Villain Quotes

‘Nobody is a villain in their own story. We’re all the heroes of our own stories.’ – George R. R. Martin

‘The only difference between a hero and the villain is that the villain chooses to use that power in a way that is selfish and hurts other people.’ – Chadwick Boseman

‘If you can’t play the good guy, sometimes you’ve got to play the villain.’ – Ben Askren

‘The Joker is my favorite villain of all time: You don’t know his past; you just know what his plans are.’ – The Weeknd

‘I prefer a real villain to a false hero.’ – Killer Mike

‘History will decide if I’m a villain or a hero.’ – Harlan Ellison

‘I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.’ – William Shakespeare

‘There’s no hero without a villain.’ – Mark Pellegrino

‘One of the greatest things about playing a villain is people wondering when he’s going to make his comeback.’ – Michael McMillian

‘The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.’ – Alfred Hitchcock

‘I’m not handsome enough to be James Bond. Maybe a villain, though.’ – Matt Smith

‘It’s dangerous to think of yourself as a hero and someone else as a villain. It gets in the way of empathy.’ – Megan Ganz

‘The villain is the character that the people remember.’ – Udo Kier

‘None of us wants to be judged by our worst act on our worst day, and we consistently judge Burr for that. He was not a perfect man, but he’s not a villain. He’s a dude, just a guy.’ – Leslie Odom, Jr.

‘I think all of us have a hero and a villain in us.’ – Anson Mount

‘One murder made a villain, Millions a hero.’ – Beilby Porteus

‘In the best works of fiction, there’s no mustache-twirling villain. I try to write shows where even the bad guy’s got his reasons.’ – Lin-Manuel Miranda

‘You can’t always play the hero. You have to play the villain.’ – John Kani

‘In any story, the villain is the catalyst. The hero’s not a person who will bend the rules or show the cracks in his armor. He’s one-dimensional intentionally, but the villain is the person who owns up to what he is and stands by it.’ – Marilyn Manson

‘I like being a villain. Villains are more exciting.’ – Judd Nelson

‘Try finding a better villain than me. I am the best of the worst!’ – Rajesh Khattar

‘To become a villain, you had to have become disillusioned, and in order to become disillusioned you had to have been passionate about something you believed in that was shaken and ripped from your grasp as a protagonist in that stage of your life, leaving you disillusioned with God, if you will.’ – Matthew Davis

‘A good villain exudes charisma and power. He has principles, though; that just gives him a level of dimension. It makes him seem to be a bit unpredictable, because he’s usually deemed as some type of evil, ruthless person, and then he shows you his principles, and you don’t know what to think of it.’ – Pusha T

‘I’m no hero. The world knows all too well about my mistakes. But I was never meant to play the villain.’ – Erik Prince

‘I personally feel that no human is a hero or a villain. All of us have our grey sides, and that is why grey interests me: because it’s more human, more life-like.’ – Manoj Bajpayee

‘I always will be the villain, no matter what. I don’t know why.’ – Manny Machado

‘The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful in society, had that society been well organized.’ – Mary Wollstonecraft

‘Some of us are born rebellious. Like Jean Genet or Arthur Rimbaud, I roam these mean streets like a villain, a vagabond, an outcast, scavenging for the scraps that may perchance plummet off humanity’s dirty plates, though often sometimes taking a cab to a restaurant is more convenient.’ – Patti Smith

‘I’m a villain at heart. I’m a born villain.’ – Roddy Piper

‘To be painted a villain, you have to do something, I guess, evil or something heinous, and I don’t know if I fit that description.’ – Richard Sherman

‘I’m not a villain, I’ve never hurt anyone. I’m just a tawdry character who explodes now and again.’ – Oliver Reed

‘Some people are cowards… I think by and large a third of people are villains, a third are cowards, and a third are heroes. Now, a villain and a coward can choose to be a hero, but they’ve got to make that choice.’ – Tom Hanks

‘The villain drives the plot.’ – Gayle Lynds

‘I’ve been on both sides: the victim and the villain. I was the victimised model, and everything from my weight to my fertility was held up for discussion. And then I was the person that could garner some kind of positive outcome, by taking on the role of vice chairman of the British Fashion Council and becoming an activist of body image.’ – Erin O’Connor

‘I firmly believe that a story is only as good as the villain.’ – Clive Barker

‘That’s not a villain, that’s a man whose a victim of being in love with the wrong one.’ – Rod Steiger

‘Sometimes a villain is very quiet – it makes them more deadly, more intellectual.’ – Dave Filoni

‘I define ‘social thriller’ as thriller/horror movies where the ultimate villain is society.’ – Jordan Peele

‘I am my favourite villain!’ – Juhi Chawla

‘Every villain has their belief system that makes perfect sense to them.’ – Patty Jenkins

‘My theory of characterization is basically this: Put some dirt on a hero, and put some sunshine on the villain, one brush stroke of beauty on the villain.’ – Justin Cronin

‘An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards.’ – John Locke

‘Well, you need the villain. If you don’t have a villain, the good guy can stay home.’ – Christoph Waltz

‘It’s generally more fun playing the villain.’ – Charlie Hunnam

‘A cinema villain essentially needs a moustache so he can twiddle with it gleefully as he cooks up his next nasty plan.’ – Mel Brooks

‘If I play a villain, I try to find his lightness and his good side. And if I play a hero or a good guy, I’ll try to find his darkness or his flaws. Because I don’t believe in good and evil. I believe in grays.’ – Joel Kinnaman

‘The most propagandistic element of ‘Frozen’ was the transformation of the prince at the beginning of the story, who was a perfectly good guy, into a villain with no character development whatsoever about three-quarters of the way to the ending.’ – Jordan Peterson

‘Being an entertainer, I want to play the role both of a villain and a hero.’ – Diljit Dosanjh

‘As an actor, I should justify the role given to me. So, as a villain, my job was to make people hate me.’ – Ranjeet

‘It is really funny when people say you’d be obvious for a great villain.’ – Angelina Jolie

‘Someone has to be the villain. I’m the most villainized player right now. People don’t like me.’ – Austin Seferian-Jenkins

‘Tony Blair is not a villain, but he’s played the part very well.’ – Ian Mckellen

‘The villain in ‘Call Me by Your Name’ is the tragedy of love – what seems to be part of the deal you sign with someone when you experience an amazing time with them.’ – Timothee Chalamet

‘I’m not a role model. I’m a role villain.’ – Marilyn Manson

‘In the last James Bond movie, the villain was a culture captain, a tycoon of culture, a Murdoch figure. It’s not as if people don’t know what is going on.’ – Thomas Frank

‘You know everyone loves to be the villain.’ – Hugh Grant

‘When you are a hero you are always running to save someone, sweating, worried and guilty. When you are a villain you are just lurking in the shadows waiting for the hero to pass by. Then you pop them in the head and go home… piece of cake.’ – James Marsters

‘It was great to be able to play a hero in ‘The Magnificent Seven’ in a film industry where Asian actors are often limited to playing a villain.’ – Lee Byung-hun

‘I don’t necessarily find superheroes in general, for me, that appealing. I’d much prefer to play, if I was to be cast in a superhero film, I’d prefer to play the villain because there’s a reason, there’s a motive behind their madness.’ – Ryan Kwanten

