Willem Dafoe‘s role in Speed 2: Cruise Control is often seen as a meme-worthy role, but it’s something the legendary actor stands by to this day.
Dafoe recently participated in a video for Variety where he guessed some of his most notable lines, and the first was from the 1997 sequel. Dafoe joked that his reception is often seen as over the top, but he swears he isn’t trying to be extra, so much so that his face is just very expressive.
“A lot of people give me a hard time about that,” Dafoe said of his role in Speed 2: Cruise Control.”They tease me about the size of my performance, that it was over the top. But I swear to God, I stand by that performance because there was no other way to do it. I’ve got a pretty flexible face, an expressive face.
“And I don’t censor it, I let it do its thing. I don’t put on faces, but I know for a fact that my face can do some really extreme things. And so when you freeze it into a meme, yeah, you can get a lot of laughs out. That’s for sure.”
Although performances might not land, Dafoe still stands by it
In the 1997 film, Dafoe stars as John Geiger, a former employee of a cruise company that hacks into a ship’s computer system and sabotages it in an effort to steal jewelry and other items.
Dafoe continued that sometimes, when you do a movie, a performance might not get the reaction he wants for a variety of reasons, but that he stands by his role in Speed 2 nonetheless.
“Sometimes you do things and people just aren’t ready for them, or it’s the wrong time, or the context is wrong, maybe I misread it. But for my money, I stand by that movie.”