Why Willem Dafoe went to mortician school for latest role

Anthony Frajman

In his storied career, actor Willem Dafoe has transformed into the Italian poet Pier Paolo Pasolini, Vincent van Gogh, a knife-wielding rat and the Green Goblin. Yet, the four-time Oscar-nominee had never encountered a role quite like the one in Poor Things: an unorthodox, disfigured scientist.

“When they asked me to do this, I did not hesitate,” Dafoe reflects via Zoom from New York.

Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite) and set in Victorian England and Europe, the Frankenstein-inspired Poor Things follows the experiences of a woman (Emma Stone) resurrected after her suicide, when given the brain of her unborn baby, by Dr Godwin Baxter (Dafoe).

The role was one of the most demanding Dafoe has taken on, he says, in part because he had to wear an elaborate mask that took four hours to put on. It meant he had to be in make-up at 3am, so he was ready when the rest of the cast arrived at 7am. When the day was over, he had to endure another two hours of removal. Yet, the 68-year-old says he was not daunted.

“Obstacles sometimes help you to know why you’re there. I knew why I had to have that make-up and that make-up was a trigger. It helps you become the character, and that’s what you want in the end.”

For four decades, Dafoe has been one of Hollywood’s most fearless actors, known for his incredible dedication to his roles. For his acclaimed portrayal of artist Vincent van Gogh in Julius Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate, he learned to paint and studied the work of the artist, to get inside his head. Before playing a motel manager in The Florida Project, Dafoe interviewed real-life counterparts. For Poor Things, he went to mortician school (his co-star Ramy Youssef told Empire that Dafoe “got really focused on it”).

For Dafoe, every film is a life experience that demands total commitment and requires him to immerse himself in the life of the person he is playing, and so he lives and breathes the characters he plays.

“When I’m trying to inhabit a character I’m trying to leave myself behind – all my conditioning, all my identity behind – and pretend to be someone else. You can only do that to a degree, but that’s what I always practise,” he says.