I like the idea of sitting in a theater with a bunch of people. With technology now, people are getting more and more isolated. I like the community coming around the story. You don't have that with a DVD. People go home, they're tired from work, they can turn it off. It doesn't make you commit the same way, if you can control the movie. More difficult movies, it's too easy to turn them off. All the time, I see movies I know if I had seen it on DVD, I wouldn't have hung with it. If you see it on the screen, you hang with it and it pays off better than a movie you can easily sit through on DVD.
Willem DafoeCentral to being an actor is pretending, and the adventure of it all. That's why you become a junkie for different kinds of situations.
Willem DafoeI don't think people are interested in my personal life. I've never had a Hollywood life. I've always been a worker.
Willem DafoeI 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 DafoeThe English Patient' is about the coming together of a French-Canadian nurse, an English patient, a Sikh in a turban and me, Caravaggio, and each of us is seeking a resolution to our own problems.
Willem DafoeI'm learning in my old age that the only thing you can do to keep your sanity is to stay in the moment.
Willem DafoeI'm an optimist. I hope if a movie's good that it will be a success, but that's not always true, just because of popular taste or any other reasons. When something doesn't do better than it deserves to in your mind, it's pretty transparent - you usually know why. Is that a comfort? Yes, because it's logical. Does it make you happy? No, because if you think a movie is beautiful or interesting, you want to share it. Sometimes you make very interesting movies that aren't meant for everybody. But this is a capitalist society, so everything conspires to put value on whether it sells or not.
Willem Dafoe