Willem Dafoe talks ‘The Florida Project’ and Oscar buzz over his performance
There's big time Oscar-buzz around Willem Dafoe.
— -- There's big-time Oscar buzz around Willem Dafoe for his role in the new film "The Florida Project." And Dafoe is owning it.
"To be honest, it sounds good to me," Dafoe said in a recent appearance on "Popcorn With Peter Travers. "This a small movie. I hope it gets seen."
Dafoe plays a manager at a motel along a strip in Central Florida, close to the newly-rising Disney World amusement park.
"Those motels were budget motels for tourists for many years," Dafoe said. "And after the financial crash and the housing crisis, a lot of people had trouble finding homes, ones that they could make the rent. So they had to find a way to live. And one of the ways they would live, is they’d go to these cheap motels and live there (with) many people in the room. And what happens is they become temporary, longtime residents. It’s a way for them to survive, but not a very satisfying way."
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Dafoe, 62, told Travers his character, Bobby, is just the average guy in the neighborhood.
"Bobby is a guy who is the manager, a quite normal, working-class guy. He’s not that different than the people in the motel. He’s just got a job and a paycheck ahead of him. And his job is to run the motel, to run it smoothly. He’s a good-hearted guy but he’s limited. He has to wear lots of hats. He’s a complex character because he has to deal with people in many different ways," said Dafoe.
"The Florida Project" is in theaters everywhere.
Be sure to watch the full interview with Peter Travers and Willem Dafoe in the video above.
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