Willem Dafoe has a long history with comic book films. Back before Robert Downey, Jr. made it cool for big actors to take on superhero roles, Dafoe had already starred in one of the biggest superhero films of all-time, “Spider-Man,” which effectively took the baton from “Blade” and “X-Men” and carried the genre into the new millennium. And just last year, the actor starred in another major superhero film, “Aquaman,” which put Dafoe smack dab in the middle of the current genre dominance. But according to the actor, he’s actually not a fan of these movies at all.
Dafoe recently spoke to 92Y (video has been since removed, but quotes are via IndieWire) about the recent crop of superhero films and why his role in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” was a different thing altogether.
He explained that when he made “Spider-Man,” the filmmaker treated it like “a little independent film” and there wasn’t all this interference from “the experts” and “there was nothing by the numbers.” This led to “Spider-Man” having a special feel, but now the industry “outgrew itself.”
Overall, nowadays, Dafoe just doesn’t enjoy watching superhero films, though he wouldn’t talk about anything specifically negative about his experience on “Aquaman.” His complaints are just with the superhero genre, as it stands today.
“You have fun with some of the things that you get to do because there’s lots of hardware and there’s lots of crazy crane shots and those kind of things,” Dafoe said. “That’s fun. But stuff is overshot. They spend a lot of money on big set pieces, because that’s what delivers the action, and I find them too long and too noisy. But let’s not get into this. I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me. But, no, seriously, folks. Look, those aren’t the movies I run to.”
The actor added, “What I worry about is, those big movies, they need something to feed them. They need a surge, and they need people pushing the boundaries so they can go forward. Because they’re not in the business of going forward, really. They’re in the business of business, and you can make beautiful things because they have a lot of resources.”
Clearly, Dafoe has plenty of experience in other, more auteur-driven projects, such as last year’s “At Eternity’s Gate” and this year’s “The Lighthouse.” So, if he doesn’t want to star in superhero films, fans will be just fine with his more independent output.