Actor: Willem Dafoe Character: Nikolai Diavolo Game: Everything or Nothing Status: Villain DOB: 22 July 1955 Born: Appleton, Wisconsin, USA Height: 5' 9" Memorable Performance: Sgt. Elias Grodin in "Platoon"

Character Few details are known so far, but Diavolo is thought to be from the former USSR or an Eastern Block country. Scheme To obtain cutting-edge nanotechnology for evil means. Headquarters Known to use a heavily armoured Soviet missile train.

Biography Willem Dafoe's breakout role came in the acclaimed Vietnam War film Platoon (1986), receiving an Oscar ® nomination for his charged portrayal of doomed but incorruptible platoon leader Sergeant Elias. Previously, however, filmmakers had pegged the actor a natural-born villain for his unusually angular good looks and lasciviously crooked smile. Indeed, Dafoe's film debut came in The Loveless (1983), as a leather-clad, anti-hero biker confronting a small, conservative town. He also landed the role of a murderous counterfeiter in William Friedkin's successful if super-cynical To Live and Die in L.A. (1985).

Willem Dafoe was born on July 22, 1955, in Appleton, Wisconsin. One of seven siblings, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee to study acting, only to drop out and join the city's experimental Theatre X group. In 1977, Dafoe moved to New York City and co-founded the Wooster Group, a groundbreaking theater troupe that's pushed the boundaries of drama for more than three decades now.

Director Oliver Stone's decision to cast Dafoe for the good-guy role of Sargaent Elias opened new doors for the actor, who would go on to star as an idealistic FBI agent probing Ku Klux Klan murders in Mississippi Burning (1988). And it wasn't long before Dafoe was cast as the ultimate good guy, Jesus Christ, in director Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), a film that explored Jesus's human side to an unprecedented extent, by depicting a sexual liaison between Christ and Mary Magdalene, causing a maelstrom of protest among fundamentalists. The actor's decision to accept the role demonstrated his level of artistic commitment and courage.

In the late 80s and 90s, Dafoe appeared in an astonishing range of films and roles. Oliver Stone resurrected him (so to speak) to play an anguished Vietnam veteran in Born on the Fourth of July (1989); David Lynch turned him into a rot-toothed homicidal villain in Wild at Heart (1990), and he played the enigmatic Emit Flesti in Wim Wender's earthbound angel opus Far Away, So Close (1993). He also played Nic Nolte's brother in the acclaimed New England-set drama Affliction (1998), an adaptation of the Russell Banks novel.

Dafoe received a second Oscar® nomination for Shadow of a Vampire (2000), in which he portrayed with eerie verisimilitude a vampire-actor wreaking havoc on the beleaguered film crew of 1922's Nosferatu. And more recently, Dafoe brought to life another ghoul-faced villain, the Green Goblin, in director Sam Raimi's action-packed blockbuster Spider-Man (2002).

The actor has one son with longtime companion Elizabeth LeCompte, a founding member and director of the Wooster Group.

Biography - AMC