A Quote by Elia Kazan
Look for the contradictions in every character, especially in your heroes and villains. No one should be what they first seem to be. Surprise the audience.
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Playing villains is very liberating because unlike the leading man, nothing is expected of you. Leading men have to look good, they have to behave in a certain way, they have to fulfill an audience's expectations. But as a bad guy, you have free license to take the audience by surprise. And that's what audiences want - they want unpredictability from their villains. The villain's job is to subvert it.
Every character, before they are heroes or villains, they are human beings.
When you're writing a story or an actor playing a role, you should never think of your characters as heroes or villains. You have to think of them as people first.
So much in TV today, you don't get to feel empathetic for the villain. The villains are the villains and the heroes are the heroes. It's very black and white.
I feel like I learned very early on that your heroes are only as powerful as your villains. And I'm attracted to intelligent villains.
It is much more fun to write about villains then heroes. The villains are the ones that think out the scheme, and the heroes just kind of come along for the ride.
I am a method actor, but I'm also a film actor as well as a method actor. Characters that don't have humility, whether they are heroes or villains, are hard to relate to. All characters in every aspect of what we do should have humility. If they don't, then they're a cartoon character.
Without will, without individuals, there are no heroes. But neither are there villains. And the absence of villains is as prostrating, as soul-destroying, as the absence of heroes.
It's an interesting thing to play the heroes of our society, like cops and firefighters. They're the basic heroes that, as little boys and little girls, you look up to as the first heroes of your small, specific community.
It's true in the beginning I started playing villains, and I think that's pretty clear, because if you don't conventionally look a certain way and you've got a certain kind of presence when you're young, then what's available to you is character roles, and the best character roles when you're young tend to be villains.
As an actor, you should always keep your trump card hidden from your audience. I want the audience to keep expecting more and more from me. I want to do 'different' work - good and memorable roles - so that audience appreciate me more. That's why I love to surprise my audience with something they never expect me to do.
It's a movie, OK? I went to see GONE WITH THE WIND, but did I really believe there was a guy named Rhett Butler who said, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"? No. Movies need heroes and villains, and real life doesn't usually have heroes and villains. Real life has a lot of shades of gray, and moves have black and white even when they're in color.
We're not interested to know the real heroes. We're really more interested in the villains, actually, and they seem to thrive, and it continues to be business as usual.
One of the reasons Batman works as a character is that it's not beyond possibility that he could exist - you could become Batman if you had a billion dollars at your disposal. There's nothing paranormal or superhuman or supernatural about that character. And I think his villains work the same way. You could be one of his villains just as easily.
I admire the military. I guess in a world of villains and heroes, they're my heroes. Their dedication, their commitment, their discipline, their code of ethics.
I usually look at things like that from an audience perspective first, then have a closer look at the specific character they're talking about me for.
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