NAMES IN THE NEWS : Dafoe Attracted by Struggle
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NEW YORK — Actor Willem Dafoe, who has portrayed a series of tortured souls in movies during the last six years, says he doesn’t look for those parts.
“I simply look for characters rich with possibility,” he said in an interview published Sunday in The New York Times. When considering a role, though, he said he always asks, “Is this character involved in a struggle?”
The struggles attract the 34-year-old actor, who stars in the new film “Triumph of the Spirit,” which took him to a Nazi concentration camp. He plays the role of a Greek Jew and champion boxer who survived incarceration by winning 200 bouts. The film opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles.
The $14-million movie was filmed on location at Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
Dafoe has also starred in “Platoon,” “Mississippi Burning” and “The Last Temptation of Christ.”
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