‘Where there is a hero, there is always a villain.’ – Vishwajeet Pradhan

‘Without the villain, the hero sits at home on his couch.’ – Mark Pellegrino

‘I played characters with villainous aspect. But out-and-out villain? No.’ – Clint Eastwood

‘I think ‘Voldemort’ is definitely the scariest villain.’ – Lauren Oliver

‘One doesn’t need a particular height or body to be a villain in movies. He needs the brain and the look.’ – Ali

‘Every villain needs her story told.’ – Abbi Glines

‘In wrestling, my mustache made me look more like a villain. A good mustache can give you the look of the devil.’ – Jesse Ventura

‘Being a villain is great, even though I’ve only gotten to do it a few times.’ – Shawn Ashmore

‘If a novelist had concocted a villain like Trump – a larger-than-life, over-the-top avatar of narcissism, mendacity, ignorance, prejudice, boorishness, demagoguery, and tyrannical impulses, she or he would likely be accused of extreme contrivance and implausibility.’ – Michiko Kakutani

‘As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow.’ – Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

‘There has to be that feeling in a good villain – that he’s awesome, he has his own power; that he is, in several senses, unstoppable.’ – Peter Coyote

‘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.’ – Lee Van Cleef

‘In my entire career, only two actors challenged me as villain in my films. One is Raghuvaran’s character of Mark Antony in ‘Baasha’ and Ramya Krishnan’s portrayal of Neelambari in ‘Padaiyappa.” – Rajinikanth

‘I’ve always wanted to play the villain. You get to be morally corrupt. You don’t get to do that in real life.’ – Kendrick Sampson

‘I like ambiguity because you may be the villain in someone else’s story and the hero in your own, and I think very often, African-American characters are either one thing or the other. You shouldn’t have to be perfectly good or perfectly bad. You don’t even have to be magical.’ – Chadwick Boseman

‘I’ve played a lot of bad guys in my time, especially in movies. It’s delightful playing the villain. It’s almost the most interesting and most complicated role in a film.’ – Steven Berkoff

‘The underwater businessman philosopher Andrew Ryan was BioShock’s unforgettable villain.’ – Tom Bissell

‘I liked getting the best villain award. I thought that was funny.’ – Stephen Dorff

‘In the ’70s and ’80s, there was a definite set of roles in a film. There would be a hero, a heroine and a villain.’ – Ranjeet

‘It’s always fun playing a villain, I do have to say.’ – Jessica Henwick

‘One of my goals is to play a villain in a Bond film. People ask me if I want to be a Bond girl, and I say, ‘No, I want to be the villain.’ I’m waiting for that call!’ – Jessica Chastain

‘My dream would be to play the villain in a James Bond movie, or opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. I like everything exaggerated.’ – Udo Kier

‘There was definitely a lack of any sort of villain in the Clinton era, which is why, when Columbine happened, it was easy to pick on me. My face was around, and it made good TV.’ – Marilyn Manson

‘You don’t always come off the way that you want to or look the way you want to. I go out there and just act up and become the evil villain, and I’m calling guys out and stuff. It seems to have worked. I’m getting the fights I want.’ – Nick Diaz

‘Since most heroes are doing villainous roles these days, that thrill is lost. Earlier, there used to be a hero, a heroine, a villain and such. The villain’s entry would generate a lot of curiosity among the audience back then.’ – Ranjeet

‘When I was a child I liked watching shows about bounty hunters and Canadian Mounties. I liked the ‘Lone Ranger,’ I liked shows where the guy saved the girl from the villain. I just liked those kinds of things and I wanted to be a guy like that, you know, that would save the damsel in distress.’ – Duane Chapman

‘If you have not been a villain at a certain point in time, you will never be a hero. And the day you are a hero, you may become a villain the next day.’ – Carlos Ghosn

‘I’m the blackest villain of all time.’ – Ian McDiarmid

‘Too often, we get attention and sympathy by being a victim. If we’re invested in someone being our villain, we must love being the victim. We have to let go of both characters in the story.’ – Regina Brett

‘There’s gotta be a villain; there’s gotta be a good guy.’ – Christian Laettner

‘A lot of actors would tell you that they’d rather play the villain than the hero. When you’re the character, there are no repercussions. So there is a kind of liberating feeling about saying certain things to certain people – and I think that it’s always quite satisfying to do that.’ – Tom Ellis

‘I like movies that make you semi fall in love with the villain so you have sympathy for him.’ – Megan Thee Stallion

‘Vampirism, for me, was a way to live in fantasy and have superpowers, but not just in a really perfect, happy, everything is great way. It’s superpowers with a cost. It’s having to be the villain, and what do you do about that.’ – Stephenie Meyer

‘From the very beginning of my career, I never planned anything. I did whatever came to me. Not that I never did positive roles but people loved me more as a villain. That’s how I got this negative image.’ – Ranjeet

‘Actors always want to play the villain role at least once in their life.’ – Lee Byung-hun

‘A manager uses a relief pitcher like a six shooter, he fires until it’s empty then takes the gun and throws it at the villain.’ – Dan Quisenberry

‘I was never a villain on the stage. I always played strong, sympathetic types. My first stage role with a speaking part, believe it or not, was as a priest. It wasn’t until I began acting in films that the producers and directors saw me primarily as a bizarre villain.’ – Conrad Veidt

‘The most important political task facing the out-of-power party – the Democrats for now – is creating a villain to run against. It’s certainly easier than developing some grand new ideas or policies on which to campaign.’ – Pat Sajak

‘You have to love the guy that you play, even if you play the villain, you’ve got to love him.’ – Andy Garcia

‘I would like to make it known, on this program, loud and clear, that I would absolutely embrace with all five of my arms being a Bond villain.’ – Ben Kingsley

‘You’ve got to love the villain if you have to play him. You’ve got to find something that you can live with in yourself if you’re going to play the villain in a play on stage.’ – Jim Dale

‘I’m not an actress, you know. I don’t know what’s going on. And I’m supposed to be the villain.’ – Gisele Bundchen

‘I would love to play the villain, but again, it’s sort of what happens in this industry.’ – Joe Morton

‘I never play a villain that I don’t have something I can either do or say so the audience sees there is something redeemable about them. In other words, I don’t want to do evil for evil’s sake. I don’t want to do Jason slasher movies. There’s no point in that.’ – Brion James

‘I did this within a philosophical framework, and a moral and legal framework. And I have been turned into a cartoon of the greatest villain in the history of lobbying.’ – Jack Abramoff

‘It’s not that fun to just play a villain, without any reasoning behind it.’ – Nicholas Lea

‘When you’re a guest star on TV shows – particularly in the 1960s – you’re always the villain.’ – Robert Vaughn

‘I don’t think playing a villain is my greatest talent.’ – Sam Waterston

‘It really doesn’t matter whether it’s the villain or the hero. Sometimes the villain is the most colorful. But I prefer a part where you don’t know what he is until the end.’ – Glenn Ford

