Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/John Nacion/Zentropa/Lucky Red
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Weird
Ella Scott
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Weird
A beloved director once denied Willem Dafoe the chance to get his penis out on screen as it was way too ‘enormous’.
It’s been more than four decades since Dafoe, 69, made his feature film debut in Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate.
Since then, the icon has starred in various Wes Anderson outputs, portrayed Vulko in the DC Extended Universe and most recently appeared in Yorgos Lanthimos’ anthology film, Kinds of Kindness.
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Over the years Dafoe has enjoyed branching out from blockbusters and has starred in various arthouse films such as Lars von Trier’s Antichrist.
In the 2009 movie, the father-of-one portrayed an unnamed married man simply credited as ‘he’ alongside Charlotte Gainsbourg’s ‘She’.
If you’ve ever seen the dark project then you’ll know there’s quite a bit of nudity involved.
However, it may interest you to know that Von Trier didn’t allow Dafoe to get his actual penis out for the nude scenes and instead employed a stand-in actor.
In a 2009 interview with The Boston Phoenix, the acclaimed director claimed the star was ‘so large’ that it ‘left people confused’ - prompting him to bring in another body.
“As for Dafoe… he has an enormous d**k. We had to take those scenes out of the film,” he explained.
“We had a stand-in for him because we had to take the scenes out with his own d**k.”
When asked to elaborate on the decision, Von Trier said: “We had to, because Will’s was too big.”
The director was quizzed further by the publication on whether Defoe’s penis had been too big to fit on the screen, which the director denied.
“No, too big because everybody got very confused when they saw it.”
Earlier this week, Dafoe made headlines after being cast to voiceover a Nike commercial ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Opening the advert, titled ‘Winning isn’t for everyone’, the Spider-Man actor candidly asks: “Am I a bad person?” before clips featuring Sophia Smith, Kylian Mbappe and Sha’Carri Richardson play out.
Over the athletic montage, Dafoe reads out a list of character traits that some would deem negative but are often highly sought after in athletic spaces.
"I have no empathy," Dafoe says before laughing and delivering the line, "I don't respect you!”
He later asks again: “Am I a bad person? Tell me, am I?” before the words ‘Winning isn’t for everyone’ appear on the screen.
After watching the motivational clip, fans took to social media to have their say.
One wrote: “This is so awesome, Dafoe is a legend.”
“Willem Dafoe ATE UP that narration on the Nike Olympics commercial,” typed another.
“That Willem Defoe Nike commercial gets me so hype,” commented someone else.