Willem Dafoe was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, to Muriel Isabel (Sprissler), a nurse, and Dr. William Alfred Dafoe, a surgeon. He is of French, German, English, Irish, and Scottish descent. In 1979, Dafoe was given a small role in Michael Cimino's La porte du paradis (1980) from which he was fired. His first feature role came shortly after in Kathryn Bigelow's The Loveless (1981). From there, he went on to perform in over 80 films - in Hollywood (John Carter (2012), Spider-Man (2002), Le patient anglais (1996), Le monde de Nemo (2003), Desperado 2 - Il était une fois au Mexique (2003), Danger immédiat (1994), Sables mortels (1992), Mississippi Burning (1988), Les rues de feu (1984), American Dreamz (2006)) and in independent cinema in the U.S. (L'enlèvement (2004), Animal Factory (2000), Les anges de Boston (1999), American Psycho (2000)) and abroad (Theo Angelopoulos' La poussière du temps (2008), Yim Ho's Pavillon de femmes (2001), Yurek Bogayevicz's Edges of the Lord (2001), Wim Wenders' Faraway (2011), So Close (2009), Nobuhiro Suwa's segment of Paris, je t'aime (2006), Brian Gilbert's Tom & Viv (1994), Christian Carion's Farewell (2001), _Mr. Bean's Holiday and The Spierig Brothers' Daybreakers_, Daniel Nettheim's The Hunter (2011)). He has chosen projects for diversity of roles and opportunities to work with strong directors. He has worked in the films of Wes Anderson (La vie aquatique (2004), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)), Martin Scorsese (Aviator (2004), La dernière tentation du Christ (1988)), Spike Lee (Inside Man - L'homme de l'intérieur (2006)), Julian Schnabel (Miral (2010), Basquiat (1996)), Paul Schrader (Auto Focus (2002), Affliction (1997), Light Sleeper (1992), The Walker (2007), Adam Resurrected (2008)), David Cronenberg (_Existenz_), Abel Ferrara (4h44 Dernier jour sur terre (2011), Go Go Tales (2007), New Rose Hotel (1998)), David Lynch (Sailor & Lula (1990)), William Friedkin (Police fédérale, Los Angeles (1985)), Werner Herzog (Dans l'oeil d'un tueur (2009), Oliver Stone (Né un quatre juillet (1989), Platoon (1986)), Giada Colagrande (A Woman (2010) and Black Widow (2005)) and Lars von Trier (Antichrist (2009) and Manderlay (2005)). He was nominated twice for the Academy Award (Platoon (1986) and L'ombre du vampire (2000)) and once for the Golden Globe. Among other nominations and awards, he received an LA Film Critics Award and an Independent Spirit Award. Upcoming films include Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest hotel (2014), Anton Corbjin's Un homme très recherché (2014), Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac - Volume 1 (2013), Scott Cooper's Les brasiers de la colère (2013) Josh Boone's The Fault In Our Stars (2014)_, David Leitch and Chad Stahelski's John Wick (2014)_, and Chris Brinker's Bad Country (2014). Dafoe is one of the founding members of The Wooster Group, the New York based experimental theatre collective. He created and performed in all of the group's work from 1977 thru 2005, both in the U.S. and internationally. Since then, he worked with Richard Foreman in Idiot Savant at The Public Theatre (NYC) and most recently the international productions of Robert Wilson's The Life & Death of Marina Abramovic abroad and Robert Wilson's The Old Woman with Mikhail Baryshnikov.
