Willem Dafoe to Receive Excellence in Artistry Award at HCA Astra Film Awards

The Hollywood Creative Alliance announced today they will be honoring Willem Dafoe with the Excellence in Artistry Award, celebrating his 2023 performances such as Nemo from Inside, Saltzburg Keitel from Asteroid City, the voice of Noble Pelican from The Boy and The Heron, and Dr. Godwin Baxter from Poor Things. Dafoe will receive the award during the Astra Film Awards ceremony taking place on January 6, 2024 at the historic Biltmore Los Angeles in Los Angeles, CA.

“Dafoe is one of the most beloved and iconic actors working today and we are delighted to be celebrating his extraordinary work as an artist,” said HCA Vice Chair Yong Chavez. “Dafoe’s work as an actor continues to amaze audiences across the globe and with several standout performances in 2023 alone, we couldn’t be happier to be presenting the Excellence in Artistry Award to the incomparable Willem Dafoe.”

Willem Dafoe’s career as an actor began in 1979 where he was set to play the role of Willy in Heaven’s Gate, but was later fired. Since 1979, Dafoe has appeared in over 130 feature length feature films and has worked alongside some of the biggest and most notable filmmakers in the world including Hector Babenco, Kathryn Bigelow, Kenneth Branagh, Anton Corbijn, Scott Cooper, David Cronenberg, William Friedkin, Mary Harron, Werner Herzog, Walter Hill, Spike Lee, David Lynch, Anthony Minghella, Phillip Noyce, Alan Parker, Sam Raimi, Dee Rees, Robert Rodriguez, Paul Schrader, Martin Scorsese, Zack Snyder, Guillermo del Toro, Lars von Trier, James Wan, Wim Wenders and Zhang Yimou.

For the past four decades, Dafoe’s expansive career has been centered around his artistic curiosity to explore the human condition, which is something that he embodies with each new role. His passion for his art has led him to tackle a wide variety of projects from all over the world. Dafoe has appeared in dozens of Hollywood Blockbusters, Indie films and International projects.

Dafoe has received four Academy Award nominations: Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Oliver Stone’s Platoon, E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow Of The Vampire, and Sean Baker’s The Florida Project as well as Best Leading Actor for Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate. In addition, he has received four Golden Globe nominations, four Screen Actors Guild nominations, and Independent Spirit Award nominations. Dafoe has been awarded by the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review, as well as twice by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Additionally, he is the recipient of the Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup and a Berlinale Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement.

The 2024 ASTRA FILM AWARDS ceremony will be live-streamed worldwide on KNEKTtv and the HCA YouTube Channel and internationally broadcast in 247 countries and territories thanks to our new partnership with ABS-CBN. Sponsors for the 2024 event include Beverly Hills Cookies, The Biltmore Los Angeles, Da Vinci Medical, Heineken, Petco Love, Sommsation Wines, and Veronica Tharmalingam. Sommsation Wines will be providing sommelier-curated wine tastings and wine pairings with dinner.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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