The Oscar winner and his Italian wife, who is 20 years his junior, are still going strong! Find out all about Giada here!
Willem Dafoe, has had one of the most celebrated careers in Hollywood with four Oscar nominations, including one for Best Supporting Actor in 1987’s Platoon and one for Best Actor for playing Vincent Van Gogh in 2019’s At Eternity’s Gate. The 66-year-old Wisconsin native found a new legion of fans as the supervillain Norman Osborn/Green Goblin in the original Tobey MacGuire Spider-Man trilogy, as well as in the most recent edition of the Marvel web-crawler franchise, Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Giada Colagrande and Willem Dafoe have been married since 2005. (Jim Ruymen/UPI/Shutterstock)With the Tom Holland vehicle being one of the biggest blockbusters ever, and Willem hosting Saturday Night Live on January 29, the public is hungry to find out more about the actor’s personal life. From 1977 to 2004, he was married to Elizabeth LeCompte, a founding member of experimental acting company The Wooster Group. The pair welcomed one child together, son Jack, in 1982. Since his marriage to Elizabeth ended, Willem has settled down with Giada Colagrande. Find out all about his second wife, below!
Giada is an Italian filmmaker and actress
Giada was born in Pescara, Italy on October 16, 1975, making her younger than Willem by two decades. She studied in Italy, Switzerland and Australia, according to her website. In 1995 she moved to Rome where she began making “video art and documentaries on contemporary art.” For three years from 1997 to 2000, Colagrande was part of an art project called Volume where she “made videos on the works of Jannis Kounellis, Alfredo Pirri, Bernhard Rudiger, Nunzio, Raimund Kummer, Gianni Dessi, Maurizio Savini and Sol Lewitt.”
In 2001, she wrote, directed, and starred in her first film Aprimi il Cuore, meaning Open My Heart. The movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2002. Since she has gone on to make over five feature films. She has also acted in Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini in 2104 and in Wes Anderson’s short film Castello Cavalcanti.
Willam asked Giada to marry him over lunch
Giada and Willem have worked on over five films together during their marriage. (Christine Chew/UPI/Shutterstock)One year after they met, Willem and Giada married on March 25, 2005; one year after they met. “We were having lunch and I said: ‘Do you want to get married tomorrow?’” the Florida Project actor recalled to Vogue Italia. The following morning, the pair tied the knot, with their two best friends serving as witnesses.
“She and I are inseparable,” Willem would go on to tell the outlet, while Giada revealed, “He doesn’t act like a star; if anything, an artist.” The shared passion for cinema is the secret to their successful marriage, according to Giada. “The collaboration I’ve got with Willem is ideal… Intense, pure, without interference.”
Giada and Willem have worked together on many films
Giada would make her second feature film in 2005. Called Before It Had a Name, it was co-written by Willem, who also co-starred in it alongside Giada. In 2010, she wrote and directed her third feature film, A Woman, starring Willem. Two years later, she worked on Bob Wilson’s Life & Death of Marina Abramovic, which also featured her husband. Padre, her 2016 film which she wrote, directed and starred in, also had Willem in a starring role. As they say, the couple that film together…
