“I Like It When a Director Has a Vision”: Willem Dafoe Talks Acting Process, David Lynch, and ‘The Birthday Party’

Over the course of a more than 45-year career, Willem Dafoe has played everything, from the Green Goblin in “Spider-Man” to Jesus Christ in Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ”. But crucially, he has never rested on his laurels, and continues to collaborate on ever more bold and daring projects with a new generation of emerging filmmakers.In Locarno to present Miguel Ángel Jiménez’s caustic “The Birthday Party” on the Piazza Grande, we sat down with Dafoe on Locarno Meets to talk about how you should find your own role when on set, working with David Lynch on “Wild at Heart”, juggling the demands of Hollywood and the arthouse, and getting fired from the set of “Heaven’s Gate” for laughing at a dirty joke.