Make a cool ‘bad guy’ in one easy step.

In the world of cinema, its the bad guy that makes or breaks any movie. Think about it…most of the truly iconic characters in film usually the bad guys. The bad guy is the primary tool via which you show the character of your good guy. He is the motivator of the plot (after all, John Marshall, ex-marine, doesn’t have much reason to save his daughter if no one has kidnapped her yet right?). Hell, even in romantic comedies they usually have that really cool, rich, but total jerk of a guy that the girl is going to marry before she falls in love with our goofy lovable hero.

However, if you go down to your local video store and dig around in some of the back rows ( no no, I don’t mean the ones behind that red curtain). You’re sure to find some of the worst action movies ever made. Just look for a guy with a gun on the cover and an explosion. Or alterntively, a ninja. The one thing that all these movies have in common is they have the worst bad guys ever.

This is not a uniquely B-movie phenomenon. Even big budget blockbusters have some pretty terrible bad guys…and quite often the entire movie fails because of it. But what is this immutable quality that seperates the a top notch bad guy, from a total dud?

Think about those B-movies I mentioned…or alterntively, think about the bad guys in kids movies. What do these characters all have in common? They are all extremely mean, down and dirty, despicable characters….and that is the problem.

How many times have you seen this: The boss is talking giving some really bad speech…a speech which has no real purpose except to establish how big and bad he is, when in walks a lower level henchmen. Something has gone really bad and he tells the boss all about it. The boss shoots the henchmen and says some poorly written attempt at being witty like, “I thought I told you not to interupt me while I’m eating my cheerios”.

What makes these sorts of characters so terrible is that they are literally too bad. They know they are bad, and seem to be trying to prove it. They are so badass they shoot their henchmen he says he dented their car. Needless to say they will probably be a few henchmen short when the good guy comes after them.

This type of scene is called kicking the dog, because in old plays and operas in order for you to know who the villan was right off the bat, he would often walk in and kick his own dog.

Contrast this with some of the really amazingly well played evil characters. The best example, in my opinion, is Anythony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal lunatic that murders people and then eats him…and yet as you watch Silence of the Lambs, you start to like him. And even like our B-movie bad guys, he does do things intentionally to seem scary…but it comes across entirely differently. Instead, he doesn’t seem to be trying to prove that he is evil, but is instead having fun at causing a reaction in those who already believe he is evil.

But what really seperates Hannibal is that inherently he doesn’t see himself as evil. Hannibal sees himself as a cultured, intelligent, and dignified gentlemen who is prone to minor ‘indiscretions’ that the rest of society can’t seem to understand.

This brings us to our one easy step:

1. Tell him he isn’t the bad guy

If you are the director the very first thing you should tell your actor playing the crucial role of the bad guy is that he isn’t a bad guy. After all, no one…no matter how terrible…thinks that he is ultimately a bad person. Hitler didn’t see himself as a bad person, but rather thought himself to be the uniter of Germany and a leader at the forefront of a movement to create a better human race. In fact, the only person who really ever sees himself as a bad person is usually the hero…a person struggling with a huge mistake in their past, but ultimately they are a good person on the inside.

If you are an actor trying to build a character, the first thing you should do is justify his actions. Why do you steal that nuclear bomb and attempt to blow up Chicago? Maybe you believe that its a small sacrifice compared to the goal you are actually trying to achieve. Maybe you don’t really want to do it, but you don’t see any other way. If a justification isn’t clearly evident in the text, get with the director or writer and work something out. There has to be a reason for your actions…you have to be trying to acomplish something.

Consider a movie like John Q. In it Denzel Washington , takes an emergency room hostage because his son can’t get a heart transplant. In this story, Denzel is the hero, fighting against an inefficient system that is costing real people their lives. If the movie were told from the angle of one of the cops outside, Denzel is the villian…a man at his wits end went way too far to get his way.

This is how good characters are written, and how a role must be performed. Always remember, everyone…no matter how sick …considers themselves to be logical and right in their actions.