‘Poor Things’ could finally win Willem Dafoe that elusive Oscar

Jacob Sarkisian
·4 min read
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Critics are calling “Poor Things” the best movie of Yorgos Lanthimos‘ career. It tells the tale of Emma Stone as a young woman named Bella who, after being brought back to life by Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), must find her way in life in the Victorian era, all while being pursued by a madcap millionaire (Mark Ruffalo). Reviews have singled out Dafoe for his performance.

David Rooney (The Hollywood Reporter) observed: “Godwin is a physically grotesque man, a patchwork of scars and deformities, the result of inhuman experiments conducted by his fellow scientist father. Having no preconceived idea of beauty, Bella is the only person who never looked at him with horror or pity, making for poignant moments toward the end. It’s a great role for Dafoe.”

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Jonathan Romney (Screen Daily) noted: “It’s also rich in performances across the board, with Stone and an imposing weird Dafoe – his all-too-human anti-deity monstrous yet touchingly vulnerable – well supported.”

Richard Lawson (Vanity Fair) added: “Stone has sturdy support from her costars. Dafoe remains a master of eccentricity, while [Ramy] Youssef is winsome, sincere but not saintly.”

Dafoe’s role fits the bill of the sort of performances that often get nominated for Best Supporting Actor. It’s larger-than-life, playful, and has a certain darkness to it.

Plenty of other actors have reaped bids for similar performances, including Brendan Gleeson in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Richard E. Grant in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” and the 2018 winner Sam Rockwell in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”

The role is also a transformative one — Dafoe dons impressive make-up and prosthetics to transform into the part, which is, again, similar to past nominees. Rockwell (“Vice”), Stanley Tucci (“The Lovely Bones”), and Robert Downey Jr. (“Tropic Thunder”) are all past nominees who utilized make-up/prosthetics in their performances.

Three of the cast from Lanthimos’ last film, “The Favourite” were nominated: Rachel Weisz and Stone contended for Best Supporting Actress while Olivia Colman won Best Actress. Could Dafoe be the next to benefit from working with such a visionary director?

If he did, he would earn his fifth Oscar nomination overall and his fourth for Best Supporting Actor. He was first nominated in 1987 for Best Supporting Actor for “Platoon,” losing to Michael Caine for “Hannah and Her Sisters.” He was nominated in the same category in 2001 for “Shadow of the Vampire,” losing to Benicio del Toro for “Traffic.” He was nominated once more in 2018 for “The Florida Project” losing to Rockwell. Then, a year later in 2019, Dafoe earned his first Best Actor bid — for “At Eternity’s Gate.” He lost that race to Rami Malek, who won for “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Dafoe may well find himself in competition with his co-star, Ruffalo. This category often sees multiple actors from the same film cited, including in each of the last four years. In 2020, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci were nominated for “The Irishman.” In 2021, Daniel Kaluuya won for “Judas and the Black Messiah” while his co-star, LaKeith Stanfield, was also nominated. In 2022, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jesse Plemons were nominated for “The Power of the Dog.” And, last year, Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan were nominated for “The Banshees of Inisherin.” Dafoe was even a beneficiary of this pattern himself when he was nominated alongside “Platoon” co-star Tom Berenger in 1987.

Dafoe is behind Ruffalo in our odds chart at this time of writing. Ruffalo is in fourth spot in our Best Supporting Actor odds chart, just ahead of John Magaro (“Past Lives”). Robert Downey Jr. (“Oppenheimer”), Ryan Gosling (“Barbie”), and Robert De Niro (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) are ahead of him. Dafoe, meanwhile, is in eighth place in our odds chart. Charles Melton (“May December”) and Colman Domingo (“The Color Purple”) are both ahead of him.

If he did manage to earn that nomination, however, he would match the record for most Best Supporting Actor nominations of all time. The record is currently four nominations and seven actors, including Jack Nicholson, Jeff Bridges, and Al Pacino, sit on that number. Dafoe (and Ruffalo, who could also match that record if he gets nominated) sits on three, the same number as the likes of Joe Pesci, Tommy Lee Jones, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Peter Ustinov, and Gene Hackman. Can Dafoe make the step up? Let’s wait and see.

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