Willem Dafoe is the new Artistic Director of the Theatre Biennale

Dafoe, a native of Appletown, Wisconsin, the seventh of eight children, took acting classes at the University of Wisconsin and in 1975, at the age of 19, joined the avant-garde theatre group Theatre X, a formation inspired by Living Theatre and Grotowski, with whom he performed in Peter Handke's Insults to the Audience and in many of director and artistic director John Schneider's plays. With the group he participated in important tournaments, both in the United States and Europe. In particular, in '76 he was at the Mickery Theatre in Amsterdam, a pivot of the international alternative scene. From here he made the leap to New York, where in 1977 he founded the theatre company The Wooster Group, which he founded together with director Elizabeth LeCompte - with whom he would have a son named Jack in 1982 - and actors Ron Vawter, Kate Valk, Jim Clayburgh and Peyton Smith. In the 1980s he was a protagonist of the New York underground scene and collaborated with numerous artists, including Richard Foreman, Trisha Brown, Steve Buscemi and the Oscar-winning Frances McDormand.

The founder of 'ontological-hysterical' theatre, Richard Foreman, called him for Miss Universal Happiness (1985) and The Idiot Savant (2009). Bob Wilson for The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic (2011). For Romeo Castellucci, Willem Dafoe will star in The Shepherd's Black Veil (2016).

"Surprised and happy," Willem Dafoe comments

"I was first surprised and then delighted to receive Pietrangelo Buttafuoco's invitation as Director of the Venice Biennale International Theatre Festival 2025-2026," commented Dafoe, who is married to actress, director and screenwriter Giada Colagrande from Pescara. "I am aware that I am known as a film actor but I was born in the theatre, the theatre formed me and shook me. I am a stage animal. I am an actor. Theatre educated me in art and life. I have worked with the Wooster Group for twenty-seven years, I have worked with great directors from Richard Foreman to Bob Wilson. The direction of my theatre programme will be traced by my personal training. A kind of exploration of the essence of the body".

Body control and the film career

Body control is one of the most incisive factors of success on the big screen. Big hits include Oliver Stone's 1986 Platoon as Sergeant Elias, The Last Temptation of Christ and Mississippi Burning - The Roots of Hate directed by Alan Parker (1988).

Some of the great directors he has worked with include David Lynch, Paul Schrader, Julian Schnabel, David Cronenberg, Sam Raimi for Spiderman, Wes Anderson, Lars von Trier, Spike Lee, Zhang Yimou and Yorgos Lanthimos in Poor Creatures and the latest Kinds of Kindness, recently presented at Cannes.

This year we will see him in the cast of the opening film of the 81st Venice Film Festival in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. Despite many nominations, Dafoe has never won an Oscar or a Golden Globe. Venice awarded him the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor in 2019 for Julian Schnabel's Van Gogh - On the Threshold of Eternity.

Today, the artist reciprocates the Lido's affection with mutual satisfaction.