‘Maybe you’re better to play a villain just straight out.’ – Sigourney Weaver

‘I love my accent, I thought it was useful in Gone In 60 Seconds because the standard villain is upper class or Cockney. My Northern accent would be an odd clash opposite Nic Cage.’ – Christopher Eccleston

‘Jaws was still a handsome, big guy. He got the girl. He was my favorite villain. I tried to make this guy endearing somewhat because all he wanted to do was unite his country.’ – Rick Yune

‘Uncle Junior is a criminal, which makes him a villain, so it makes people want to watch him. My whole life as an actor has been preparing for something like this.’ – Dominic Chianese

‘You can’t think that you’re playing a villain, or you’ll end up with a cartoon. You have to think about him as a person and a hero.’ – Tom Berenger

‘I had a wonderful time playing Dr. Kaufman in Tomorrow Never Dies. It was a real Bond villain, over the top, almost laughable but dangerous.’ – Vincent Schiavelli

‘To be a Bond villain, you only get to do that once in your life. You never get to come back.’ – Vincent Schiavelli

‘I play a recurring role for a character named Doctor Imo. I assist the villain and show up from time to time.’ – Keir Dullea

‘I know what’s good for me. I can’t play black or gray. I can’t be a villain or anything close to one. I have to play white.’ – Alan Ladd

‘I’d love to play a villain in a movie, the kind of bad guy you would never think of me being able to play. Like most people, I have a darker side I’d like to explore onscreen.’ – Garth Brooks

‘Being down in Orlando, Florida, where we filmed the movie, I learned how to bass fish. Jerry Reed, who plays the villain in the movie, taught me how to bass fish.’ – Henry Winkler

‘It’s the first villain that I’ve played in a movie that has absolutely no vulnerability and no innocence, nothing whatsoever that is likeable about her other than she’s so bad.’ – Daryl Hannah

‘Having the Stitch character, the villain that becomes a hero, coming from outer space, it took a very difficult and complex story and put it into a simpler, kinder time.’ – Tia Carrere

‘The other thing is we have an incredible villain. And we worked very hard to have villains that are connected to the hero. They have an effect, an emotional effect. They never become out-of-this-world, crazy villains.’ – Avi Arad

‘I think if you do something effectively whether you’re the lover or the comic or the action guy or the villain like I play; movies are very expensive to make. Chances are you’ll get asked to play that part again.’ – Christopher Walken

‘I think it’s too easy often to find a villain out of the headlines and to then repeat that villainy again and again and again. You know, traditionally, America has always looked to scapegoat someone as the boogie man.’ – Edward Zwick

‘I like playing the villain.’ – Alex O’Loughlin

‘Of course we’ve been fighting against stereotypes from Day One at East West. That’s the reason we formed: to combat that, and to show we are capable of more than just fulfilling the stereotypes – waiter, laundryman, gardener, martial artist, villain.’ – Mako

‘Part of my strength as an actor comes from what I’ve learned all these years: when you play a villain, you try to get the light touches; when you play a hero, you try to get in some of the warts.’ – John Forsythe

‘Well, this is an unfortunate part of the UN institution. It’s the – the theater of the absurd. It doesn’t only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi’s Libya chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam’s Iraq headed the UN Committee on Disarmament.’ – Benjamin Netanyahu

‘You’ve got to have a villain and they’ll always make me a villain. I’m used to it – it makes me work harder and it makes me fight harder.’ – Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

‘People wanted me to be like the Madonna, the white nun, you know, and that’s not me. But I’m no villain.’ – Mary Beth Whitehead

‘It’s about the characters, it’s about the film, it’s about the process of making stunning visuals and a huge, epic movie. It doesn’t matter if my head was covered in a black plastic bag and I was bouncing around in a space hopper: That’s the villain of Chris Nolan’s ‘Batman!” – Tom Hardy

‘I’m incredibly grateful to be playing the villain in a world which, if I really thought to hard about what I was doing, I would get very nervous about the size and the magnitude of the importance and responsibility of being a villain in the world of ‘Batman.” – Tom Hardy

‘My life’s ambition is to play a James Bond villain. I have the cat and the eye-patch, so I’m just waiting for the call. For some reason, though, the phone hasn’t rung.’ – Toby Young

‘Some people who’ve read my story think I had a terrible childhood and that I was neglected or even abused, while others feel that my parents, while certainly flawed, also had truly wonderful qualities. And that’s the way it should be, because in real life two people can look at the same president and one will see a hero and the other a villain.’ – Jeannette Walls

‘The American cinema in general always made stories about working-class people; the British rarely did. Any person with my working-class background would be a villain or a comic cipher, usually badly played, and with a rotten accent. There weren’t a lot of guys in England for me to look up to.’ – Michael Caine

‘Sometimes there is more exploration in the character for a villain.’ – Chris Hemsworth

‘The villain is usually the most interesting part. But it has to be a smart thing. Just dumb cliche villains with a Russian accent and big muscles and a mean face, I don’t know. My Russian accent isn’t that great, and the muscles aren’t that big and the mean face is not enough. You know what I mean? It gets very boring. Tedious stuff.’ – Christoph Waltz

‘If you find yourself always playing the villain, or if you find yourself being typecast into a corner where you’re not happy then that’s probably rather miserable, but if I have been typecast I am quite happy about it.’ – James Purefoy

”Villain’ is such a harsh word.’ – Ed Westwick

‘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.’ – Cam Gigandet

‘The villain of any story is often the most compelling character.’ – John Hodgman

‘People are much more complicated in real life, but my characters are as subtle and nuanced as I can make them. But if you say my characters are too black and white, you’ve missed the point. Villains are meant to be black-hearted in popular novels. If you say I have a grey-hearted villain, then I’ve failed.’ – Ken Follett

‘If you look a little punkish, then they’re going to give you the parts. And if you play an iconic villain early on in your career, you tend to get asked to play one over and over and over again.’ – Malcolm McDowell

‘I love the idea of a super villain that doesn’t wear a cape, that doesn’t wear a super suit.’ – Shane Black

‘Hollywood constantly wants to label you and type you into a certain category, ‘Oh he’s a comedy guy,’ or the weirdo character guy or the villain.’ – Sam Rockwell

‘The English are good at bad guys – the James Bond-style villain, cunning, slow-burning. The Americans are much more obvious about it.’ – Idris Elba

‘I usually do get to play the very sweet, charming roles… but I’m not an obvious kind of villain.’ – Jacki Weaver

‘I play a character in the WWE and everybody hates my character. I’m the evil villain bad guy. Whenever people meet me, they’re like, ‘Wow, you’re such a nice guy. We never expected that.” – Chris Jericho

‘I’ll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.’ – Dorothy Allison

‘In the summer after sixth grade, I took a class at St. Robert Bellarmine. My first role, I was the villain in a play, and I forgot all my lines. I think I cried my way through the performance.’ – Nicholas D’Agosto

‘My favorite movie villain? Oh, that’s easy. Hannibal Lecter.’ – Troy Duffy

‘Everybody wants to be a Bond villain. That is the coolest. To be able to portray a Bond villain, that is the feather in any actor’s cap.’ – Steve Carell

