“He can do just about anything”: the one actor Paul Schrader said has no limits
Versatility isn’t all that important for the biggest stars in the business, but it’s vital for those a rung or two beneath the A-listers on the ladder. Like many filmmakers, Paul Schrader has found a number of regular collaborators, but there’s one he doesn’t think has any limits on their ability at all.
Regardless of his successes behind the camera, though, for many people, Schrader’s most definitive creative partnership will always be the one he shared with Martin Scorsese. Not that there’s any harm in that when the duo were responsible for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Bringing Out the Dead.
Since trying his luck as a director, it would be fair to say Schrader’s fortunes have been mixed. Make no mistake, he’s helmed some great movies, but he’s also seen several projects go up in smoke and fallen victim to the constant meddling of studios and executives who’ve tried to rein in his maverick spirit.
Schrader has taken the reins on over two dozen features, with six of them starring Willem Dafoe. It was Scorsese who brought them together in the first place, with the pair meeting and quickly striking up a firm friendship during production on The Last Temptation of Christ, which soon blossomed into a decades-long association.
Dafoe took top billing in Schrader’s 1992 crime drama Light Sleeper as a drug dealer for those of wealth and status before lending support in the conspiratorial noir Affliction, playing accused murderer John Henry Carpenter in the biographical drama Auto Focus, a United States senator in The Walker, a Nazi commandant in Adam Resurrected, an ex-con and abductor in Dog Eat Dog, and a retired army major in The Card Counter.
That sextet of characters couldn’t be more different from each other, but that’s always been Dafoe’s bag. He’s one of the most chameleonic character actors Hollywood has at its disposal, something Schrader has sought to mine for all it’s worth. Eccentric weirdos are ten-a-penny in the actor’s filmography, but that’s not how his six-time director prefers to use him.
“Most people use Willem for his oddness, as with Bobby Peru,” Schrader explained, per The Playlist, in reference to David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. “I’ve used him for that in Dog Eat Dog, but I also think he’s very good when he’s quiet. I used him in Light Sleeper, being quiet. As an actor, he can do just about anything.”
It’s an assessment countless auteurs evidently agree with, looking at the broad range of roles Dafoe has played over the course of a stellar career where he’s never been presented with a performative obstacle he couldn’t overcome. Still, few have managed to get as much out of him as Schrader when it comes to both quantity and quality.
