Willem Dafoe Lives on an Alpaca Farm in Italy

Willem Dafoe spent over four decades in New York City. He owned a co-op on Perry Street in the West Village, a penthouse in the same building, and a retreat in the Hudson Valley. He was one of Manhattan's most committed residents - the kind of actor who stayed rooted in the city while Hollywood kept calling.

Then he married Italian filmmaker Giada Colagrande in 2005, and everything shifted. "She didn't want to give up living in Rome," Dafoe told interviewers, "and I had no objections." Over the next two decades, the shift was gradual - selling properties in New York, spending more time in Italy, until Rome became home base.

But Dafoe didn't just move to Rome. He moved outside Rome, to a small farm in the Lazio countryside. The property is home to 14 alpacas, along with sheep, goats, turkeys, and chickens. There's a vegetable garden. It is about as far from the Green Goblin as you can get.

The alpacas are not just there for scenery. Dafoe is hands-on. He bottle-feeds the ones rejected by their mothers - including one premature baby alpaca he nursed back to health himself. He names every single one. His favourite is called Hermes.

In interviews, Dafoe describes the farm life with genuine contentment. He still acts - prolifically, in fact, averaging three to four films a year - but between shoots, he goes home to feed alpacas and tend his garden. The man who played Bobby Peru, Max Schreck, and the Green Goblin spends his mornings in rubber boots checking on livestock.

"I like routine," Dafoe has said. "I like doing the same thing every day." For one of cinema's most intense performers, that thing turned out to be farming.