This strand runs deep

WILLEM DAFOE conjures up the image of coiled intensity. During his quarter of a century on screen, he’s played more than his share of villains and madmen. By his own admission, he was never “the boy next door.”

Starting out as an extra in the ill-fated “Heaven’s Gate,” the actor was cast as a postmodern heavy in 1985’s “To Live and Die in L.A.,” his breakthrough film, and nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar as the title character in 2000’s “Shadow of the Vampire.” He was also the Green Goblin in “Spider-Man” (a role that generated his own action doll), a kidnapper in “The Clearing” (2004) and a five-star general plotting to overthrow the government in Lee Tamahori’s “XXX: State of the Union,” currently before the cameras.

Over lunch at Zax in Brentwood, however, the actor reveals a softer side -- more salmon (“medium, please”) than red meat: He’s not the Christ-like soldier he played in “Platoon,” which earned him another best supporting actor nomination, nor the Savior himself, as in “The Last Temptation of Christ.” But in a town where the media and their prey are often at arm’s length, he was surprisingly chatty (“slow me down”) and reflective. Holding forth on topics such as the relationship between acting and life and the benefits of age, the actor undercuts his philosophical riffs with an easy, self-deprecating laugh.

The subject at hand: the Wes Anderson comedy “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” set to open in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 10. In it, Dafoe takes on the unlikely role of Klaus, a German engineer to Bill Murray’s pot-smoking, Jacques Cousteau-type oceanographer -- a man in search of the jaguar shark that devoured his best friend.

Costarring with Dafoe: Cate Blanchett as a very pregnant reporter, Owen Wilson as Murray’s long-lost son, Anjelica Huston as Murray’s disaffected wife, and Jeff Goldblum as her former husband. They all act as if they’re capable when they haven’t got a clue, explains Dafoe: It’s a “portrait of pretension.”

Working with Anderson (“Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums”) was part of the appeal, he added. And the physicality of the role -- shimmying up to a crow’s nest, diving into the water -- was another draw. Acting, like athletics, is a blend of abandonment and control, Dafoe notes, and sedentary characters are of less interest.

While Klaus was a comic departure for him, he identified with the character.

“We share an earnestness -- and loyalty,” Dafoe says. “Like him, part of me is a blowhard. Part of me is a bully. Klaus comes off as an egomaniac but what he really wants is acceptance and love ...”

And Dafoe? “I ain’t saying, I ain’t saying,” the actor retorts, munching on his radicchio salad.

ROME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

Dressed in a black V-neck sweater and faded jeans, Dafoe looks less Hollywood and more downtown Manhattan, his adopted home.

A high school dropout, the Wisconsin native headed east in the mid-1970s and joined New York City’s avant-garde Wooster Group. Without being “gossipy,” he says, he feels compelled to note that there’s been a “bit of an adjustment” on that front. Last winter, a 27-year live-in relationship with Wooster’s artistic director, Elizabeth LeCompte, came to an end, and -- because their “personal lives and work are so intertwined,” he diluted his involvement with the troupe. The stage is still a passion. (“Theater is like having a monogamous relationship, while movies are like being with a different woman every night.”) He’ll act with them again. But when he’s not on a set, he’s in Rome.

Rome, he says, is where his heart is since encountering Italian director Giada Colagrande. Her “Aprimi Il Cuore” (Open My Heart), an explicit tale of love between two sisters, will be released in New York in December and Los Angeles the following month. The two of them are writing a project in which he plans to star.

“I’m very proud of her,” says a clearly smitten Dafoe. “Her work is shot very classically, very composed.”

It’s a brand new chapter, acknowledges the 49-year-old. Change is inherent in life, he says, alluding to one of his favorite books: Alan W. Watts’ “The Wisdom of Insecurity.” While he’s not someone who seeks it out, being a performer helps. Actors live in a variety of locations and establish deep, but transitory, bonds. Working in a collaborative medium, moreover, teaches them to let go: “It’s not all up to you,” he observes.

“It’s a contradiction,” Dafoe says. “To do what you need to do, you have to believe that you’re at the center of it all. But you also realize that you’re one aspect, one strand in a huge thing. Actors are seen as narcissistic but a lot of them deeply want to disappear into a role.”

Finding oneself by losing oneself is easier said than done, he concedes. “Someone once called me a ‘book Buddhist’ -- and they were half right. Just because I’m attracted to a certain kind of writing doesn’t mean that I live it.”

Not only ego but ambition, he says, rears its ugly head.

“I’m ambitious because I’m fearful,” he says. “It’s a fear that goes beyond wondering whether career -- and love -- will continue to the disconnectedness that is living. Part of the creative impulse is [to] tell stories that allow you to become more vital and fluid ... I’m most moved by stories of unexpected kindness, decency, people rising above obstacles -- or trying to. That’s my romantic side.”

His tough guy image, the actor maintains, is all about dollars and cents. Because movies cost so much, Hollywood seeks security, iconographic safety nets. The business regards him as an “outsider,” he says, someone who inhabits the margins. While he doesn’t envy a Harrison Ford who’s trapped in the spotlight, many of the prime roles go to box office “names” who’ve played those roles before.

REDUCING THINGS TO ESSENTIALS

Dafoe maintains that he’s rarely anyone’s first choice. Still, he’s not complaining. He’s rarely out of work -- whether on camera or on stage.

Though midrange films are disappearing, he says, the mix of studio and independent films serves him well. He’ll soon play a tabloid editor -- a cameo role -- in Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” due out Dec. 17. He’s also featured in Roger Spottiswoode’s upcoming “Mr. Ripley’s Return.” In 2005, he’ll be seen in Lars von Trier’s “Manderlay,” a tale about the exploitation of blacks in the American South, and as a doctor in Tim Hunter’s “Control.”

“I seem pretty happy,” he says. “Getting older feels good. Though a lot of actors get worse -- jaded, mannered, lazy; part of me is still a little kid. “Maybe it’s a trick that I play on myself or just the way my mind works, but every time I start out, I come from a place of not knowing.... I ask myself, ‘How do I do this?’ And because I always have my yoga mat, my body reduces things to essentials.”

His mantra? Identifying the action and getting as close to it as possible.

“Some actors get material that supports the persona they’ve made; some mold themselves to the material,” he says. “I aspire to be the latter. In the end, it’s important to reach. I don’t want to get sick of myself.”

Though it’s hard to confirm, conventional wisdom has it that Dafoe has had more death scenes than any other mainstream actor -- most notably in “Platoon” and “Last Temptation of Christ.”

“I’m practicing so that when the time comes, I’ll be really good at it,” he quips, taking a last sip of espresso. “That’s an ambition in itself. It’s depressing to think that someone will account for my life in terms of the movies I’ve done.”

His real fear is that he’ll die tomorrow -- and the world will say it has lost the Green Goblin.

“I guess there are worse things,” the actor concludes, heading out into the rain-soaked streets. Flashing one of those serpentine smiles, he implores: “Don’t make me sound pretentious.”