‘So once I thought of the villain with a sense of humor, I began to think of a name and the name “the Joker” immediately came to mind. There was the association with the Joker in the deck of cards, and I probably yelled literally, ‘Eureka!’ because I knew I had the name and the image at the same time.’ – Jerry Robinson

‘So, I’m thinking of a name for a villain that has a sense of humor. I thought of ‘The Joker’ as a name, and as soon as I thought that, I associate it with the playing card, as my family had a tradition of champion playing; my brother was a contract champion bridge player. There were always cards around the house.’ – Jerry Robinson

‘A villain to me is someone who actively seeks to hurt someone or does things for his own gain.’ – Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

‘It was my mustache that landed jobs for me. In those silent-film days it was the mark of a villain. When I realized they had me pegged as a foreign nobleman type I began to live the part, too. I bought a pair of white spats, an ascot tie and a walking stick.’ – Adolphe Menjou

‘I was playing the villain ‘Falseface’ on Batman, and I got wind that they were going to pay a young starlet $25,000 to be in the same episode. Well, I wasn’t getting anywhere near that amount of money, so I refused to let them put my name in the credits.’ – Malachi Throne

‘I think the first villain that I ever played was on ‘Stargate’. I was this superior being that would take over a human host and believe that he was the most superior being in the universe.’ – Kevin Durand

‘My food hero has to be Auguste Escoffier. And the villain? The man who’s been most responsible for the death of food in my time is Ronald McDonald. He’s always scared me, I think he’s evil – he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Him and the Hamburglar.’ – Arthur Potts Dawson

‘Who is to say who is the villain and who is the hero? Probably the dictionary.’ – Joss Whedon

‘It’s so fun to play a villain. I get to tap into a side of myself I thought I never had.’ – Abbie Cobb

‘I didn’t set out to be a villain in film. I’m a character actor, and if my first movie was a comedy, I could have played a geek just as well.’ – William Zabka

‘I understand being the villain is what people like. People play to that. They want to know about the villain.’ – Dwyane Wade

‘After my wife and I were married, we obtained a rescue dog from a family that didn’t want her anymore. She was a beautiful Collie/Shepherd mix named ‘Precious.’ It then came to pass that our first marital ‘debate’ was whether we should change the dog’s name away from the same name used by the wacky villain in ‘Silence of the Lambs.” – Bob Peterson

‘I think everybody likes to play the villain. They’re always much more interesting characters.’ – Maria Doyle Kennedy

‘The only way to describe my involvement in ‘Planes’ is that it’s an absolute dream come true for me. Getting to be a bad guy in any project is fun, let alone being a Disney villain. I can’t imagine anything getting better than that!’ – Roger Craig Smith

‘What’s great about ‘The Avengers’ is that it’s the next step. It’s not just superhero fights super-villain and superhero wins. It’s about superheroes that come together and interact. It’s a clash of the egos. You could do ‘Avengers 1′ without a villain, just with all these guys coming together. They could sit down and just have a discussion.’ – Louis Leterrier

‘I play a lot of, maybe a little bit, cartoonish people. I’ve been a Bond villain, and I play a lot of villains, people who want to take over something.’ – Christopher Walken

‘Obviously, I play a villain in ‘Downton Abbey’. As an actor, you want to get a variety of roles, so to be offered the part of Joe, it was perfect.’ – Rob James-Collier

‘No actor can play a villain if they don’t sympathise with him or her – otherwise the character just becomes a two-dimensional caricature.’ – Katie McGrath

‘I’m interested in looking for solutions because it’s become the case that in fashion you’re either a villain or a victim. Look at the industry’s very limited remit in terms of body size, for example.’ – Erin O’Connor

‘Back in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, you had clear-cut heroes, clear-cut supervillains. Today, you have more of a blend, more of a gray area between the two. You have the rise of the sympathetic villain and the rise of the antihero.’ – Jim Lee

‘I don’t play the role of a villain, really, but I like playing anti-hero kind of roles. I like characters where there’s conflict, drama, and more personal investment than just being heroes.’ – Randeep Hooda

‘It’s interesting sometimes when an audience can empathize with a villain.’ – Jack Gleeson

‘The characters that have greys are the more interesting characters. The hero who sometimes crosses the line and the villain who sometimes doesn’t are just much more interesting.’ – Geoff Johns

‘Every villain in the DC Universe wants something different, and not all of them want to rule the world. Or at least, not all of them want to rule the world in the way the Crime Syndicate do.’ – Geoff Johns

‘Even with a villain, you don’t want him just to be some pockmarked punchbag.’ – Alex Gibney

‘I prefer to play the villain or the antihero.’ – Scott Adkins

‘In the game of cricket, a hero is a person who respects the game and does not corrupt the game. The one who doesn’t or corrupts the game, they are the villain. They should be punished, and they have been punished in the past.’ – Virat Kohli

‘I really want to be a villain.’ – Isaac Hempstead Wright

‘As long as I have the talent and there’s a demand for the old Chinese man – whether he’s a philosopher, or a master, or an old-time restaurant owner, or a villain, or a so-called good guy – I will always be working.’ – James Hong

‘Because of my flamboyant lifestyle, because of me being German, the way I am, I am the easiest person to sell as a villain. I’m the perfect target.’ – Kim Dotcom

‘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.’ – Eddie Marsan

‘I’m the guy who plays human beings. I understand why the characters are doing what they’re doing. When you play a villain, you don’t play a villain: you play a human being doing what he thinks he needs to do to get what he wants.’ – Eddie Marsan

‘I want to play a villain – I can’t wait to play a villain.’ – Bernie Mac

‘I would love to play a villain someday in that I think that what I’ve done with my whole career is walk this tightrope between charming and creepy, and I always fall on the charming side. I’d like to fall on the creepy side and be like one of those scary old men, like really charming villains.’ – Jason Segel

‘The greatest villain of all time is The Joker – he always has been, and I don’t know anyone who’s not going to have Heath Ledger’s performance burnt into their brains for the rest of their lives.’ – Drew Goddard

‘The great thing I like about the sci-fi genre is there’s a lot of different latitude for a lot of different kinds of behavior. You can be a very larger-than-life villain, or a very naturalistic villain, and all of it seems to fit.’ – Mark Pellegrino

‘If you don’t care for the villain, if you don’t love him and hate him at the same time, then he’s just boring.’ – Neal McDonough

‘I find the trick to playing a villain is that you can’t be bad for the sake of being bad. It has to be rooted in some sort of heartbreak.’ – Matthew Davis

‘It’s as boring to see a completely evil villain as it is to see a completely good guy.’ – Brian Helgeland

‘Johnny ‘Fairplay’ Dalton manufactured a lie about his dear grandmother dying in order to win a challenge. This is one of the best villain moments of ‘Survivor’ ever! This lie was pre-planned, evil, and perfectly played out.’ – Jenna Morasca

‘Sometimes someone that is the ‘villain’ in your life, when you look deeper and you think of what their issues are and why they behave like that and where they came from – they become less of a villain and more of someone that you can understand.’ – Brooke Elliott

‘You’re a hero one day, you’re a villain another day. They say that’s football. When a manager does well, they’re applauded, when they don’t do well, they get the sack. Football is a tough world. Those who watch enjoy it – for everybody else, there are a lot of challenges.’ – Vincent Tan

