Willem Dafoe on 'Late Fame' and Burning-Hot Directors
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- Willem Dafoe stars as Ed Saxberger in Kent Jones' 'Late Fame' (Aug. 7 in New York, Aug. 19 in Los Angeles and other cities), a postal employee and former published poet rediscovered by a young intellectual named Meyers (Edmund Donovan).
- Greta Lee co-stars as a glamorous but fading actress in the self-styled intellectual group that upends Ed's quiet life and pulls him back toward the spotlight.
- Dafoe has five other 2026 projects, including 'Tenzing,' in which he plays the commander who led the first successful Everest summit, and 'Werwulf,' Robert Eggers' 13th-century-set gothic horror.
- Dafoe credits his sustained creative energy to directors who 'burn hot,' naming repeat collaborations with Eggers ('Nosferatu,' 'The Lighthouse,' 'The Northman') and Yorgos Lanthimos ('Poor Things,' 'Kinds of Kindness') as models of that intensity.
- Dafoe's two most recent Oscar nominations came from Sean Baker's 'The Florida Project' and Julian Schnabel's 'At Eternity's Gate,' and he co-founded New York's experimental Wooster Group in the 1970s.
- The on-screen poem Ed reads to the group in the film's climax was co-written by Jones and Dafoe as a blend of the actor's and the character's voice, after the two struggled to find the right tone.
Why it matters: Dafoe's 2026 slate — five new projects including a lead turn in 'Late Fame' and an Eggers gothic — shows him at peak output across indie and major productions, with two recent Oscar nominations (Baker's 'The Florida Project,' Schnabel's 'At Eternity's Gate') reinforcing that his experimental-theater roots continue to anchor his most acclaimed work.
