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Finding Nemo (2003)Īn inspired bit of voice casting that gave Dafoe his biggest box office result to date. Please enjoy this Esquire shoot that will make you think things about Willem Dafoe. I mean, I get it? Is it OK to say that? Because I totally do. How big are we talking here, honey? It’s extremely impolite to ask, I know, but at what point does a c*ck become ‘confusingly large’?
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I’m trying to imagine the moment where Lars Von Trier, the guy who made Dogville and Dancer in the Dark, one of modern cinema’s most notorious nihilists and general abusive sh*tbags, watching Willem Dafoe drop his trousers, freaking out, then calling for the more moderately sized double. INTERVIEWER: When he ejaculates blood, that was uh. INTERVIEWER: People would get intimidated. LVT: (laughs) No, too big because everybody got very confused when they saw it. INTERVIEWER: Too big to fit in the screen? LVT: Yes, yes, we had to have, because Will’s own was too big. INTERVIEWER: Hold on - You had a stand-in dick? You had to have a stand-in d*ck for Dafoe? And we had to kind of take the scenes out of the film, we had a stand-in for him, we had to take the scenes out with his own d*ck. LARS VON TRIER: He has an enormous d*ck, but that maybe I took also… he’s extremely well-equipped. And warning for general below-the-belt discomfort):
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The ever-candid von Trier, a man never known to mince his words, explained in an interview with The Boston Phoenix while they chose to use a nudity stand-in for Dafoe (spoilers for the movie, I guess. There’s nudity, very full-on sex, and poor Dafoe’s privates take a beating. While beloved by many critics and featuring a startlingly brave performance by Charlotte Gainsbourg, Antichrist is most infamous for its scenes of graphic sexuality. Way back in 2009, Danish director Lars von Trier was promoting Antichrist, one of his tougher-to-stomach films.
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But did you know that he’s also packing a serious piece of equipment? One that’s so foreboding that it unsettled one of the most unnerving directors of our era? Yeah, we’re going there. His career is storied, his collaborations with friends like Abel Ferrara iconic, and his face inimitable. Remember when he didn’t win the Oscar for The Florida Project? Because that loss bloody haunts me. Who else could play Jesus Christ, the Green Goblin, an evil animated fox, a hard-drinking salty lighthouse keeper, and a vampire, AND still have time to strut the runway at fashion week? This man can. He’s one of our generation’s great character actors, a perennial supporting player who makes everything he’s in better through the sheer force of his presence.
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