

— Willem Dafoe

31. “Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can’t. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth.”

— Willem Dafoe

32. “It’s no fun for an actor to keep repeating what you did before. It’s always changing. I’m changing. The target keeps moving. That’s the beauty of it.”

— Willem Dafoe

Featured in: Fun Quotes

33. “The best thing an actor can be is ready. Be flexible, be ready.”

— Willem Dafoe

34. “Weirdness is not my game. I’m just a square boy from Wisconsin.”

— Willem Dafoe

35. “In my experience, sometimes a movie just hits at the wrong time, gets the wrong press, or gets the wrong representation, and it gets misunderstood.”

— Willem Dafoe

36. “I love Sam Neill. The thing that I always say about him, and I think it’s true, is he’s so dry. When he’s serious, I think he’s joking; when he’s joking, I think he’s serious.”

— Willem Dafoe

37. “As you get older, you suffer fools less easily. That’s why there’s all those cranky character actors. I’m an exception. I’m a sweetheart.”

— Willem Dafoe

38. “I don’t think people want to see me as a regular guy; besides, I’m a regular guy in real life. I guess I just want to be reckless in my work.”

— Willem Dafoe

39. “I love theaters. I love the event of going there and seeing a movie with a lot of people. I like the community coming around the story.”

— Willem Dafoe

40. “Celebrity is okay as long as you know it’s not about you.”

— Willem Dafoe

41. “I don’t think people are interested in my personal life. I’ve never had a Hollywood life. I’ve always been a worker.”

— Willem Dafoe

42. “I wish to Christ I could make up a really great lie. Sometimes, after an interview, I say to myself, ‘Man, you were so honest – can’t you have some fun? Can’t you do some really down and dirty lying?’ But the puritan in me thinks that if I tell a lie, I’ll be punished.”

— Willem Dafoe

Featured in: Fun Quotes

43. “I’m a task-oriented actor. A pretender. And I try to invent my process anew each time I make a new project. So I frown on any method.”

— Willem Dafoe

44. “The truth is I like the crazy ones better than the well-behaved ones normally because they tend to be the passionate ones. They never come after you if you’re holding up your end. The only thing that’s bad about an abusive director is that they bully the people they can.”

— Willem Dafoe

45. “I try to attach myself to people who really inspire me, and directors who are really passionate. That way, I can give myself more fully and trust the impulse behind why the film is being made, and I can be a little more irresponsible in finding out what the character is.”

— Willem Dafoe

46. “I have some sort of affinity for compulsive behavior. The most interesting stories come up from the people on the outside.”

— Willem Dafoe

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

47. “Each of the actors is quite different, but they’re all living in the same world.”

— Willem Dafoe

48. “When you work on anything, you want to find the range of impulses – which ones get portrayed is another question, but you want to have that complexity and that fullness, even if you’re playing a cartoon character.”

— Willem Dafoe

49. “I’ll never be able to really see a film that I’m in.”

— Willem Dafoe

50. “Film is an editor’s medium. You can create very good raw material and they can make it horrible, or you can do not so well and they can make it beautiful. You don’t really know.”

— Willem Dafoe