‘I want to play a villain. I want to play a romantic heroine.’ – Allison Williams

‘Everybody loves a villain – let’s face it.’ – Campbell Scott

‘If you’re going to play a villain, there’s no greater compliment than being told that you give people nightmares. I never thought I would be the actor that would give people nightmares.’ – Valorie Curry

‘As a person navigating the waters of public scrutiny, you are often unable to hold on to personal heroes or villains. Inevitably you will meet your hero, and he may turn out to be less than impressive, while your villain turns out to be the coolest cat you’ve ever met.’ – Rob Lowe

‘We spend all this energy keeping our lives normal and safe and predictable, and the result is that our approved cultural safety valve is the movies. So in films, anyway, the hero is obliged to represent the continuance of social values and institutions, and his permission to act is much more seriously limited than the villain’s.’ – Peter Coyote

‘I think you have a social responsibility as the villain, which is pretty different from the hero’s responsibility. If you have any kind of a social or political conscience at all, the first thing you want to do is make malevolence recognizable to people, almost as a kind of teaching aid.’ – Peter Coyote

‘My face lends itself to austere characters, and unless they’re two-dimensional, I will do them. Any actor will tell you that an interesting villain is much more interesting to play.’ – Charles Dance

‘Movies are full of leading men, most of whom aren’t working. It’s much harder to find a good villain.’ – Lee Van Cleef

‘I’ve always wanted to play the villain. But the young girl is never the villain.’ – Katherine Waterston

‘It’s fun playing the villain now and again; villains are so simple, and you don’t have to worry about the audience loving you.’ – Sanjay Dutt

‘I did a play once where a reviewer said, ‘Martin Freeman’s too nice to play a bad guy.’ And I thought: ‘Well, bad guys aren’t always bad guys, you know?’ When I see someone play the obvious villain, I know it’s false.’ – Martin Freeman

‘Operas elucidate, in a way sometimes absent in other theatrical productions, the very human fact that in every hero, there is a thread of duplicity. In every villain, there is another side to consider: We don’t have to like him or her, but we are compelled to think about motivation.’ – Karen DeCrow

‘When something happens far back in the past, people often can’t recall exact details. Blame depends upon point of view. There may be a villain, but reality is frustrating because it’s often ambiguous.’ – Hallie Ephron

‘I feel like life is much greater than a hero or a villain: there’s good people that sometimes make mistakes.’ – Peter Dinklage

‘Mugabe hasn’t done anything wrong. It is the imperialists, the capitalist-roaders, who say he is a villain.’ – Michael Sata

‘Actors endow the villain in fiction with a warmth and quality that makes them memorable. I think we like fictional villains because they’re the Mr. Hyde of our own dreams. I’ve met a few real villains in my time, and they weren’t the least bit sympathetic.’ – John Rhys-Davies

‘I don’t think of ‘Macbeth’ as the villain. I don’t think of ‘King Lear’ as the villain. I don’t think of ‘Hamlet’ as the villain. I don’t think of ‘Travis Bickle’ as the villain.’ – Damien Chazelle

‘If someone really takes a risk, it doesn’t get dismissed. That’s what happened when the Oscar was won posthumously by Heath Ledger, who did one of the definitive villain performances of all time. But it really has to be exceptional in defining everything we previously knew about the actress or the actor.’ – Robert Downey, Jr.

‘If someone’s a cartoon villain, you can dismiss them, but if they behave despicably but you kind of like them, they really get under your skin.’ – Michel Faber

”Heel Turn 2′ is about a person who’s in a match, and he’s playing as though the match were real. But it is real! If you’re standing in the middle of a ring, and you’re playing the villain, and everyone is booing and throwing things at you, that’s real.’ – John Darnielle

‘Every good villain has his or her own vulnerability.’ – Rita Volk

‘I always used to be the villain or the comic butt of some show.’ – Robert Preston

‘I think what’s exciting about playing a villain – particularly a villain who’s totally unapologetic about their evil intentions – is that it’s not anything remotely like what you get to do in real life. You’re never allowed to be evil and not feel bad about it afterwards, let alone be evil, period.’ – Bryce Dallas Howard

‘I don’t necessarily prefer playing villains. I know a lot of people say they are more fun, but if the scriptwriter has done their work well, you can find something realistic in a villain and find the mistakes in a hero – it’s all down to the writing.’ – Mads Mikkelsen

‘You could be a victim, you could be a hero, you could be a villain, or you could be a fugitive. But you could not just stand by. If you were in Europe between 1933 and 1945, you had to be something.’ – Alan Furst

‘I was stuck in a wheelchair playing this deranged villain. I felt this mass amount of rage at being so confined. I thought, ‘What can I do that is the direct opposite of this situation?’ The only thing I could think of was that I could sing and dance.’ – Kenneth Branagh

‘It is an Englishman who turns out to be the real villain of ‘The Moonstone.’ By contrast, the three Indian priests who dedicate their lives to returning the jewel to its proper home in the temple, though they have nothing personal to gain by doing so, are positively heroic.’ – Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

‘I thought for a month or so along the lines of what I call Monsieur Beaucaire in modern clothes. By that, I mean a hero who is believed by all to be a villain but who, in the end, is introduced as a man of great honor with a long list of decorations.’ – Preston Sturges

‘People often think I’ve played the villain more times than I have.’ – Ving Rhames

‘Of course, ‘The Last Stand’ has a villain who is traveling to the border to fulfill his own desires, but it’s more about the main character. The Sheriff putting a stop to this villain and defending his town. ‘The Last Stand’ is more about protecting something. About protecting a value.’ – Kim Jee-woon

‘I am never going to stop playing the villain. I would be foolish to do so because the audiences apparently enjoy watching me, and who am I to say no?’ – Christopher Lee

‘I’d love to play a villain in BBC drama ‘Sherlock’ – some sort of evil, slinky blonde would be right up my street.’ – Birgitte Hjort Sorensen

‘Harvard was also a little bit of a villain in my first book, ‘The Dante Club.’ I guess there might be a way to make Harvard more of a sympathetic presence, but it’s such a powerful institution that it more naturally lends itself toward not necessarily a negative but an obstructionist element in a story.’ – Matthew Pearl

‘Rotgut was, to me, just this way to get into the underground of Manhattan where you have these little pockets a villain could rise from; a rot in the bowels of Manhattan. It led to these stories that were just very creepy.’ – Ann Nocenti

‘If there is one thing for which the ‘Real Housewives’ franchise deserves artistic recognition, it is the patient and immaculate building of a villain.’ – Andrea Seigel

‘I’ve seen unpublished manuscripts where the writer doesn’t know they are making fun of the villain – but they are. If you aren’t afraid of your villain, how can your hero be afraid?’ – Gayle Lynds

‘A lot of the time, a moral compass is all that separates a hero from being a villain; otherwise, the two are very much the same. Both are generally the richest and most complex characters, and they get to have all the fun. I guess it’s those types of roles that I ultimately gravitate towards.’ – Ian Anthony Dale

‘I think, to me, I was always taught you never approach any character as a villain. Every human being on earth really believes that they’re doing the best thing. We all have our rationalizations.’ – Alysia Reiner

