Willem Dafoe made Emma Stone slap him 20 times while filming 'And'

Actor Willem Dafoe is wholly dedicated to his craft. In And Dafoe astounded everyone with his commitment to authenticity.

Best known as Marvel supervillain Norman Osborn, Dafoe asked co-star Emma Stone to slap him in the face 20 times for an off-screen scene to make it appear more genuine, the actor divulged to The New York Times.

“That’s what you want from actors,” said director Yorgos Lanthimos about Dafoe being on set even when he was not in the shot. “To want to be part of it in any way.”

Speaking about the incident La La Land actress Emma Stone said:

“There’s this instinct to perform that many actors have — the ‘look at me, look at me!’ kind of performer.”

“He’s the opposite of that. Maybe it’s changed through the years. A lot of actors I bond with have been doing this for a long time, and you know they’ve gone from ‘I’ to ‘We.’”

Dafoe also detailed how his relationship with acting has changed over time. “Once you start working, you use that as a means to survive,” Dafoe said.

“And then…it becomes like a spiritual thing — to find your connection with all things.”

No release date has yet been announced for And, and the film’s plot is undisclosed. Dafoe and Stone are also part of another Lanthimos’ feature, Victorian-set Poor Things.