Willem Dafoe first played the Green Goblin in 2002's Spider-Man and reprised the role almost two decades later for Marvel Studios' Spider-Man: No Way Home. That appeared to be where Norman Osborn's story ended, though fans remain eager to see the actor suit up again.
In an interview with Empire Online, Dafoe was asked about the mostly negative response to the Green Goblin mask in the early 2000s and No Way Home immediately ditching that to focus on the actor's face.
That decision proved to be a genius one on Marvel Studios' part as it allowed Dafoe to bring the villain to life through his demented and often terrifying facial expressions. However, for the Nosferatu star, the role has always been about Norman.
"It was just a pleasure to return to that character. Just like the original, I like the fact that within a scene it could careen from being goofy comedy to drama to action. It has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. And it was a double role," he said. "Everybody concentrates on the Green Goblin, but that’s mostly action stuff. I like doing that, and I think I can do it gracefully."
"But the real meat in the first one is the guy without the mask, Norman Osborn. Those are the meaty scenes. So when people complain about the mask, it’s like, 'Come on.' The role is Norman," Dafoe continued. "And then in [No Way Home], we have a little bit more Norman, because part of the game is, you don’t know how much of the Green Goblin is back and how much it’s Norman. That’s the whole play."
In Spider-Man, the Goblin dies in a comic-accurate manner when he's impaled by his own glider. The actor has died in many of the movies he's starred in and admitted he gets a kick out of seeing himself perish in so many wildly inventive ways.
"I do. Because... it raises the stakes. Everyone, unless they’re asleep, has an imagination about their death. So when you’re in a little fiction, getting to play out this kind of fantasy of imagining a version of what could happen to you, even in these extreme cases, something about that experience is elevated. It’s not normal. It’s very specific and it’s personal, but it’s not you, because the circumstances are not of your life."
"So that’s where you’re really able to tap into that childlike imagination of playing cops and robbers. Because you have a stake, and some kind of understanding of the fear, the drama of dying. And you’ve thought about it, somehow. So then to enact it, even without any real risk or any real reality, is a beautiful exercise. I’m sure somewhere there are some rituals in various cultures where it’s done to help people prepare for their death."
Doing the rounds to promote Nosferatu earlier this month, Dafoe was asked if he could continue Norman's story in Marvel Studios' Spider-Man 4.
"We'll see. We'll see [Laughs]. I could come back," he teased. "Listen, Tom was great to work with and the whole series of Spider-Man films that I did were great fun. Great fun."
Would you like to see more of the Green Goblin in the MCU?