8 Big Movie Stars That Started As Background Extras
7. Willem Dafoe - Heaven's Gate
Director Michael Cimino's sprawling western epic from 1980 is famously one of the biggest box office failures in film history. It was a critical disaster and failed to recoup even a tenth of it's then enormous $44 million dollar budget. While time has been a little kinder to it there's no denying that it's a film that isn't well loved. In amongst the famous faces in the cast, including Kris Kristofferson, Jeff Bridges, Mickey Rourke and Christopher Walken, a fresh faced Willem Dafoe can be spotted in the background of a few scenes. Although he's uncredited in the cast apparently his character's name is Willy (thanks IMDB!). Dafoe has since spoken of how he spent 3 months on the set and was generally having a good time learning the ropes until one day, while the crew were setting up for a tense scene, he shared a joke with another extra. Cimino overheard his laugher, asked for him to step out and that was the end of his part in the film. Hes confronted Cimino about this years later when he became a success in his own right, but Cimino claimed not to remember the incident. Ironically, this story is a lot more interesting than the one in the film. A lot shorter, too.
