“They say there is no light without dark, no good without evil.”
From its origins in the theater, audiences have always cheered the hero and booed the villain. We have archetypes for these characters. We expect that good will always triumph over evil. Light will overcome the dark. It’s the root of the human experience.
But actors get worried when they’re stereotyped in a kind of role. To this day, if you say ‘Julie Andrews,’ ‘Mary Tyler Moore,’ or ‘Doris Day’ you get the impression of someone squeaky clean.
In the movie studio system of yesteryear, they cast these actors in these roles because that’s what they were successful at. And if they are strongly identified with that kind of role, an actor will find that they’ve become stereotyped, and worse, pigeonholed.
You see this on TV especially because after many years of being on the air, the actors’ characters become very familiar and associated with the actor.
So, how do actors break the mold? They go to the dark side. Ask any actor and they’ll tell you they love playing a villain. It runs against type, and it is liberating not to be stuck in the same moral framework that a good guy or “hero” would be. It’s an opportunity to chew up the scenery and to find the flaws in villain. It’s less interesting to find out why a hero is a hero.
Before he was a meth lab genius in BREAKING BAD, Bryan Cranston was the nerdy, goofy dad in MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE.
Glenn Close fought to play against her milquetoast type to land the part of the murdering seductress in FATAL ATTRACTION.
Christian Bale shed his British dandy image to star as the serial killer yuppie in AMERICAN PSYCHO.
Former child actors who rose through the Disney machine all took turns at trying to show a darker, more edgy side by playing against type. (Why Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez played robbers in SPRING BREAKERS is another question.)
Shia LaBeouf was an adorable child actor in the Disney series EVEN STEVENS. His career has become the playbook for today’s child stars to navigate to a successful grown up career. And coming soon, LaBeouf will be in the NC17 rated NYMPHOMANIAC. Talk about a transformer!
Witness the progress of the former HARRY POTTER stars. Daniel Radcliffe notoriously played the disturbed and often nude star on stage in EQUUS. He played a haunted widower in LADY IN BLACK.
CLICK HERE to watch Daniel Radcliffe’s latest photo shoot and interview with The Guardian UK.
Emma Watson distanced herself from British schoolgirl roles with PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER and BLING RING.
Madeleine Stowe and Jessica Lange revived their respective careers as villains in REVENGE and AMERICAN HORROR STORY.
For younger actors, the joy of playing a villain is a purposeful way of breaking with the past, doing something age appropriate, and declaring to their audience that they’ve hit puberty and shouldn’t be thought of as sweet and virginal.
Former child actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Gosling have navigated darker, complex roles to an Oscar nomination each. Both serious actors have also had no qualms about showing a lot of flesh to wipe out any child actor image.
And the villain, Khan, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, effectively stole the movie from the leads in STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS.
For an actor, it all boils down to range. A hero will predictably do the right thing. But a villain is unpredictable. A villain will surprise you. And that’s exactly what actors want to be able to do.
Harrison Cheung is the award-winning author of the Christian Bale biography, THE INSIDE STORY OF THE DARKEST BATMAN. Learn more at bale-biography.com
