Willem Dafoe ready to return as 'Spider-Man' villain

Willem Dafoe, known for his iconic villain role as Norman Osborne aka Green Goblin, in Sam Raimi's 2000s Spider-Man trilogy and beyond, said in a recent interview, he'd gladly reprise the part in Spider-Man multiverse "if everything was right".

"I mean, that's a great role," opined Dafoe. "I liked the fact that it's a double role both times. Twenty years ago, and fairly recently, both times [were] very different experiences, but I had a good time on both," reported Deadline, a US-based media company.

Dafoe's Spidey character Osborne is a scientist holding the post of CEO at Oscorp who goes mad in Raimi's 2002 trilogy opener Spider-Man, coming after the web-slinging superhero of the same name played by Tobey Maguire, after an experiment with strength enhancement goes awry, despite the fact that Spidey is, in his day-to-day life, Peter Parker, the best friend of his own son, Harry (James Franco).

While the character meets his end in that film after a failed attempt at killing Parker, Dafoe reprised the part with small appearances in the Raimi-directed sequels, Spider-Man 2 and 3.

The actor most recently returned to the Spider-verse for the 2021 multiverse pic Spider-Man: No Way Home, which had him reuniting on-screen with Maguire's version of the character, while striking fear into the version played by Tom Holland in the more recent film series.

And Dafoe certainly isn't the only legacy star of the franchise to have expressed excitement about further instalments. Maguire himself said in an interview for the book Spider-Man No Way Home: The Official Movie Special, released last month, that when he got the call to come back for No Way Home, he was "like finally!

Dafoe's recent interview came in support of his new thriller Inside released on Friday, on the heels of a Berlin world premiere. The first feature from Vasilis Katsoupis has him starring as Nemo, a high-end art thief, who finds himself trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist doesn't go as planned, reported Deadline.

Other buzzy upcoming projects for the actor include Wes Anderson's potentially Cannes-premiering 'Asteroid City', Focus' 'Nosferatu' from his The Lighthouse collaborator Robert Eggers, and the Yorgos Lanthimos films 'Poor Things' and 'AND', to name a few.