‘I call my golden retriever Cara my ‘white wolf.’ She’s changed my attitude and made me write this book where the wolf is the hero, not the villain.’ – Debi Gliori

‘The villain in superhero movies is often, I think, what makes the movie.’ – Toby Emmerich

‘For me, especially with the villain, it’s not very interesting to write a guy who is just 100% bad.’ – Jason Aaron

‘There’s only so long you can play the silent type standing in the background. ‘GoldenEye’ was good for that. I was the villain: James Bond was doing all the heavy lifting. I liked that.’ – Sean Bean

‘As you do on any cable series, if they introduce you as the villain, then you better start working towards making him a really good guy, or if they introduce you as a really good guy, then you better start working towards being the villain. Your character has to go somewhere, or else they become very uninteresting.’ – Zach McGowan

‘I’d like to be involved in ‘SNL’ somehow. I mean, being a permanent cast member is a stretch! That’s pretty damned hard, but to host it one day would be a dream come true. And I would like to play the DC Comics villain Harley Quinn.’ – Harley Quinn Smith

‘I want to be a villain with steel hands or something. I want to be the crazy, world-domination-obsessed villain. I would love to be a Bond villain.’ – Paul Giamatti

‘The best part of working on ‘Baywatch’ is to be the villain of the movie. I don’t think The Rock, aka Dwayne Johnson, has ever had anyone who’s been mean to him.’ – Priyanka Chopra

‘The challenge is, how do you take someone who’s supposed to be a villain and make that appealing and lovable? You have to empathize with him and put yourself in his shoes and root for him and want him to have the things he wants.’ – Rich Moore

‘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.’ – Katee Sackhoff

‘I always thought it would be really fun to play a villain. I feel like I haven’t done that yet. Not an anti-hero, not someone who is flawed, but somebody who is just straight-up bad.’ – Julia Stiles

‘A villain can be stylish, and his actions don’t have to be explained. Heroes are boring in comparison, even anti-heroes, as there’s always a justification for their bad actions.’ – Dhanush

‘I’m a villain. But hey, villains have fans, too. They might have more fans than the heroes, and I’m OK with that.’ – Austin Seferian-Jenkins

‘If someone has to be the villain, I’ll be the villain. I have no problem with it. The movies still say, ‘Starring… the villain.” – Austin Seferian-Jenkins

‘I was a street-guy villain. I was a street-corner villain. I was an illiterate villain. All rough edges.’ – Peter Falk

‘I think it’s too easy often to find a villain out of the headlines and to then repeat that villainy again and again and again. You know, traditionally, America has always looked to scapegoat someone as the boogie man… there is a tradition in the most simplistic of action movies for there to be some horrible villain.’ – Edward Zwick

‘There’s not one part of me that wants to go crazy and do anything out of the ordinary, but it would be nice to do something and not have it spread all over the place. But that’s the world we live in now, and you either have to accept it or figure it out – or become a villain, I guess.’ – Matt Harvey

‘I studied religions and all kinds of other things in college. I took a Shakespearean villain course for English literature. It was really intense. I think that sort of rounds a person. In this business, it’s really important for us to be interesting… and have interests.’ – Chris Wood

‘I get a lot of people saying to me, ‘Oh, you’re the actor who plays the nutters,’ and I’m not. I’m the guy who plays human beings. I understand why the characters are doing what they’re doing. When you play a villain, you don’t play a villain: you play a human being doing what he thinks he needs to do to get what he wants.’ – Eddie Marsan

‘You can’t watch ‘Daredevil’ or ‘Jessica Jones’ or the Marvel films and not be aware that the villain has to be awesome. I’ve always wanted to have more space. And the scope, morally, is more broad for the villain than the hero.’ – Mahershala Ali

‘I’m excited about ‘Luke Cage’ with Michael Colter, who plays Luke Cage. I play the villain, Cottonmouth. It takes place in Harlem. It’ll just be amazing for people to get to see an African-American superhero, which there weren’t any when I was growing up.’ – Mahershala Ali

‘I always wanted to play a ‘Batman’ villain; that was a big one for me. I may have missed the boat, but I always wanted to do that.’ – Will Poulter

‘I love playing a villain. I think that there’s something freeing about that, and it’s a different kind of challenge.’ – Jeffrey Dean Morgan

‘I love being the villain.’ – Jane Lynch

‘My question is why does every African American fighter have to be the villain?’ – Andre Ward

‘The Joker is my favorite villain of all time.’ – Bryson Tiller

‘Elektra isn’t a villain and isn’t a good girl, but as Frank Miller said, she is one of the villains with a weak streak in them, and that’s a failure that I tried to explore.’ – Elodie Yung

‘I knew I would get offers to play the villain after ‘Kick,’ and I had already decided to reject all of them.’ – Nawazuddin Siddiqui

‘I have been doing a lot of romantic movies, so such roles don’t excite me much now. I would like to play an out-and-out, really cruel villain once. My character in ‘Da Thadiya’ had such a streak, but I want a full length villainous role. It is a different kind of excitement.’ – Nivin Pauly

‘I would love to be a villain.’ – Sasheer Zamata

‘What was good about ‘Moonraker’ was that we had Jaws back, because after ‘The Spy Who Loved Me,’ he became a well-loved villain.’ – Roger Moore

‘I don’t want to paint myself as some villain – I was never a bad guy doing horrible things, but I got too caught up in wanting a very specific thing to happen to the band. Ultimately, I had to find the ability in myself to get over that and stop being so stringent and learn to laugh a little bit more.’ – Andy Biersack

”Flying Jatt’ is a superhero movie, and the villain needs to be really strong.’ – Remo D’Souza

‘I think a lot of actors will tell you that playing a villain can be more fun than playing the straight and narrow good guy.’ – Haley Joel Osment

‘There’s the 7-year-old me that pretended to be Wonder Woman running around the schoolyard. Like, what an incredible thing to imagine that when the bully shows up or the villain, you would be strong enough to do something about it. But, also, you look like Lynda Carter while you’re doing it – like, ‘Oh, my God.” – Patty Jenkins

‘Captain William Thomas Turner, hero; villain, Schwieger. As I started doing research into him and into the submarine and so forth, I found that I was growing increasingly sympathetic to him. He’s a young guy, 30, handsome, well-liked by his crew, humane.’ – Erik Larson

‘I love to play with the notion of who the protagonist is – who is the audience supposed to root for? I did it in ‘Sicario’ and feel it was the strength of the script – guiding the audience’s allegiance toward the villain because they think he’s the hero, until it’s revealed that he’s the villain.’ – Taylor Sheridan

‘I hope we can see African American characters as the diva, as the villain, and also as the praying mother. We are all of those things. We tended to only be the best friend or the neighbor in everybody’s sitcom.’ – Angela Robinson

‘Playing the villain, bringing her to life, is the most fun because there really are no rules.’ – Angela Robinson

‘It gives me a chance to explore so many dynamics – that’s what we actors dream of doing. So, I love playing the villain.’ – Angela Robinson

‘I love Robin Wright’s character in ‘House of Cards’ because she’s a bona fide villain. She’s a not-nice person in a believable way; you can see her working in the world.’ – Gillian Flynn

