#21 ·
ironcrane7 said:Honestly, it’s always bugged me how people assume playing a villain is harder than playing the hero. For me, it’s the exact opposite—villains have so much breathing room that you basically have to be a total acting hack to mess up the role. Take Val Kilmer, for example. On the flip side, a hero has such a narrow lane to run in—they can't just cheat on everyone and call it a day, and they can't go making all those wild facial expressions with bulging eyes—you know, like Al Pacino🤮—so they actually have to work to outshine the bad guy. That’s why I started this thread: to give some credit to the ones everyone else overlooks.😁
...actually, I think this topic is pretty great... though it really requires some actual thought before I weigh in... and not just because playing the good guy is tougher (which, for the most part, I agree with), but mainly because "villains" are just way more interesting characters. They can be ambivalent in ways heroes rarely are... and since I'm not exactly a huge fan of action movies, that makes it even trickier for me... I mean, who is actually a hero or a villain in a drama? Is Patrick Swayze in Village more of a villain (since he's responsible for the main character's near demise) or a hero (because he's oblivious to his actions and acts out of a very normal, even "beautiful," human longing to belong)? Or take Caesar in Gladiator—is he the villain (given the hatred he harbors and shows) or the hero (in the sense that he's actually just an incredibly tragic figure who doesn't judge anyone more than he feels compassion)? 😕 It turns out that outside of action flicks and certain comedies, talking about the concept of "good guys" vs "bad guys" is a pretty tall order...🙂
...but hey, we shouldn't run away from the tough questions... 😉
...so, I see someone mentioned Tim Robbins... who, in my book, is an absolutely brilliant hero, not just in that one movie but in something like Mystic River too—even if the whole film casts doubt on him, you eventually realize how uniquely good a person David actually is, flaws and all. But the thing with Robbins is that he brings this specific dose of... hmm... humanity to every single character he plays, so he probably wouldn't even make a convincing villain. A truly great hero/villain is Norton in 25th Hour, or even better, P. S. Hoffman in that same film (or honestly, any film—his characters always sit right on that line between likable and repulsive), or T. Spall in All or Nothing (because his mistakes feel so profoundly human)... whereas pure black-and-white heroes are usually way less interesting because they feel totally unreal...
...then again, some movies are fun precisely because they *are* that black-and-white (and entire genres are built on it)... hmmm... I'm struggling with these archetypes... Norton in Red Dragon??? 🙂
...oof, sorry for the massive wall of text... 🙂