Who

Dafoe is the weirdly compelling, Oscar-nominated character actor who has played everyone from Jesus Christ to the Green Goblin.

Backstory

The son of a doctor and a nurse, Dafoe grew up in Appleton, Wis., and left college early to join an experimental theater troupe. He toured the country with the group for four years before moving to New York in 1977. Shortly after arriving in the city, Dafoe met Elizabeth LeCompte who, despite being a decade his senior, became his girlfriend; the two formed the Wooster Group and began putting on off-Broadway plays. Dafoe's theater experience helped him land small parts on screen, first as an extra in 1980's Heaven's Gate, and later in films like The Loveless, Streets of Fire, and To Live and Die in L.A., which also starred a young John Turturro. His big break came in 1986 with Oliver Stone's Platoon—he was nominated for an Academy Award for his role. He's worked steadily since, never quite making it to A-list status but turning in solid performances as diverse as deranged bank robber Bobby Peru in Wild at Heart and as Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ.

Of note

Dafoe isn't what you'd call conventionally handsome and he doesn't get mobbed by autograph seekers when he picks up a latte at Starbucks, but he's loved by directors and producers in search of someone with serious acting chops. Over the last few years, he's been keeping particularly busy: He raised his profile with a memorably creepy performance as the Green Goblin in 2002's Spiderman and as a pervert named John Carpenter in Auto Focus; in 2004, he played a needy oceanographer in Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic. He added five films to his resume in 2007, including Spiderman 3 and Mr. Bean's Holiday, and will have added five more to his resume by the end of 2008, including the Holocaust drama Adam Resurrected and Fireflies in the Garden with Julia Roberts and Ryan Reynolds. Despite his regular film roles, he hasn't ditched his first love, theater, and has performed in Wooster Group productions like 2001's North Atlantic with Steve Buscemi and 2006's To You, The Birdie, with Frances McDormand.

Personal

Dafoe's relationship with Elizabeth LeCompte lasted 27 years. In 2004, he ditched the director to pursue the much-younger Italian director Giada Colagranda, with whom he collaborated on the 2004 film The Widow's Lover for the Venice Film Festival. Dafoe and Colagranda made their union official in 2005, and now live in a townhouse on Perry Street. Dafoe has a grown son, Jack, a public policy researcher, from his marriage to LeCompte.

No joke

Dafoe's real first name is William. He reportedly changed it to Willem—the Dutch spelling—so people wouldn't call him Bill or Billy.