Dafoe: "I don't think people want to see me as a regular guy. Besides, I'm a regular guy in real life. I guess I just want to be reckless in my work."

Dafoe: “Of course the devil could tempt me. What he could offer me would be that state where you disappear into an action. When you disappear into doing. It's the sensation that I seek over and over again. When you're in motion and doing something and the world drops away and you become that thing. I would take that if I could sustain that forever.”

Dafoe: “For pleasure and survival, I have to mix it up... It's always changing. I'm changing. The target keeps moving. That's the beauty of it."

Dafoe: "I think on some level, you do your best things when you're a little off-balance, a little scared. You've got to work from mystery, from wonder, from not knowing."

Dafoe: "I’m social. I love people. I like being in a group, making something. Maybe it’s coming from a big family, I don’t know. When we were kids, if we had to clean the house, we’d all get together and, this sounds too cute, but this is the root of this shit—we’d get together and someone would pretend it was a televised thing. They’d give a play by play, and we were called The McDafoes. 'Now Diane is cleanin’ the counter, and she’s really doin’ a great job.' Everything turned into a game."

Dafoe: "I never act. I simply bring out the real animal that's in me."

Dafoe: "I’ve thought about murder many times. I have dreams about murders. I haven’t done it yet because I don’t think it’s my talent. I’d get caught. I’m the guy that if I’ve got some food in my luggage and I get stopped at customs, sweat breaks out on my forehead. I’m not the murdering type. I’m not a natural killer."

Dafoe: "The stuff that shaped me was anti-established, anti-polished kind of performance. It wasn’t about being a professional actor, it was about f*cking around. There was a real love for a kind of roughness and directness, the kind of amateur aesthetic that I grew up with when I first hit New York. I think a little bit of that stayed with me."

Dafoe: "I'm no different to anyone else; I want people to like me. I just don't particularly want them to understand me."

Dafoe: "Let me be an old crank. The information and technology world is a false freedom. It’s really dragging us down. You go out to dinner and everybody is on their phones. We’ve lost contact with each other. It’s hard enough to fight the lockstep to the grave. Now this is helping us because it’s harder and harder to have original thinking."

Dafoe: "I try to attach myself to people who really inspire me, and directors who are really passionate. That way, I can give myself more fully and trust the impulse behind why the film is being made, and I can be a little more irresponsible in finding out what the character is."

Dafoe: "Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can't. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth."

Dafoe: "Weirdness is not my game. I'm just a square boy from Wisconsin."

Dafoe: “[This person] is never happier than when [they're] off on an adventure, learning new skills in some far-flung place. [They're a person] of action who likes to do his own stunts; and, even while just padding through the bush, there's a natural grace to [their] movements, like a gymnast or a circus performer… During our conversation, [they] stretches and shifts about on his chair like [they'd] rather be doing yoga or tightrope walking.”

Dafoe: "There's a real wisdom to not saying a thing."

[On being aware of the visual language of films he works on]

Dafoe: "That sounds restrictive, but it’s quite good because for us as performers it offers clear structure and a clear understanding of what we had to do."

Dafoe: "I played a polar bear glove puppet for Birds Eye Fish Fingers. The ad agency said: 'He may only be a glove puppet but he needs integrity.' When they first pitched the idea to me it sounded really cool. I thought it was going to be an animated polar bear, inside this refrigerator, scolding people. But when I saw the glove puppet… that was a head-scratcher. I guess people found the charm in it. That’s not my main work."

Dafoe: "Nobody ever talks about how most actors are full of fear, because the target is always moving. If you’re smart you keep on playing the same, doing the same shtick. If you really put yourself out there… It’s always risky."

Dafoe: "Some people think I’m quite odd looking. Some think I’m handsome. Some people think I’m ugly. What can I say?"

Dafoe: "The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren't passionate about what they're doing."

Dafoe: "Magic happens in people’s heads. Yes, there’s intention, and yes, the directors and the producers have an idea about what they’re trying to convey, but as an actor, I think you have to be a little wilder than that. That’s why it’s so nice that I’m old-fashioned, that I like that theater experience of having a bunch of people in a dark room together with strangers. It’s very important because the way you create the story is different than if you’re sitting at home."

Dafoe: "I’m happiest when I’m in nature. I mean, deeply in nature. It allows you to forget and join the bigger picture. My favourite landscape is jungle down to water. My dream is to wear flipflops, boxer shorts and a vest all day."

Dafoe: "Keep your mouth shut and listen. That is the best piece of advice I have been given."

Dafoe: "Refinement sometimes breaks things down, and becomes a show of your prowess. But there’s something to be said for controlling. Performing is always about those two extremes, the control and the abandon. I don’t think people know a lot about what goes into performance. It’s so subjective. One man’s over-the-top, crazy performance is another man’s committed performance. Another person’s natural, rooted performance is another person’s walk-through, lazy performance. You just gotta dress yourself and serve the director, and serve the world that you’re in."

Dafoe: "I set myself challenges every time I work. Ideally I approach everything as though it's the first time - with a beginner's mind and an amateur's love."

Dafoe: "I'm not attracted to naturalism, I'm not attracted to behavior, I'm attracted to dance. I'm attracted to gesture, I'm attracted to singing with your voice, as opposed to having a natural manner. I'm a theater actor first, so that probably influences a lot of my approach. And I think in many ways, naturalism has ruined movies."

Dafoe: "I don't interpret, I do… I feel more comfortable with the word 'performer'. I like being the thing. I like being the doer. There's a factualness to it. And then certain resonances happen out of how you apply yourself physically."

Dafoe: "Film is fragmented and gets into lots of other people's hands. There are a lot of pleasures that theatre gives me. You get to perform uninterrupted."

Dafoe: "I was born in 1955, in Appleton, Wisconsin – primarily a paper mill town. I grew up with Eisenhower. It was a Republican kind of area. It wasn’t a bad upbringing. People were hardworking and good, but I always had the sense there was a bigger world out there that I would feel more comfortable in. I knew, even as a child."

Dafoe: "I've never had any close male friends. The most important relationships in my life have always been with women."

Dafoe: "I’ve got a pretty distinctive look. So I’m not very often confused with people but the couple of times I have they’re always good people that I like. Often older African American women see me on the street and go: [shrieks] 'Oh! Mick Jagger!'"

Dafoe: "Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action."

Dafoe: "My closest friends are women. My mother and father worked a lot, so my five sisters raised me. All but one is older than me. They gave me a lot of good advice and trained me well. I think that makes me more appreciative of women. But I’m not going to say I understand women because of that, or that I have some special insight. I’m not gonna brag."

Dafoe: "The truth is, if you're around long enough, you have a story about everyone. But it's best to keep your mouth shut sometimes."

Dafoe: "You have to lose yourself to find yourself."