A Quote by Bruce Davison

I love villains. You know, I am a character actor, and any chance to get to play a really outrageous villain. I like to play that. — © Bruce Davison
I love villains. You know, I am a character actor, and any chance to get to play a really outrageous villain. I like to play that.
Villains can often be one note and I would say in that case, it’s not fun to play the villain. It’s fun to play the villain if he a) has dimension and b) the villain gets to do all the things in the movie that in life he would get punished for. In the movie, you’re applauded for them if you do them with panache. And so that’s why it’s more fun to play the villain.
Every director is always directing around the play. If you have an actor who really doesn't get the character well enough, you have to direct the play around that character. You have to make choices with that actor. If you have an actor that really doesn't get the role and has certain visions of the role, sometimes you have to direct around that actor.
I get a lot of people saying to me, 'Oh, you're the actor who plays the nutters,' and I'm not. I'm the guy who plays human beings. I understand why the characters are doing what they're doing. When you play a villain, you don't play a villain: you play a human being doing what he thinks he needs to do to get what he wants.
I didn't really look like a character actor, yet those were the roles I loved to play. If you were a character actor who didn't necessarily look like a character actor, you had to play bad guys.
I'd love to play a Bond villain. Yeah, I'd love to play a Bond villain. Everyone always says this to me; they always say, 'You've got to be a Bond villain', 'We're going to make you a Bond villain...' But they've never, ever approached me, I've never had a whiff of it. I think I'd love to play a Bond villain; I'd have great fun.
Why can't I ever play a nice, normal, salt-of-the-earth type? Is there something I should know? It's fun to play villains and character roles, of course - but I'm sure it's also fun to be a really big star and play the lead in everything, where all you have to do is show up and not blink.
[on playing Walter] It was wonderful to be able to play a character who had so many colors and who was able to play comedy, to play incredibly vulnerable, which he did a lot of the time, to play the love story, and to play the relationship with the son, which is quite unusual. That's a gift to me, as an actor. It was like everything you could possibly hope for, over five years. So, I was a very lucky actor.
You don't play villains like they are villains. You play them like you know exactly where they are coming from. Which hopefully you do.
I've found that the people who play villains are the nicest people in the world, and people who play heroes are jerks. It's like people who play villains work out all their problems on screen, and then they're just really wonderful people.
As an actor, the joy lies in being able to play roles that you are not. If I get a chance to play a sofa or alien, I would love it.
I would love to play a negative guy, play the villain. It is always interesting to have shades to your character.
I think it's every actor's dream to play a character that's really odd, and you know no one wants to play himself.
You've got to love the villain if you have to play him. You've got to find something that you can live with in yourself if you're going to play the villain in a play on stage.
I certainly have never been an actor who can play the Everyman guy - or, I don't tend to get those parts. I've tended to play eccentrics. I've played a lot of villains, of course.
Whether or not I am a 'character actor' or any other kind of actor, I really don't know. When people call me a 'character actor,' I fail to understand what it means.
[J.F.Kennedy] is an iconic figure. And to make it even worse, he's a hero of mine. And every actor will tell you that you can't play heroes. And you can't play villains. You can only play human beings.
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