‘I do think that having the villain be a woman is just as feminine, because we’re not just saying, ‘Women are wonderful and made of marshmallows,’ but women can be anything. They can be amazing superheroes, or they can be dastardly villains, and everything in between.’ – Laura Benanti

‘I don’t think you can play a villain with a negative point of view.’ – Joe Morton

‘I think every villain basically thinks that he or she is doing something to make his world, or the world in general, a better place.’ – Joe Morton

‘With any villain, you have to see things from their point of view and understand that they think what they’re doing will make the world a better place.’ – Joe Morton

‘It’s always more interesting to play the villain.’ – James Caan

‘The guy I played in ‘The Xpose’ is more like a spoiled brat who likes to have his way than a villain. No more negative roles after ‘The Xpose’ for me. I’ve enough problems dealing with the negative image I’ve been saddled with in some sections.’ – Yo Yo Honey Singh

‘It’s a pity I have been stereotyped as a villain.’ – Radha Ravi

‘I want to go play a villain or an action hero or a nice, light, romantic comedy or something. That would be good.’ – Dash Mihok

‘I don’t think anyone sets out to be the evil villain.’ – Thomas Middleditch

”Villain’ succeeded because we were genuinely working towards a good film. We worked hard and with a lot of conviction.’ – Ajith Kumar

‘No villain thinks of himself as a villain, and that’s the approach I always take.’ – John Lithgow

‘It’s wonderful to play a villain who gets a laugh or to stop a comedy dead in its tracks with a touching moment. It’s kind of like a symphony that has very different movements.’ – John Lithgow

‘The idea is to be different with every film, and I’m glad my mother and my brother, who were sitting besides me during the screening of ‘Ek Villain,’ forget it was me on screen after the first 15 minutes.’ – Sidharth Malhotra

‘Yes, there is an image people have of me, that I did only sweet boy roles. With ‘Ek Villain,’ I got the opportunity to break out from this image. It is a way of answering my critics, to tell them I am here to perform and not just for glamour.’ – Sidharth Malhotra

‘In ‘The X-Men’ world, one can be a hero one day and a villain the next, which means there’s a constant battle for a character’s soul that’s dynamic. I find that really fascinating.’ – Noah Hawley

‘The best strategy for making people care about what happens is if they empathize with both sides. If you just have a Villain with a capital V, it becomes very two-dimensional.’ – Noah Hawley

‘With all due respect to the other writers, I don’t want to disparage any other writers; I don’t want to have to invent a bigger villain than Deathstroke so Deathstroke can seem heroic fighting this bigger villain. I’d rather just have Deathstroke be who is, and he’s kind of a bastard.’ – Christopher Priest

‘Deathstroke is a villain. Don’t come to the book with any expectations that he will, in any way or sense or form, act heroically. He’s a bad guy, and that’s the fun of it.’ – Christopher Priest

‘What makes a good villain is someone who doesn’t just challenge the hero but comes organically out of that character’s history and circumstances.’ – Christopher Priest

”Deathstroke’ became an interesting challenge – not just because of his ethnicity, but because he’s a villain. I’ve never written a villain as a protagonist of a series before. I thought this could be an interesting challenge. That’s really what got my attention, and it just went from there.’ – Christopher Priest

‘I find that when I watch films where the villain is more complex, I find that it makes the heroes more complex and ultimately, in the story, more interesting.’ – Joe Russo

‘Our job with Thanos is to make him the preeminent villain in the Marvel Universe. That is his role in the comics. That’s his role in these movies.’ – Joe Russo

‘If Spider-Man is your ground level superhero, I wanted to come up with a ground-level villain. I wanted to figure out if I could turn a regular guy into a super-villain.’ – Jon Watts

‘I’d love to do a James Bond-y kind of villain!’ – Allison Janney

‘It’s hard to find a unique look for a Batman villain. Everything like a scar on the face, or a skin condition, there are so many unique signifiers taken.’ – Tom King

‘What’s really fun as the villain is working to get the audience to hate you.’ – Corey Stoll

‘I think a villain who starts his morning looking in the mirror, wringing his hands, and going, ‘How can I be evil today?’ is not an interesting villain. An interesting villain is a person who you understand on some level, I think.’ – Michael McKean

‘I have always felt a comedy’s story is undercut if you have a villain who is not really menacing.’ – Jay Chandrasekhar

‘I hope I give a good performance; I hope it’s enjoyable. If I’m a villain and you hate me, that means I’m doing my job. But I’m not the one to stand for anybody to call me out of my name for any reason.’ – Ashleigh Murray

‘I wrote this 12-page ‘Luke Cage’ comic book for Marvel once, and I got to create a villain. His name was Lone Shark, so there was this running thing of whether it was spelled L-O-A-N or L-O-N-E. I like the idea of ‘I’m a lone shark,’ and then people are like, ‘You are here to collect a debt?” – Wyatt Cenac

‘It’s a lot harder to write a story that’s compelling about identity and sense of self without some villain in the room.’ – Peter Paige

‘America has this fascination with glorifying the villain and not talking about the trials and tribulations. We tell the story of the successful villain a lot of times, but we don’t tell the story of the people who don’t come out so successful, and we don’t tell the story of all the bystanders of that choice.’ – Lecrae

‘I am not somebody who goes around saying men are superior or that male writers are superior. In fact, I really go out of my way to champion women’s work that I think is not getting enough attention. None of that is ever enough. Because a villain is needed. It’s like there’s no way to make myself not male.’ – Jonathan Franzen

‘The difficult part of writing about someone you don’t admire is that it’s easy to demonize them. What you get then is a cackling villain, twirling their mustache at every dastardly deed they commit.’ – Andrew Shaffer

‘We need the villain sometimes. It makes for an interesting story.’ – Rose Namajunas

‘Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts of Stone Mountain, Georgia, was the darkest! I mean, he could’ve been a movie villain, he was so intense! He also had the hardest finishing move of all time, the DDT.’ – Killer Mike

‘Sometimes I feel like, those superheroes, if you threw a cookie at them, they would be more terrified than the villain because they might have to eat a carbohydrate.’ – David Harbour

‘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.’ – Kendrick Sampson

‘We weave our real lives into our WWE lives. We just look at what’s happening in our lives, and what can we do? What’s the most annoying – as a bad guy, as a villain, what’s the thing we can do to make people hate us?’ – The Miz

‘When I worked as an assistant director in 2007, Indraganti Mohan Krishna offered me a lead role. Now, the same director has made me a villain in ‘Gentleman.” – Nani

‘I am not playing a villain or a negative role in ‘Turram Khan.’ My character is that of a simple small-town girl.’ – Nushrat Bharucha

‘There was a lot of work that people don’t know about that I did to establish my villain persona. There were a lot of miles on the road that went into it, thousands upon thousands of hours of writing on yellow pads while driving in my car with the dome light on.’ – Roddy Piper

‘The very first individual that breaks out in my mind as a top villain is Gorgeous George, and it’s hard to beat the first guy.’ – Roddy Piper

‘I went into writing ‘The Young Elites’ with a great deal of fear – I’d been told repeatedly that a villain’s story would be far too dark for young readers to want and that no one would like my villainess, Adelina. I braced myself for epic failure.’ – Marie Lu

