YouSaid · the spoken record

Willem Dafoe

lines on the record: 22
first: 2023-07-28
most recent: 2023-07-28
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“To try to think different things. I sound like a broken record, right? But really, the trick is always to break the habit, break the habit, feel again, wake up, wake up, wake up. That's the key. That's really the answer to the acting question. You know, work on being a human being, work on waking up. That's what I can't do that if I'm imagining something that's going to serve my interests. I prefer to Look at something outside of me and go towards it and try to learn something. Which, when I say it sounds kind of novel, it's not, it's totally selfish because it's about saving yourself from a certain kind of control and staleness of habit.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On initiate projects so much. I'm like a parasite. Glom onto someone else's and try to help them do that. It gets back to that thing about, you know, if there's something that I want to do, it usually completes itself, particularly when I was younger. There were moments sometimes where I felt like I wasn't having good opportunities. I thought, well, if you don't have good opportunities, you better start making them for yourself. So then I flirted with trying to initiate projects. And it never felt right because usually They completed themselves in my head as I prepared for them. I need something to take where I want to get away from my agenda. Ultimately, it's my agenda.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You pretend. You look there and say, Oh, if you look at the details, you look at the coffin, you imagine. That does it for me much better than taking me out of the scene because then that's the difference between really exploring something and having an experience and interpreting something. I think... That's just one aspect of the method that I'm familiar with that doesn't, I don't respond to. And Joaquin's a good actor. He's a great actor. He's not here. He should answer the question for you.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you talk about method acting, I'm always confused Because I don't know what that is. I think I know what most people are talking about when they talk about method acting. I really don't know. I wasn't trained that way When I was a student, and probably since then I've read Stanislavsky. That's one thing. The method is something else. Just for me, I respond to pretending. Like if at your mother's funeral You make an anticipation that you're supposed to cry there, and then because you're going to cry, you've got to think of something sad, whether it's your mother or your mother's death or your dead puppy or whatever. That takes you out of the scene. You aren't applying yourself to the real situation. I think there's a, for me personally,”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Trying to figure that one out. Changed a lot because, for example, I did a movie recently and before you could work. It's required that you take a course online about proper Conduct That didn't happen before. So, people are making efforts to be conscious of abuses and being conscientious also about just in general there's a new sense of Breaking up Old Boyne network and making not only the making films but also what films are about more representative of a larger group of people, that's all connected because I think that's connected to Somewhat to these people that went public with abuses in the past, and there's an effort to try to. Address those. So, what that all means, I don't know, because in The conversation is happening, and I'm not just being politic. I really don't know how deeply it changes.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You two hanging out? You know, downtown when I was growing up, yeah, I probably spent a lot of time in Painting studios and dance studios. Probably more than theater and probably new more performance artists than I knew actors, more musicians than I knew actors. So that's just kind of where I lived. And then once you start working just socially, connect the dots.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have unusual lives And what they do, there's no There's no rule book. I mean, that's kind of the whole point. Finding ways to express their inner thoughts through their particular discipline. And I think that interests me in all people. And I think, but an artist, it becomes more transparent because that... That is on the table. That's what they're about. But I think that interests me in all people, you know. How people make strategies on how to live and how they create belief systems and what they cling to and what they don't need and what they get from other people and what is really original thinking. And I think with artists because often they're They're searching for that original thought, gesture, that original articulation of something that's particular to them. I'm attracted to that because I want to learn how to do that someday.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Try not to be a jerk. Develop a practice, a daily practice, whether it's a physical practice. I personally do a yoga practice for 35 years, and that probably saves me. But I have a practice, whatever it is, that you can be your time. Sets the tone for the day, preferably in the morning. Be vegetarian.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To make room for something else, because that's another different kind of lockstep that I think really kills you, makes you unhappy. If you feel trapped, like trapped in a character or trapped in a set of ways of being”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It depends. Always it depends on the situation. I think normally that, you know, because you're willing yourself Consider a different set of habits, a different way of thinking. You're inviting, you're trying to leave yourself behind and become something else. Once the camera is not there and once the situation is not there, those characters go back into you. Now, you can have a hangover if you're, you know, playing a... Murderer 12 hours a day, even though you're pretending, it's going to enter your dreams. It is going to affect you. But yeah, I think when people have problems hanging on to stuff, it's because they're hanging on. And of course, when you're done with something, it's important to let it go.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I won't answer the second one because that idea is too frightening. I can't, if I was a, I probably wouldn't be doing this if I don't know. I don't know. Practice and find out where you love and go towards it even, you know, I'm a great I believe in apprenticeship. So if there's a company that you love or a filmmaker that you love, just get as close as you can to them. And something will rub off and you'll either get into the fabric of that group making something, or you'll learn something that'll take you someplace else. So don't wait do this, to do this, don't do this, to do that. Don't make, you know, don't make long-term plans. You know, feed the beast. The thing that you like to do. Feed it. Feed it and don't wait. Don't, you know, make deals with yourself.