Spider-Man: No Way Home’s Willem Dafoe Had One Condition For Returning As Green Goblin

Spider-Man: No Way Home star Willem Dafoe was only going to return as the Green Goblin under one condition. In a conversation with Mulderville, the actor spoke about his desire to do all the action scenes. As a veteran of this franchise, some might have expected him to come in and just let the CGI do all the work. But, the 66-year-old wouldn’t hear of it. He believes having that visceral nature is key in people being able to buy the character. A lot of people would argue that the Goblin is the key Spider-Man villain. Not only in No Way Home but in the entire comics run. Dafoe wasn’t just going to waltz in and let these younger actors do all the work. In fact, the way the rest of the cast talks about the longest-tenured villain in the movie, it sounds like audiences are in for a treat whenever the Goblin waltzes on-screen. Check out the full scale of his reasoning down below.

“To do this physical stuff was important to me,” Dafoe began. “In fact, one of the first things I said to Jon [Watts] and Amy [Pascal], basically when they pitched it to me before there was even a script was, ”listen, I don’t want to just pop in there as a cameo or just fill in in close-ups. I want to do the action because that’s fun for me.’ Also, it’s really impossible to add any integrity or any fun to the character if you don’t participate in these things. Because all of that action stuff informs your relationships to the characters and the story. It makes you earn your right to play the character, in a funny way.”

Current Spider-Man Tom Holland previously spoke about his excitement to be acting alongside all of these accomplished performers in this film. It’s clear he has the utmost respect for Dafoe, Alfred Molina, and Jamie Foxx.

 “Walking on set, playing this character, we’re here with Spider-Man: No Way Home, and I’m established and I know what I’m doing,” Holland told ComicBookMovie. “All of a sudden, I’m thrown this curveball of fighting villains from the Raimi Universe. It was crazy. I mean, I had so many ‘pinch me’ moments where I’d be standing there looking at Alfred doing scenes with him and I really had to kind of take myself out of it and kind of focus as an actor rather than a fan because I was freaking out inside.”

Are you excited to finally see what the Green Goblin is up to? Let us know down in the comments!