Willem Dafoe: Oscar’s Enigmatic Underdog Wants to “Disappear”
The actor made six films last year, has 100 screen credits and three Oscar nominations (including for this season’s on-the-cheap breakout ‘The Florida Project’) in a nomadic career that has resisted both fame and routine: “I remember my life by my movies.”
By Benjamin Svetkey
Here is a typical day in the life of Willem Dafoe: He wakes up early, usually around 5 or 6. He meditates, has a cup of coffee and writes in his journal for a while. Then he checks his email, does some yoga and makes breakfast. If he’s prepping for a film, which he almost always is, he’ll go over his lines for a couple of hours. If he’s not, he’ll read a book, take a walk around his West Village neighborhood or — his favorite activity of all — do some laundry.
“It’s one of my great pleasures,” he says, dead serious. “I love it so much, I have to resist the urge to do a lot of hand washing when I’m in hotels. Sometimes, when I’m in a strange city, I go to laundromats. I did that in France recently — I was shooting a movie there — and it was a beautiful experience. For some reason, people are really nice to me in laundromats and I have these great…
