Willem Dafoe on Playing a Billionaire in ‘The Birthday Party’ and Not Being Afraid to Get Naked

Willem Dafoe on Playing a Billionaire in ‘The Birthday Party’ and Not Being Afraid to Get Naked

Willem Dafoe stars as a Greek billionaire in Miguel Ángel Jiménez‘s The Birthday Party, which celebrates its world premiere at the 78th edition of the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland on Thursday evening. 

His megalomaniacal shipping magnate may remind people of Aristotle Onassis, but Dafoe didn’t model his character after anyone specific, the star shared mid-day Thursday ahead of the movie’s debut during a press conference with his director and co-stars Vic Carmen Sonne (The Girl With the Needle), Emma Suárez, Joe Cole and Carlos Cuevas. 

“It being a film set in the ‘70s, and with some of his relationship with some political figures, I had to understand that kind of mindset, what the situation was about resources, about the shipping industry,” he said. “And those sorts of things brought me close to some people, but I didn’t think of a model for it.”

Continued Dafoe about getting into his character: “It’s funny because my life is very far away from his. But that’s one of the pleasures of being an actor. And sometimes I think it’s very important to go towards something, and in that going towards it, there’s an understanding that’s sometimes more interesting than if you lived it. So I kind of resisted and had enough to work with and enough to engage me that I didn’t feel the need to go read about … a figure that could have a symmetry.”

One journalist on Thursday congratulated Dafoe on looking fit in a scene showing him naked from behind and his chest from up front, asking if the production indeed didn’t use a body double. The actor replied that this is part of the work. “You don’t earn the right to be that person,” Dafoe said. “You have to commit to do all the things. And whether I’m fit or I’m not fit, that’s not the point. The point is to do those things. … It’s what you have to do to commit to being this person. Using your body as a huge part of performance.”

The Birthday Party, a co-production between Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, is getting one of the popular Locarno outdoor screenings on the Swiss town’s Piazza Grande square. 

Locarno78, which had opened on Wednesday evening, runs through Aug. 16.