Why Willem Dafoe compares his career to a 1960s sex documentary
Is there any other actor in history quite like the gravel-voiced Willem Dafoe, whose body of work enviably encompasses blockbusters, indie dramas, family animations, and mind-altering horrors?
From the Green Goblin to Vincent Van Gogh to Jesus Christ himself, nobody else comes close to his sort of variety, over such a long period of time, and the reason why Dafoe has so many great films to his name is because he’s in literally everything.
In 2025, he was credited in six different movies, one more than in 2024, but one less than in 2023. His mad work ethic has made him a favourite of several luminary directors, from Wes Anderson to Robert Eggers to Lars von Trier, with his appetite for work remaining insatiable even as he enters his eighth decade on this planet.
His Poor Things co-star Mark Ruffalo asked him about his prolificacy (yes, that’s a word) during a piece for Interview magazine, where he referred to acting as a “service”, and implied that he had an obligation to work as hard as possible. In true Dafoe fashion, he illustrated this point with a bizarre, artful metaphor.
“It makes me think of [Pier Paolo] Pasolini, who made a very beautiful documentary in the ’60s where he went around Italy and interviewed all kinds of people about sex,” he mused, “It wasn’t lurid at all, it was very straightforward and direct. I think you can see it on YouTube, Comizi d’Amore. The thing that struck me is that people don’t know how they feel about sex”.
“They take their sexuality from society, or things outside of them, and then they try it on for size. It’s not just about sexuality, it’s about how people live. They learn from watching stuff outside of themselves.”
Comizi d’Amore, which translates to Love Meetings in English, was released in 1964 and helmed by the great Passolini, perhaps best known for his infamous film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. It features the director asking a range of Italians about all things sex, wherein everyone gets a turn: the young, the old, men, women, rich, poor, all of whom have very different opinions about the heavily taboo subject.
Like a lot of what Dafoe says in interviews, it’s tempting to look at this statement and dismiss it as poetic twaddle, but he might be on to something.
Sex was not something you openly discussed in the 1960s, so Pasolini took it upon himself to broach the subject in a very public manner. He was providing a service to his audience, many of whom desired to learn more about sex, but felt pressured in keeping silent, and in much the same way, Dafoe tends to take work that pushes boundaries and defies conventional taste, Finding Nemo notwithstanding.
Equally, you’re free to label this as nothing but a shaggy dog story, but the thing about Dafoe is that he does what he wants, how he wants to, and if he wants to view himself in the same vein as a sex documentary made by a weird old Italian, then there’s nothing you can do to stop him.
