Willem Dafoe is at the Venice Film Festival with two hats: he’s among the stars playing in the fest’s opener, Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” But he’s also busy at work as recently appointed artistic director of the theatre department at the Venice Biennale, the fest’s multidisciplinary parent organization. Dafoe spoke to Variety about how he’s tackling that challenge.
How did your appointment as artistic director of the Biennale theatre department come about? As I understand it, you got a call from Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco. Yes. He asked me if I’d be interested.
And then I basically asked what it entailed, and he told me, and I said: “Yes, this would be interesting. It would be a challenge. I will learn something.
It’s an honor.” I like the fact that he appreciates my background and recognizes that maybe we could program something interesting. Did you have any hesitation in accepting, given that Buttafuoco is a member of Italy’s far-right, though he’s known to be a non-conventional person and someone who thinks outside the box? I knew all of these things.
He was also a dear friend of mine, [late great Italian musician] Franco Battiato, and that gave me lots of confidence because Franco was a sweet guy, but he also would not suffer fools. And I got to know Pietrangelo a little bit. So it’s all about: I can separate things out somewhat, and I’m not to judge.
I mean, he asks me to do this thing, I asked about the amount o.