Willem Dafoe Defends His SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL Performance - "I Stand By That Performance"

Willem Dafoe‘s villainous role in Speed 2: Cruise Control is so wonderfully over-the-top! A lot of people aren’t fans of his performance, a lot of people aren’t fans of that film. But, damn, that role is pure Dafoe and I love it! Do you know who else loves it? The actor!

Dafoe recently participated in a video for Variety where he defends his performance and explains why he stands by it, saying:

“A lot of people give me a hard time about that. 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.”

Dafoe went on to say that sometimes, when you do a movie, a performance might not get the reaction he wants for a variety of reasons, but with Speed 2, he;’s happy with it:

“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.”

Speed 2: Cruise Control was released in 1997 and the action thriller was directed by Jan de Bont and is a sequel to the popular 1994 movie Speed. The film stars Sandra Bullock, reprising her role as Annie, and Jason Patric as her love interest, Alex.

In this movie, Annie is now in a relationship with Alex, a fellow police officer. They find themselves aboard a luxury cruise ship taken over by a vengeful computer hacker named John Geiger, played by Dafoe. Geiger has disabled the ship's navigation system and set it on a collision course with an oil tanker. Annie and Alex must work together to stop Geiger and save the ship's passengers from impending disaster.

What do you think about Dafoe’s performance in Speed 2: Cruise Control?