▲He and Colagrande live in Rome, next-door to Abel Ferrara who directed the Dafoe-starring biopic 'Pasolini' and the drama 'Tommaso.'

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Willem Dafoe is arguably one of Hollywood's most recognizable faces, with that sharp nose and defiantly crooked smile, but he somehow manages to completely disappear into his characters every time he's on screen, and he's been on screen a lot. Over the course of his over 40-year career, Dafoe has taken on more than 100 roles.

He has embodied an incredible range of personalities, from Jesus in Martin Scorsese's ‘The Last Temptation of Christ,’ to the Green Goblin in ‘Spider-Man,’ to predator Bobby Peru in David Lynch’s 'Wild at Heart.' He's conquered a range of cinema, from experimental art house films to superhero franchises, and acted alongside Hollywood's elite, not to mention the likes of David Bowie and Madonna.

So without further ado, click through to get reacquainted with one of Hollywood's most talented stars, and find out how the combination of his trademark look, surprisingly twisted past, and genuine passion for his craft have elevated him to a cult classic.

▲"We're all making things," he told Dazed. "It's the emphasis. The tools we're using are slightly different. Actors use themselves as material. Musicians certainly use their inner selves as material, but aren't necessarily presenting who they are in such an obvious way."

▲Dafoe has appeared in many films by director Wes Anderson over the years, from 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' in 2014 to 2023's 'Asteroid City.'

▲In his personal life, he married Giada Colagrande, an Italian film director and actress, in 2005. He proposed over lunch one day, and the next day they were married.

▲Lars von Trier, David Lynch, William Friedkin, Dee Rees, Kathryn Bigelow, Martin Scorsese, David Cronenberg, Paul Schrader, Oliver Stone, John Waters, Spike Lee, and Werner Herzog are just a few.

▲Lars von Trier told the Boston Phoenix that while filming 'Antichrist,' they had to have a stand-in for Dafoe's naked scenes because "Will's own was too big" and "everybody got confused when they saw it."

▲For his Australian flick 'The Hunter,' Dafoe learned bushcraft, including how to skin a wallaby. He told The Guardian that he was only given one chance on screen, and that because the animal had been dead for a while the gastric juices might explode on him. Luckily, he pulled it off.

▲Dafoe explained his short-lived adult film career by saying, "I was just a young boy in Wisconsin – anything to get out of there."

▲While he says he's always been ambitious, he's never made plans because he never had a formal dream. "In fact, I distrust dreams. All this stuff about following your dream and realizing your dream… it doesn't sound good to me."

▲Dafoe has been on the Oscars' radar for 32 years! He was first nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1987 for 'Platoon.'

▲Dafoe has a reputation as a mad villain in Hollywood, but he just enjoys playing characters very different from himself. He told The Telegraph, "What I'm always looking for is the character who can allow me to lose myself ... So naturally I gravitate towards things that are very far from me."

▲"I don't think about my work, so much as I think about my life,” he told Dazed, “I measure my life by the plays and films I've done. That's how I remember my life, and my life's always been entwined with my personal life, too."

▲The first feature Dafoe (right) starred in was a Swedish film called 'The Loveless,' about a motorcycle gang in a small town.

▲Dafoe voiced a cartoon polar bear in ads for a frozen food company, surprisingly late into his presumably lucrative career—but he doesn't want to talk about it. "This is the last thing I want to talk about," he icily told an Independent reporter.

▲When the Huffington Post asked him, "If you and Nic Cage ever actually got together and wanted to do a heist, what would you go for?" Dafoe responded, "I don't think that's gonna happen. Deep down we're two big sissies."

▲Reflecting on his acting career, Dafoe told Dazed, "The longer I do this, the more interested I am in the nature of performing, because it's still filled with mystery for me. It's always different. It's always dynamic. It's filled with all kinds of problem-solving questions and adventure."

▲In 1997, Dafoe was nominated as Worst Supporting Actor for 'Speed 2: Cruise Control,' and in 1994 for 'Body of Evidence.' Madonna, his co-star in the latter, ended up winning.

▲Dafoe is not the luxurious type, and said he favors people who are more interested in what they do than how much they make. "What's sexy to them is their work, not their houses and their pools and all that kind of thing," he told the Independent.

▲Dafoe is a fan of Ashtanga yoga, and has said that it informs his performance as it helps practice equanimity, concentration, and he learns how to better direct his mind.

▲After 'Antichrist' was booed at Cannes, Dafoe told The New York Times that the environment is a hothouse for scandal. "You see who holds the cards and what plays, what doesn't play. Where the idiots are, where the thoughtful people are. And for the most part the idiots win. But that's okay."

▲Dafoe had a minor part in the 1980 film 'Heaven's Gate,' considered the first major Hollywood flop. He explained that a woman had whispered a joke to him in a moment of silence. "[Director Michael] Cimino turned around and said, 'Willem step out,' and that was that. I was the lamb for sacrifice."

▲Speaking to Another Man, Dafoe said, "As I get older, my attitude gets much more fluid and easy. It doesn't mean less passionate, it just means I'm happy not to protect an idea of who I am. I'm really deeply interested in being transformed, much more than I was when I was young."

▲Dafoe has revealed that he curiously starts every role at zero. "Some people really respond to the idea of nailing it or executing it to perfection… but I'm much better trying to find something than I am knowing something and executing and explaining it."

▲Dafoe told The Guardian his five sisters taught him about sex at the age of six. "My sisters were the horniest little girls. They would tell me stuff that, when I was small, I didn't want to hear." He said that after he relayed the information to his friends, they beat him up "because they found it so disgusting."

▲In an essay called 'What I Know About Women,' Dafoe wrote, "I gravitate towards women, I identify with them. And I do cry very easily, more and more as I get older."

▲A reporter at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival asked him if he'd ever considered getting his teeth fixed, and Dafoe said no, and that he figured "they were my teeth, and they looked fine to me."

▲Dafoe also learned to paint in order to play Vincent van Gogh in the biopic 'At Eternity's Gate.' He said learning the craft was the only way to truly "inhabit" the artist.

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He may not have landed his Oscar yet, but one thing's for sure, Willem Dafoe is not going anywhere.

Sources: (Boston Phoenix) (The Guardian) (SFGATE) (The Straits Times) (Dazed) (Another Man) (IndieWire) (The Telegraph) (The New York Times) (HuffPost) (The Independent)