Willem Dafoe On ‘Poor Things’, ‘Beetlejuice 2’ And Keeping Busy In 2024: “I Don’t Work Just To Work. I’m Lucky…”
deadline.comIt was only a matter of time before Willem Dafoe worked with Yorgos Lanthimos, and the result is everything you might expect and more.
In Poor Things, the actor plays Dr. Godwin Baxter, a Scottish scientist given to sewing dog’s heads onto chickens, and we meet him after completing the most important experiment of his life: by transplanting an infant’s brain into the skull of its dead mother, he creates the anarchic and wholly unpredictable Bella (Emma Stone).
It may sound creepy, most likely because it really is, but Dafoe brings a surprising sadness to the role. Here, he reflects on the film’s strange, unique world, raises the curtain on 2024, and talks a little about his recent festival hit Inside, in which he plays a clueless thief who becomes trapped in the apartment of a wealthy art collector. DEADLINE: Yorgos Lanthimos seems like a good fit for you.
Did you lobby to work with him? DAFOE: I follow his stuff, but, no. For this, one day someone called me up and said, “Yorgos Lanthimos wants to talk to you.” And then Emma and Yorgos called me, told me the rough story, said where it came from, what the role would be, and I said, “Great.
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