[18] His role, that of a cockfighter who works for Jeff Bridges' character, was removed from a majority of the film during editing but was visible during a cockfight scene. [5] For Ellen's singing voice, he combined the voices of Laurie Sargent and Holly Sherwood, billing them as Fire Inc. He studied theatre at the University of Wisconsin but left school to join Theater X, an experimental Wisconsin-based theatre troupe with which Dafoe toured for four years. Streets of Fire is a 1984 American neo-noir rock musical film directed by Walter Hill and co-written by Hill and Larry Gross. "So we had the approval of sort of picking the person that Francis Ford Coppola picked. It's such a hard-shelled picture that it barely has moods. [97] Dafoe had a supporting role in Spike Lee's 2006 crime thriller Inside Man, playing a veteran captain of the NYPD Emergency Services Unit helping with a hostage negotiation during a bank heist on Wall Street. Um, there were a couple of things in the narrative that I felt went out that probably should have stayed in. We look back at the cult classic '80s rock and roll fable, Streets of Fire. The group, along with the Sorels, ditch the bus and take a train back to the Richmond. "Don't ask me how to act! [12] Dafoe soon joined the new company and is credited as one of its co-founders. Gross says they wanted Daryl Hannah but were unable to do a deal in time. It was made at Universal, so they owned the rights to the story. Tom goes to the hotel where Ellen and Billy are staying to collect his reward, but he takes only McCoy's cut and throws the rest back at Billy. I really freaked out. [36] It was filmed on location at Auschwitz, the first major film to do so. [173] Owen Gleiberman of Variety said "Both actors are sensational (and they work together like one), but in terms of sheer showboating power its Dafoes movie. He played a tormented T.S. He made his film debut in Heaven's Gate (1980), but was fired during production and was uncredited despite one of his scenes making it into the final cut of the film. [35] Dafoe starred in the drama Triumph of the Spirit in 1989 as Jewish Greek boxer Salamo Arouch, an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate who was forced to fight other internees to death for the Nazi officers' entertainment. The structural advantage of the old studio system we didn't have. [149], In May 2014, Dafoe served as member of the main competition jury at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Didn't know how to shoot music. ", "Light Sleeper Movie Review & Film Summary (1992)", "Did She Use Her Body As a Murder Weapon? [93] It was largely panned by critics, although Dafoe stated he did not regret appearing in the film. In the drama Pavilion of Women, he played an American priest living in China who falls in love with a local married woman (played by the film's screenwriter Luo Yan) while giving her son a Western education. [195], Dafoe is a pescetarian, citing his belief that "animal farms are one of the main causes of the destruction of the planet". That said, he's still a pretty impressive physical specimen, and he often takes on roles where he needs to portray an intimidating. [79] Steven Scaife at Vice wrote that Dafoe's Goblin "represents everything thats fun about superhero villains, as well as everything thats great about Raimi's campy films", also commending Dafoe's voice and body language, which helped overcome the bulky Green Goblin costume that he compared to that of a Power Rangers villain. [10] His surname, Dafoe, is the English version of the Swiss surname Thvou. More impressive. And I felt, as I watched the post-production process going on, I just saw the film getting better and better. Those are two very successful movies that figured out how to do the stylization with the appropriate amount of gore that they hooked the audience. Because I wanted to be on that stage singing with those guysBut back then I always played those quirky characters. Gross says that Jeff Berg (Walter's agent), Larry Gordon and Michael Eisner, head of production at Paramount, "got into some kind of a fight when the script was finished. "Walter really liked the idea because it had Tom Cody winning at all costs." [91][92] Dafoe co-starred in XXX: State of the Union (2005), an action film sequel starring Ice Cube in which Dafoe played a US Secretary of Defense attempting a coup d'tat against the President of the United States. [111] In his final release of 2008, Dafoe starred in the Greek drama The Dust of Time as an American film director of Greek descent making a film his mother's (played by Irne Jacob) life. [169][170] He later played Nuidis Vulko in a leading role in James Wan's 2018 film Aquaman. The light in The Battery was contrasting and harsh, with vivid colors. Reply . Billy tries to get rid of the corrupt police officers by bribing them, but Tom and McCoy have to resort to holding the police at gunpoint and shooting up their vehicles. There was tremendous love and confidence. Eliot coping with his wifes emotional disintegration in Tom and Viv (1994) and appeared in The English Patient (1996), an adaptation of the novel by Michael Ondaatje. Perhaps his best-known role was as Sgt. Gross published a diary from the shoot of 48 Hours which had an entry dated 12 August 1982, the night before filming on that movie started: Walter presents me with a page of notes he's prepared for a new script. [116] During an interview with L Magazine, it was revealed Dafoe had a stand in for scenes where his character's penis was on screen as his own was too big. That idea of a totally artificial universe. Streets of Fire was a big picture for me, and I was overwhelmed. [5] An additional district, Ardmore, also appears in the film, but it may be a separate municipality as it is not prefaced with "the". We're gonna have to re-build the Wiltern Theater, which they had taken down, it was a million dollars to re-do the ending and I felt all his hostility for Universal. And I thought that we had done what we set out to do. I'm a director!" In 1977 he moved to New York City and joined the Performance Group. "[25], Gary Arnold wrote in The Washington Post that as "romantic leads, Par and Lane are pretty much a washout", and that "most of the action climaxes are treated as such throwaways that you begin to wonder if they bored the director. married to Giada Colagrande (2005present), This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Willem-Dafoe, Turner Classic Movies - Biography of Willem Dafoe. He said, Jimmy Iovine. I later realized or talked to people about this and MGM in the old days everybody was on contract and they would rehearse for weeks. Weirdos."[16]. The Ardmore Police roadblock was filmed near 6th street in East Los Angeles, near the flood basin. Streets of Fire Retrospective: It Rocks! Michael Pare - YouTube [141] The game polarized reviewers, although Dafoe and Page's performance were widely praised.