William James Dafoe (/dəˈfoʊ/; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, in addition to receiving nominations for four Academy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a BAFTA. He has frequently collaborated with filmmakers Paul Schrader, Abel Ferrara, Lars von Trier, Julian Schnabel, Wes Anderson, and Robert Eggers.
Dafoe was an early member of experimental theater company The Wooster Group. He made his film debut in Heaven's Gate (1980), but was fired during production. He had his first leading role in the outlaw biker film The Loveless (1982). Early roles include in Streets of Fire (1984) and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) before breakthrough roles in The Last Temptation of Christ and Mississippi Burning both in 1988.
Dafoe received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Oliver Stone's war film Platoon (1986). Other Oscar-nominated films include Shadow of the Vampire (2000), The Florida Project (2017), and At Eternity's Gate (2018). Notable roles include in The English Patient (1996), American Psycho (2000), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Antichrist (2009), John Wick (2014), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Murder on the Orient Express (2017), The Lighthouse (2019), The French Dispatch (2021), Nightmare Alley (2021), and The Northman (2022).
Dafoe gained wider attention for his role as the supervillain Norman Osborn / Green Goblin in the superhero film Spider-Man (2002), a role he reprised in its sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), and the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). He also portrayed Nuidis Vulko in the DC Extended Universe films Aquaman (2018) and Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021).
Early life and education
The Performing Garage in SoHo, New York City, the home of the experimental theater company The Wooster Group, which Dafoe co-founded
William James Dafoe was born on July 22, 1955, in Appleton, Wisconsin. One of eight children of Muriel Isabel (née Sprissler) (November 29, 1921 – September 14, 2012) and Dr. William Alfred Dafoe (July 21, 1917 – November 21, 2014), he recalled in 2009: "My five sisters raised me because my father was a surgeon, my mother was a nurse and they worked together, so I didn't see either of them much." His brother, Donald Dafoe, is a transplant surgeon and researcher. He has English, French, German, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. His surname, Dafoe, is the Anglicized version of the Swiss Thévou. During an interview he explained that about half of the Dafoe family puts the emphasis on the first syllable of their surname, and the other half on the second. In high school, he acquired the nickname Willem, which is the Dutch version of the name William. Only after becoming an actor did he take the second interpretation as his stage name.
After attending Appleton East High School, Dafoe studied drama at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, but left after a year and a half to join the experimental theater company Theatre X in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, before moving to New York City in 1976. There he apprenticed under Richard Schechner, director of the avant-garde theater troupe The Performance Group, where he met and became romantically involved with Elizabeth LeCompte. She, with her former romantic partner Spalding Gray and others, edged out Schechner and created the Wooster Group. Within a year Dafoe was part of the company. Dafoe would continue with the Wooster Group into the 2000s. On May 22, 2022, Dafoe was invited back to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee by Chancellor Mark Mone to serve as the keynote speaker for the University's commencement ceremony and to receive an honorary Doctor of Arts degree.
