Willem Dafoe Wiki: Actor, Net Worth & Facts To Know

Willem Dafoe is a renowned American stage, film and voice actor who has a gross net worth of $24 million USD. Before entering the film industry Dafoe toured with an avant-garde theatre group across Europe and USA. This experience helped him become a founding member of the New-York City-based theater company - The Wooster Group. His debut role in the screen acting world came with a small part in 'Heaven's Gate' in 1980. He later appeared in 'Platoon' in 1986 as Sergeant Elias. He was nominated for the Oscars for his role. After that, he gained critical acclaim and a stronghold in Hollywood with his roles in movies like 'The Last Temptation of Christ' in 1988, 'Mississippi Burning' in 1988 and 'Born on the Fourth of July' in 1989. His other noteworthy films include, 'Tom and Viv' in 1994, 'The English Patient' in 1996, 'Speed 2' in 1997, 'Spider-Man' in 2002, 'Animal Factory' in 2003 and 'Manderlay' in 2005 and 'The Florida Project' in 2017. He also lent his voice for the animation film, 'Finding Nemo' in 2003. He co-starred in 'Mr. Bean's Holiday' in 2007 Dafoe is married to Italian actress and director Giada Colagrande and they divide their time between Colagrande's native place in Italy, Los Angeles, and New York City. Willem has a son with his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth LeCompte.

Dafoe, the white American actor is best known for his roles in films like 'The Last Temptation of Christ', 'The English Patient', 'American Psycho' and 'The Spider-Man trilogy'. His full name is William J. Dafoe and he was born in 1955 in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States. His parents are Willliam Alfred Dafoe and Muriel Isabel Dafoe. He was always interested in acting since his childhood days. He has a brother, Donald Dafoe. Dafoe studied at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. His debut film was a children's animated action film called 'Sixteen' where he played the role of John Benjamin Williamson. He also appeared in the movie, 'Roadhouse 66' the role of Johny Harte. He has worked in many successful movies like, 'The Spider-Man','Auto Focus', 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou', 'Antichrist', 'The Hunter', 'The Florida Project' and many more. He has also been awarded many roles owing to his versatility and comic-sense. He is at the age of 61 currently. He earns his high and deserving salary from the Hollywood film industry and has managed to accumulate a net worth of $24 million USD. Willem Dafoe will be appearing in DC Comics and he will appear in a terrifying version of the Joker. There is still speculation going on whether Warner Bros. will move forward with the Joker movie and who are they thinking of casting for the role. The new era of the DC films proves to deliver a lot of superhero fun. Willem Dafoe's role in 'Justice League' was cut after the release. He had played the role of Vulko in Justice League. But Dafoe's role will be more prominent in Aquaman. Aquaman is set to release in December, 2018. He got the Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor in 'The Florida Project'. He also won the Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor in 'Shadow of the Vampire'.

There are some less known facts about the actor which are both interesting and intriguing. Let's have a look at them:

Totally unbelievable but Willem Dafoe has been infamous for doing all the things possible. On being questioned about his porn film, he defended himself saying, "It wasn't really pornographic. It was just a film about oddballs, including nudists. I was just a young boy in Wisconsin – anything to get out of there.” It was one of those "art" films then.

In another bizarre statement, Dafoe said that his five sisters gave him a live sex education at the age of 6. “It was a sexual education, because my sisters were the horniest little girls. They would tell me stuff that, when I was small, I didn't want to hear. I remember one of my sisters talking about fellatio and cunnilingus when I was six years old. I said, ‘Only dirty people do that, right?’ She just laughed. When I told my friends what I knew about the birds and bees, they beat me up because they found it so disgusting.” Coming from him, and taking into account his 'weird' image in the industry, this was pretty normal according to Dafoe.

Willem Dafoe once lent his voice for a cartoon polar bear in a commercial. This campaign began in 2011 and by then Dafoe had made it quite big in the industry and had no need to do such roles to earn money for his bread and butter. When asked by an interviewer, he said, “This is the last thing I want to talk about".

Dafoe had a small role as a cockfighter in the film 'Heaven's Gate' in 1980. During the shoot, he could help himself but laugh at a joke. He recalled, “I was there for three months and I worked a lot. It was the kind of thing where you were hired to play an unscripted character and then they developed these smaller characters. I had scenes and everything and was really enjoying it and then one day we were doing a lighting set-up for a long time; basically eight hours standing in place, and a woman told me a joke in my ear and I laughed at a moment of silence. Cimino turned around and said, ‘Willem step out,’ and that was that. I was the lamb for sacrifice.” Cimino doesn’t remember firing Dafoe, who confronted him about it later. Dafoe's appearance in the film went uncredited.

The film 'Antichrist' was received with a lot of boos and heckles at Cannes as it was a very bizarre film. Dafoe became vehemently upset. He told the Times, “It’s a hothouse environment, and they like scandal. You see who holds the cards and what plays, what doesn’t play. Where the idiots are, where the thoughtful people are. And for the most part the idiots win. But that’s okay.”