A Quote by Malcolm McDowell

The villains that I play, I always think that they are grounded, wonderful people with enormous intellects who are very exciting to spend an evening with. I never see them as bad people.
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.
I've played people that are on the line of evil and good, but that's life. We are always playing with the good and the bad. I see them as people. I don't see them as caricatures. I try to not make them caricatures. Maybe I fail, but I try to see what' behind them. Would I play the hero? A superhero? I don't think so. But, I play good guys. There are some there, but you have to look.
I've realized over the years I either play very good people or very bad people, and I think I always enjoy the very bad people more.
I always tried to play the bad guys as guys who didn't know they were bad guys. There are villains we run into all the time, but they don't think they are doing anything wrong. If they do, they think they are cunning and smart. When people break laws and ethical rules, they justify it in their own terms.
If you look in real life, it is very hard to describe people as good people, bad people, heroes or villains. People aren't bad people. They all have their justifications.
If you look at the great superheroes in any universe, you will always find that they have the very best super villains opposing them. It's because they are foils; they are people that the heroes play off of.
I certainly play people on the edge quite a lot. I am interested in what makes people odd and what makes them different. In life I try to play the edges. I have a horror of the herd. There are many, many different sorts of people. A lot of people are fairly uninteresting. I want to play the interesting ones. The villains are always more interesting to portray. Shakespeare knew that.
There is always going to something very grounded about the characters I play, because of my Chicago roots, because the city is so grounded. Even my wife pointed it out when we were in the city, she said that even the architecture is grounded in Chicago, it's so solid. Because it has to deal with winters. There is something about Chicago that keeps people centered and grounded.
I've played an awful lot of people that other people would call villains, but that isn't a very helpful attitude to have if you're about to play them. They are just people, and they may do dreadful things and say dreadful things, but your job as an actor is to know why they do them or say them.
I have people to keep me grounded. That's very important. And I like the fact that I have people to keep me grounded. I'll never switch on them, they'll never switch on me, and that's what it's going to be.
I read reviews every time. I read them all. Sometimes they can be very constructive, sometimes not, but it's always interesting to see the opinion of others on what you are doing. Sometimes I am very furious, but I will never say to a journalist, "Please don't come back to the next show." Never. Because I think that's a very stupid attitude. I am very happy when I see the results of the company and when I see people wearing my clothes or my accessories. I think this is the best answer to criticism.
It feels bad to play a bad guy. I did George W. Bush for years, and I hated him. But you have to give full voice to the villains. You have to have really convincing villains, or it's not worth anything as drama or comedy.
Donald Trump is a nice guy. He really is. Very personable. Sits there and talks to everybody. I'm happy. I like to see something new. I think it's exciting. He's got a great-looking family. His wife didn't look too bad. Not bad at all. This could be exciting.
It was a wonderful experience to live the life for a year; to spend all day doing Shakespeare and then do a play in the evening.
The thing is, I never see my characters as psychopaths. I see them as really crippled victims who just happen to do bad things. And I never see them as bad guys; I see them as darker characters. I never see anything as good or bad; it's more light or dark, and the in-between is the grey.
It was very exciting to see Alan Sugar, so I think I've peaked with excitement for the evening, because I'm a massive Apprentice fan.
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