It’s nothing short of a travesty that Willem Dafoe hasn’t yet been bestowed with an Academy Award, but maybe this can be rectified with Spider-Man: No Way Home. Reprising the role of Green Goblin he’d previously played in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, Dafoe was rather exceptional in the new film. In fact, the actor delivered such a standout performance that many fans are calling for him to get the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
“Not that anyone cares but I honestly think Willem Dafoe deserves an Oscar for that NWH performance,” one fan said on Twitter. “It was absolutely phenomenal. And that’s still an understatement.”
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“I don’t care what your opinion is of superhero movies but William Dafoe deserves an Oscar for his performance as Norman Osborn/Green Goblin,” writes another fan left impressed with Dafoe’s return.
Including some photos of Dafoe’s role reprisal, another tweet reads: “NWH is definitive proof that Willem Dafoe deserves an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.”
Even those who feel the rest of Spider-Man: No Way Home is not quite Oscar-worthy want to see Dafoe get the win. As one person said, “I loved nwh so much but the only thing from it that deserves an oscar is willem dafoe’s acting, nothing else.”
Indeed, No Way Home benefitted greatly from including Dafoe. Everyone on the set also had a lot to learn from the veteran actor. Speaking with Marvel about the experience, Zendaya described Dafoe as a professional who was able to switch from the kind person he is in reality to his sinister character so easily that it actually “scared” everyone else on the set.
“Scared the hell out of everyone, to be honest,” she said. “The coolest thing is that everyone’s so lovely, and then they just play these very evil characters. He’s so good at just like, just being lovely— you know, ‘Hey how are you?’ And then, [mimics Green Goblin voice,] like whoa.”
Impressed with Dafoe’s abilities as an actor, Tom Holland added: “I’ve never worked with an actor who was able to give a director so many options. He has this one speech in the film where he’s talking about Peter’s kind of existential crisis. He must have done the scene 30 times and they were all different.”
Kevin Feige has suggested that there’s a “bias” against superhero movies at the Academy Awards, and many Marvel fans would agree with that assessment. As we saw with Black Panther, however, there are Marvel movies that can get Oscar recognition. It’s been reported that Marvel will push for Spider-Man: No Way Home to be considered for awards, but it remains to be seen how many, if any, nominations the acclaimed movie will receive at the next ceremony.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is now playing in movie theaters everywhere. Directed by Jon Watts, the sequel also stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, J.K. Simmons, Jamie Foxx, and Alfred Molina. You can take a look at some of the other tweets calling for Willem Dafoe to win an Oscar for his role in the film below.
