Willem Dafoe becomes four-time Oscar nominee with At Eternity’s Gate
On Feb. 24, winners will be crowned at the 91st Academy Awards. But before the red carpet is rolled out and envelopes are opened, Entertainment Weekly has inside intel on the 2019 nominees. Keep checking back at EW.com this week for spotlights on contenders in all the major categories.
Willem Dafoe
At Eternity’s Gate
Age: 63
Oscar past: 3 nominations, 0 wins
Role call: Vincent van Gogh, the renowned painter in the final years of his life as he grapples with mental illness and his muse
Biopics are often Oscar darlings, but Willem Dafoe offers a fresh canvas with his take on 19th-century master Vincent van Gogh, earning him his fourth Oscar nomination and second for Best Actor.
Directed by Julian Schnabel—a painter himself—At Eternity’s Gate privileges van Gogh’s own point-of-view. To tackle the role, Dafoe immersed himself in the artist’s life, learning to paint, reading his letters, and ultimately shooting on location in artistically recognizable landscapes.
“You’re not illustrating who you think van Gogh is: You’re communing [with] his memory and what he’s left behind,” Dafoe says of his elemental approach to the film, which required he pick up a paintbrush onscreen. “It all comes together in a swirl—a swirl of color, a swirl of light. It’s not naturalistic representation. But it captures the spirit…. [Van Gogh] thought art was a language; art was a way of seeing; art was a way of waking us up.”
Looks like the Oscar voters are awake.
See the full list of nominees here.
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Willem Dafoe makes Vincent van Gogh come alive in dreamy biopic At Eternity’s Gate: EW review
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