The Serious Enjoyments of Willem Dafoe : Movies: The characters he plays may seem extreme, but he chooses roles because they’re fun.

About 130 miles off the coast of San Diego, in a claustrophobic, smoke-filled cabin aboard the aircraft carrier USS Independence, actor Willem Dafoe is lying on his bunk thinking about Auschwitz. It isn’t too difficult. Dafoe has countless hours to while away over the next 10 days in this tiny metallic cabin, which he likens to a prison cell.

He is on board the bulky carrier shooting “Flight of the Intruder,” a big-budget action film for Paramount. In “Flight,” a John Milius film being adapted from the best-seller by Stephen Coonts, Dafoe plays a heroic A-6 bombardier navigator. The role returns him, in theme at least, to a setting--the Vietnam War--he has visited three times before: as an infantry sergeant in “Platoon,” as an MP investigator in “Off Limits” and as a returned disabled vet in the upcoming “Born on the Fourth of July.”

But at the moment, Dafoe is taking a break to reflect on the making of “Triumph of the Spirit,” for which he spent four months earlier this year filming in the haunting remains of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.

“The place, in a very subtle and mysterious way, worked on you,” Dafoe says, sitting up in his bunk. His gaunt, depleted appearance in “Triumph” has been replaced by a scrubbed face and the crisp, sharp edges of a Navy uniform. “I mean, it’s easy to imagine. You’d pass by places that were so resonant --a holding tank, a furnace. And that would stir your imagination and make you ask some hard questions.”

At Auschwitz, the 34-year-old actor did his best to relive the true-life experiences of Salamo Arouch, a Greek Jew and middleweight boxing champion of the Balkans who survived the World War II concentration camp by fighting other prisoners--in between trained poodle shows and female impersonator acts--in a blood-stained arena for the sheer pleasure of Nazi officers.

“The truth, what went on there, is forever going to only stay with the initiator,” Dafoe says. “There’s no way for us (in the film) to tell you anything about it, or to explain what it was like. All we could do is create a sense of reality in the spirit of Salamo, and hopefully reveal something through Salamo. The character is like a witness. He’s your guide through Auschwitz.”

Arouch, now in his 60s and living in Israel, was on the set of “Triumph” as an adviser, returning to the camp where, as a young inmate, he fought and defeated more than 200 opponents. He had to win each fight, since the loser was often marched to the gas chamber. Was the presence of the death camp survivor on the set like a ghost rising from the ashes of Auschwitz?

“Oddly enough, no,” Dafoe says. “I mean no disrespect--I’m sure he’s deeply scarred by this--but he was a happy, tough old guy who wanted to tell stories and take me out in the ring and fight me.” Dafoe laughs, and then quickly gets very quiet.

“You have to understand, this is a man who loves life. The guy looked me in the eye and said, ‘Life is a gift. Enjoy it.’ That means something coming from him. He gave us his story, his blessing and some good advice. But I felt it was for me to go through the story and find my own way. He wasn’t sitting there telling me what to think or how to feel.”

Dafoe says he has no idea how “Triumph” will be accepted in the shifting political climate of Poland, volunteering that he is not out to make social or political statements with his acting.

“At this point I don’t feel like I have anything to say. I feel much more comfortable doing things. Serving myself up to roles as if my life depended upon them--that’s my contribution. Committing myself to roles that have the possibility to express something larger than life.”

The actor’s personal politics may be elusive off screen, but chances are, no one has ever accused a Dafoe character of sitting on the fence. If his characters are not out to save the world, they are probably trying to destroy it. Most of them have hearts of gold, stone, or fire. The Good, the Bad and the Angry.

Dafoe’s elemental roles, which he calls “forces of nature,” include the persecuted Jesus Christ in “The Last Temptation of Christ” (the Good), a homicidal counterfeiter in “To Live and Die in L.A.” (the Bad) and a shrill paraplegic Vietnam War vet (the Angry) in Oliver Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July.” His portrayal of the “good” sergeant in “Platoon” earned him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.

“What attracts me to those kind of roles?,” Dafoe says, lying back on his bunk and repeating the question. His eyes wander upward, unfocused as he frames his answer. “I think they’re mythic. They have some sort of size. They’re fact. They go beyond identification, sometimes even beyond logic. They’re not an imitation of something. They’re the thing itself.”

A native of Wisconsin, Dafoe lives in New York now, where he got started acting on stage more than a decade ago. He began to catch the eye of Hollywood directors playing the maniacal urban gang leader in Walter Hill’s 1984 “Streets of Fire,” and he hit the casting agent’s A-list with his performance in the surprisingly commercial “Platoon.”

Since “Platoon,” Dafoe has been one of the busiest actors around, starring in “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Off Limits,” and “Mississippi Burning.” He has just completed a role as a creepy sociopath in David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” and goes directly from “Flight of the Intruder,” which wraps next month, to star in the comedy, “Arrive Alive,” for director Jeremiah Chechik (“National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”).

Despite the string of suffering roles he has played, Dafoe says his decisions are guided by characters he thinks would be fun to play.

“Above all, you look at what the character does,” Dafoe says, “and you ask yourself: ‘Do I want to do those things? Is it going to be fun to take a walk in those shoes?’ Because somewhere, really, it’s all about pretending.”