Time was an actor did a role one time and then they were done, maybe. Nowadays an old role can come back to haunt you, or at least get you even more work and money. Take Willem Dafoe. In 2002 he played the Green Goblin, the first villain that battled Spider-Man on the big screen. Nearly 20 years later he was back in the suit for another Peter Parker, in Spider-Man: No Way Home. And he wouldn’t mind doing it again.
In an interview with Inverse (as caught by Deadline), he was asked if he’d once again played crazed businessman Norman Osborn. “If everything was right, sure,” Dafoe replied while promoting his new thriller Inside. “I mean, that’s a great role. 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.”
Dafoe hasn’t always been rah-rah with the series. Some 10 years ago, he took a shot at the first revival, with Andrew Garfield. “I saw a trailer for the first Spider-Man reboot and I thought, ‘This is crazy! It’s not shot for shot, but it’s the same story,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is sort of a cynical approach to making money!’”
That said, he had no problems with the first iteration of the franchise, which he called “very pure.”