Willem Dafoe and the Role That Found Him

Willem Dafoe was given an obscure 1895 novella by Arthur Schnitzler. A friend told him he should read it because he thought there was a movie role in it for him. Dafoe read the story, liked it, and began thinking about finding out who owned the film rights.

What he did not know was that the process was already underway. A screenplay existed. Killer Films was preparing the project, Late Fame, with director Kent Jones.

Then came the coincidence.

Dafoe happened to run into Jones, whom he knew through the New York Film Festival. The two found themselves sitting next to each other on a flight. They talked throughout the trip, catching up on their lives and work. Yet neither mentioned Schnitzler, Late Fame, or the possibility of Dafoe playing its central character.

Two days later, Jones called Dafoe and offered him the role.

Dafoe’s response to the remarkable convergence was wonderfully simple: “I think it’s called kismet.”

From the perspective of meaningful coincidences, the sequence deserves attention. One pathway began with a friend giving Dafoe a century-old novella and suggesting that its central role suited him. An apparently independent pathway was already moving through the filmmakers who were preparing that same story for the screen. Then Dafoe and the director were unexpectedly brought together on a flight—without either realizing that the same project was already connecting them.

The significance does not depend upon proving that some invisible force arranged the events. The coincidence itself is enough to provoke curiosity. How did these independent pathways converge so precisely around the same person, story, and moment?

And Dafoe did something essential: he noticed.

Meaningful coincidences can draw our attention toward relationships and possibilities we did not know were developing. They may encourage us to look again at a person, an opportunity, a decision, or a direction our lives are taking. But they do not relieve us of judgment.

Meaningful coincidences are suggestions, not demands.

Dafoe still had to decide whether to accept the role. The coincidence did not make the decision for him. It offered something much more interesting: a remarkable convergence worth noticing.

Source note: Based on Willem Dafoe’s interview with Scott Simon on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday about the film Late Fame. This article summarizes and comments upon a small portion of the interview for the purpose of examining meaningful coincidence. Copyright in the original interview and transcript remains with the respective rights holders.