A Quote by Lee Van Cleef
Audiences just naturally hate me on screen. I could play a role in a tuxedo and people would think I was rotten. You can do much more with a villain part.
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Audiences just naturally hate me on screen. I could play a role in a tuxedo, and people would think I was rotten. You can do much more with a villain part.
I feel very fortunate for audiences to have been so gracious as to allow me to do pretty much any role that I felt I could do. They let me play a president. They let me play a lawyer. They let me play a hit man. They let me play a father. They let me play Howard Saint.
I would love to, on one project, play a villain. Any kind of villain. Any kind of antagonist. Somebody who's just rotten but fun, or the anti-hero.
Empathy is much bigger than sympathy. When the character is empathised with, that means you have succeeded as an actor. So even if it's a villain, the audiences don't hate you... they understand why you have turned into a villain.
I've always said it's flattering to be desired, just as it's flattering that people accept the reality of the character you play. But it was always ridiculous to assume that because I could play a gigolo on screen I'd play anything like that role off screen.
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.
I hate it when people pray on the screen. It's not because I hate praying, but whenever I see an actor fold his hands and look up in the spotlight, I'm lost. There's only one other thing in the movies I hate as much, and that's sex. You just can't get in bed or pray to God and convince me on the screen.
I find I am more interested in the villain-type roles because they can be so much more complex than just the villain. I don't think anybody sees them as evil per se. They show how close we are to one another. It's an untapped area of art. And I think, physically, I'm not going to play the hero.
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.
As an actor, I should justify the role given to me. So, as a villain, my job was to make people hate me.
I had a sympathetic role in 'thirtysomething,' and in two weeks I'm going to do the role again. But in the movies, I just love the heavies. It's much more fun. Villains are a ball. People have been laughing at me for 50 years, so I love to sit in the back of the theater and listen to them hate me.
No one has approached me about Captain Marvel. But I don't know if I'd even want to play Captain Marvel. I would much rather play a villain and be nasty. It's more fun.
Sometimes I wish it were a simpler world. I love and hate people. When I say I hate people, I really truly mean it. Sometimes I think everyone should be dead, that the animals would be better off without people. But sometimes I go into the square and I look at all the people passing me by and it fulfills me -as long as they don't bother me. As long as they just walk past and don't ask me for anything, it's fine. I almost wish I could think about it in a mundane way.
It was an audition process after Breakfast Club, and I wasn't really sure I wanted to do the movie. There was a bigger role that Rob [Lowe] was already set to play, so the role they wanted me to audition for was Alec. [Director] Joel Schumacher... this is back in the days when you could trick me with things like this. He goes, "Don't you think you can play it?" And I go, "Okaaaaay." So then I did it for all the wrong reasons but I don't think I would fall for that again. Who knows. I might.
To be completely honest, it's shocking to me that I keep getting the villain roles! I do not see myself as the villain and I know, growing up, I was the opposite of a villain. I would never try to be a villain to anyone - but maybe other people I grew up with feel differently about that.
So, when directors come up to me and ask if they should just narrate my role, I would say no and insist on knowing the whole story. It would give me a better idea of what I'm going to be a part of because when I look back at my career later on in life, nobody is going to remember my screen time.
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