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I like being a little irresponsible. I feel free. I'm very responsible in what I do and also when I'm working on a movie for the whole movie. But I don't like being responsible for what stuff means or where we're going. Because somewhere as an actor, one of the pleasures is being an adventurer, going someplace, reaching for something that you don't know. Not interpreting, not embodying something that you already know, but trying to learn something, giving yourself something to learn, learning it, and then trying to see. And maybe you can do that as a director, but the director has to be responsible for this huge group of people to say we're heading this way. And as an actor, I don't have that same responsibility.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mr. Vince Halliday was fun. And one of the reasons why I did it was. Atkinson, Rowan Atkinson, I loved him in Black Adder. And the idea that I would be working with that guy from Black Adder was like... I feel like I'm a filmmaker. I collaborate with people. It depends on who the director is And as I get older and I work with younger filmmakers, Know they invite me in a little bit more, and I like that. But on the other hand, I never really want to be a director because maybe you can tell this just by this talk, but there's something where I...”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think we already say some people's desire for an authentic experience, something they can taste. It's getting so far away from us. It's getting so mediated and so controlled. And there's a false freedom because you feel like you can go anywhere, but you go nowhere. There's no choices and you don't go to where you want to go. And I don't think that's good. Sometimes, you know, it's not good also. That's a great breeding ground for prejudice and hate because then you can really get into them and us. But if you're forced, that's one of the reasons why I like New York City, you know? Yeah, it's a rich city. Yeah, real estate's a drag. Yeah, it's a business city. But people have to deal with each other. And I find that a place like New York is much more...”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He was so prescient. He saw what was going to happen even before these new technologies were present. He saw it coming. It turns people into robots. I mean, come on. People used to look at each other on the streets. Now they almost bump into each other because they're reading the phone. We all know that. I don't like to sound like a new crank. I've got an idea. That's a long winded Answer to your question”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's like anything. Sometimes the stuff that feels good right away doesn't sustain you. And the stuff that's hard in the end will sustain you. And in movies I like that. So from an audience point of view, if you have too much control, you have to submit somehow. And to be in a room of other people submitting to a bunch of light on the screen to basically have a collective dream, I think is cool when it becomes my movie, my iPhone, my coffee, my, mine, mine, mine, my. I think that's when you miss the connection of the storytelling, the sharing of experience, and the possibility to change how you think and break your habits, break the lockstep. It's what Pasolini talked about all the time.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of course not. But let's go beyond that and not even worry about what I want people to do. I can talk about me. I know the power of that thing that he's talking about of going into a room with a bunch of strangers and having to sit there, having to pay attention and receive something and receive it with a bunch of strangers in a room. That is very powerful and can change how you think. If you control the experience too much, If you have the ability to turn it off, if you have the ability to take a phone call, if you don't like the first five minutes and say, let's try something else, you know, you don't get your feet held to the fire. And I think sometimes in the most rewarding movies, it's not easy. Sometimes really movies are difficult, you know. If you stick with them.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it breaks, you know. The joke is why would you want someone to make love to your wife? I mean, that's the fun part. Sorry. No, that's my job. And if I step out and someone else does that character for a little while, then I got to reclaim it. I got to get back into it. You know, it should be one. I'm there for an experience, an experience that's, you know, filtered through all kinds of things, but that is transparent enough that people can have that experience with me. And if it gets too fragmented, And it's hard to feel that.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Stants and things like that. And even though you don't see a lot of it in the movie, and I can talk to that frustration that they, you know, you shoot a lot and then it gets culled down to very little. But for example, that I get to fly around on wires. You know, for weeks at a time. Not just like a boyish fun thing. It was challenging. It was like there was an athleticism to it. Really kind of it was fun, you know? I mean, we're talking about sometimes being as high as that ceiling and being dropped down on cables, you know, you're in a harness and all that, but just skim in the floor and then going up and then doing barrel rolls, you know, that's fun. And then, when you start to film it and you lay in saints and you're laying character, you know, there's something there. There's something there”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's good, and that helps you, believe it or not, when you need financing for smaller movies, riskier movies, because some people will go even though it's not the same kind of movie. They have some sort of connection to that movie, so it opens things up. And also, just as an actor, for example, on Aquaman that I did recently, I still like doing physical things. I still like doing...”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A movie can be made this way or can only be made that way, I think there's lots of rooms for all kinds of movies. So I don't disagree. I don't agree. I know what he's talking about. But yeah, I won't say that.”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I agree. I know what he's talking about, but I would not say that because that's not my experience. Because also I've worked in those movies and I've found pleasure in them. I know there are limitations, but you don't judge one kind of movie by the standards of another. It's always different. And I think he's in a different position. He's a director. I'm an actor. I think it really helps to keep me away from a certain kind of preciousness and a certain kind of rigidness if I mix it up. Not as a thing to be versatile, although that's nice. But that's not the aim. It's really more to change your game enough that you don't harden into habits as far as your work or rigid ways about”
2023-07-28 · Intelligence Squared · Willem Dafoe on Artistry and Adventure - Part 2 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT