Willem Dafoe Quotes

I am dancing all the time. Every gesture, the body line of every pose, the way I get from place to place, the movement in the acting - none of it would be the way it is if I weren't a dancer.

When it comes to acting, you really have to create movement which in some ways is dancing. And dancing, I feel is very important to act as well. I wouldn't put one over the other.

I just play the little guy, except I play him through dance.

I used to be a dancer, and for me it was a really good combination of dance and acting.

I've always enjoyed the physical side of acting.

I use my hands a lot while acting.

When eventually I started to act a bit more, I realised that circus school had taught me something that a lot of actors my age didn't have: physicality. They didn't know how to move. Acting is not all about talking. There is something animalistic about it.

Dance is one of the most revealing art forms.

I'm the interpreter. I'm the one who takes your words and brings them to life. I was trained to sing and dance and laugh, and that's what I want to do.

There is a large element of me in every role I do.

When I was a dancer, I was acting.

In a costume, you need very exaggerated body language - as you say, sort of mime-type skills.

I'm pretty much of a physical actor.

Dancers are a work of art - they are the canvas on which their work is painted.

You have an awareness of your body and how to use it and I think that if you can embody a character physically it's another really useful tool.

When you act, your whole body is the instrument.

There are some roles that are more still and internal and emotional, and others that are more physical, which get you out of your mind for a while.

Dancing is the personification of music, and music is an abstract expression of the human spirit. But still it's the act of communication, of making one feel. Otherwise it would just be gymnastics.

I think acting, for me, is about play. It's about time, and it's about feeling, like there's a story to tell and I can tell it through my body and my voice.

Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.

The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.

There are times when I consciously give the character something physical - a walk, the way he sits, how he talks, or his lack of physicality, which is like a physicality.

Dance has been a big passion for me.

Dance is the most fundamental of all art forms.

The costume affects your posture, affects your walk, how you hold yourself, and how you breathe. The costumes make you deliver.