A Rabbit’s Foot editor-in-chief Charles Finch has always referred to his longtime friend Willem Dafoe as one of cinema’s greatest chameleons, and, at our cover shoot in Rome last July, he didn’t disappoint.

The primary mission of our video shoot in Italy’s capital was simple: don’t project any pre-existing ideas or expectations of whimsy onto Dafoe, but rather provide the set and a few props, and to let the camera observe as he interacted with them as he so chose. This resulted in moments of spontaneity that many of the filmmakers Dafoe has worked with will no doubt be familiar with.

In one instance, the character actor took apart a desk, stacked the pieces on top of one another, and climbed to the top of the makeshift tower. “Ta-da!” he said, grinning devilishly, dropping a prop flower from the tower and watching it hit the floor. “Okay, enough of that,” he joked. “Before someone gets hurt.”

Later, I spent some time chatting with Dafoe about the concept of luck—how he feels it has affected his life, how it has entwined itself in his dreams, and the lucky charms that he carries around with him. In the short film below, he proudly shows off a handmade bracelet intended to ward off mallochio (the evil eye) and other malevolent energy. “I believe in luck, I think,” he says candidly. Sometimes there just isn’t a logic to what goes well and what doesn’t, so there’s some intangible, unknowable thing that happens.”

You can read our cover story with Willem Dafoe here, and order your print copy of issue 16 here.