Not surprisingly, considering his reputation as an actor's actor (and as a guy with weird taste), Willem Dafoe got his start with experimental live theater.

He studied acting for a while in university, but soon quit to join an avant-garde acting troupe called Theatre X in his native Wisconsin. He then moved to New York and joined The Wooster Group, a troupe he continues to work with on occasion.

If what you're really looking for is to catch a look at young Willem, you can (barely) see him in an uncredited turn in the 1980 drama "Heaven's Gate," his first screen role.

Impressively, his first credited role was as the star. He had the lead role in 1981's "The Loveless," a motorcycle gang drama that's also notable for being the first feature film helmed by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow.

Just six years after starting out in film, Dafoe was nominated for an Oscar of his own, for his supporting turn in "Platoon" (1986). That solidified his position as a supporting man, though, of course, he's taken some leading roles as well -- most notably, perhaps, the title role in 1988's controversial "The Last Temptation of Christ."

Dafoe's early, pre-Hollywood years are the stuff of legend -- some of which he made up himself. For example, his name isn't actually Willem, it's William -- Willem is a high school nickname he chose to hold on to.

Speaking of high school, he may or may not have been kicked out for making a porn film with school equipment. We don't know for sure, because he tells the story in two different ways: In a 1997 interview with New York Magazine, he tells a tame version of getting "in trouble" for interviewing an exhibitionist for a class video project. But in 2009 he told the Guardian newspaper, "I was expelled from school for making a pornographic film." The truth is probably somewhere in between, but it's worth noting that he did, in fact, go to university, so he likely graduated high school at some point.

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