‘I’m the super villain of the whole entire UFC.’ – Colby Covington

‘Thanos is undoubtedly the most powerful entity and villain the world has ever seen – he is virtually indestructible. Imagine a villain so menacing that all the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and their allies have to come together in a hope to defeat this one guy; such characters come to you once in a lifetime!’ – Rana Daggubati

‘I love that everyone on ‘Scream Queens’ has a moment where they are the hero, and they are the villain.’ – Skyler Samuels

‘I was really looking forward to the release of ‘Villain.’ I put in a lot of hard work, and I am glad people are noticing basic things – like how I synced perfectly with the Malayalam dialogues or that I came across as a Malayalam girl – makes me feel wonderful.’ – Raashi Khanna

‘The next time you watch a villain or an actor whom you know to be a non-native speaker of the language, watch the lip-sync. You’ll know the amount of work that dubbing artistes have been putting in to elevate the performance of the actors.’ – Chinmayi

‘In my point of view, bad girl is not a villain. Like, people in the United States use ‘bad’ as referring to something cool. So it means ‘Cool girl.’ I wish CL was like that.’ – CL

‘We considered a few Bollywood actors as well for the villain role in ‘Jigarthanda,’ but we finally zeroed in on Simha because we felt he would be the most unexpected person to play it. Had we cast someone popular, then it would have become predictable.’ – Karthik Subbaraj

‘I’m not interested in playing the villain as a loud caricature, one-dimensional character. I am trying to humanise evil. If you see my character in ‘Aurangzeb,’ I am not trying to act evil.’ – Rishi Kapoor

‘Everybody has a hero and a villain within themselves. So it depends upon you to be a hero or a villain. If you show humanity, it will give you satisfaction.’ – Nana Patekar

‘Usually, you just have a hero and a villain – in any movie, not just a superhero movie.’ – Simon Kinberg

‘I always wanted to have a villain song for Hades in ‘Hercules,’ but I couldn’t figure out how we would have Hades sing.’ – Alan Menken

‘A villain number is a very valuable thing to have, but if you look at most musicals, one way or another there’s an antagonist number.’ – Alan Menken

‘One woman who I think is great is Vidya Balan: her casting in ‘The Dirty Picture’ was very exciting. Let’s break new grounds; let’s think beyond the usual. Why can’t a woman who plays a mother also play a lover, or why a lover can’t play a villain?’ – Pooja Bhatt

‘The team that wants it the hardest wins, but there have been times when I came out as the villain.’ – Marouane Fellaini

‘It was Sultan Qureshi, the character of ‘Gangs of Wasseypur,’ which brought success as a baddie, but it were the TC and teacher’s roles in ‘Masaan’ and ‘Nil Battey Sannata’ that broke the villain’s mould and helped me successfully explore the other shades – be it comedy, intense, or serious – surprising the audience all the time.’ – Pankaj Tripathi

‘I want portray a Bond villain. I think I’d give Bond a great run as the villain.’ – Deep Roy

‘Without Roddy Piper, you can’t have an equal good. He was a great villain and so believable. He wasn’t playing a part ever.’ – Jeff Jarrett

‘After ‘Satya,’ the industry could not think of me as anything but the villain. They were stereotyping me on the basis of my looks. I lost so much money refusing such roles – the purchase of a new house got delayed by seven years because I said no.’ – Manoj Bajpayee

‘I do think I have more fun being a villain, definitely. It’s just more fun to be a villain.’ – Lana

‘As a villain or a superhero, as a good guy or a bad guy, I think I can do, at this point, ‘Okay, whatever you need boss. Is this what you need? Great, I will grab the brass ring doing it.” – Lana

‘The problem with tactical novelties that might lead to a manager being hailed as a hero is that if they do not come off they are the villain.’ – Eniola Aluko

‘If you are Black or Brown, or a liberal or immigrant or Democrat, or a woman unwilling to quietly submit, then Ailes was the ultimate villain. You were the object of mockery and scorn – sometimes overt, often subtle. You were the thing to be gawked at, pawed at, jeered at, propositioned or feared.’ – Joy Reid

‘The Human Rights Act is a really important constitutional document, it isn’t just a villain’s charter.’ – Keir Starmer

‘I think vigilantism is a pipe dream, because the larger need is for a justice system that works. Now, Batman cannot be Batman without police commissioner Jim Gordon, because every time he catches a villain, he tries to send them to Gordon. So, the idea is to help the justice system to work. I don’t think it can work in real life, though.’ – Vikramaditya Motwane

‘Everything that relates to Pennywise and Bob Gray is very cryptic, and it’s like that for a reason. Probably the success of that character as a monster, as a villain is because of that crypticness and uncertainty that people have towards him.’ – Andy Muschietti

‘Black Panther is a great film’. It has the most compelling villain of any Marvel movie, and it deals admirably with the issue of diminishing jeopardy in a million superhero films where the world is going to end.’ – Romesh Ranganathan

‘I would love to play a negative guy, play the villain. It is always interesting to have shades to your character.’ – Saqib Saleem

‘I have no qualms about doing a character who may be below the lead in the pecking order, whether it’s a hero or a villain or a comedian.’ – Tovino Thomas

‘There is something very exciting when you’re playing a villain. You’re being a rebel within the story because you are breaking the norms, and also when it comes to the structure of what a conventional lead is supposed to be.’ – Tahir Raj Bhasin

‘I’ve played the villain before, but my baddies have always entertained.’ – Akshaye Khanna

‘It is not about being a hero or a villain; I want to be a solid and passionate actor.’ – Prateik Babbar

‘Comedy or villain, the role does not matter as long as it is challenging.’ – Paresh Rawal

‘During the making of ‘The Villain,’ I had put on some weight.’ – Sudeep

‘Character artist, villain, comedian, comedy villain, hero – he has been perfect in them all. That’s Mohan Babu. His dialogue delivery is perfect.’ – Brahmanandam

‘People in the South want heroes to be their own, whereas it is easier for them to accept a villain who hails from another state.’ – Abhimanyu Singh

‘I know that the U.K. loves a villain.’ – Courtney Act

‘I would have loved to do a film like ‘Piku’ or ‘Neerja.’ But I never got a role where a woman played an authoritative role. In my time, the hero and the villain were both men. The heroine was only the victim.’ – Sharmila Tagore

‘Almost all the Disney villain witches are gay icons.’ – Jinkx Monsoon

‘I always enjoyed being a villain more, probably because you get to do and say a lot of things you wouldn’t do in real life.’ – Beth Phoenix

‘As an actor I like to play everything from villain to comedian.’ – Satish Kaushik

‘Just as Yama is a villain for evil forces, my character in ‘Yaman’ is also a villain against those who don’t follow dharma.’ – Vijay Antony

‘I do more of ensemble casting, roles that are different. In one film I’m playing a villain, in the other I’m playing a son.’ – Jisshu Sengupta

‘I can’t be the villain that I play in the movies.’ – Rahul Dev

‘The problem with the film industry is that once one starts out as a villain, subsequent offers are those of similar roles.’ – Rahul Dev

‘In the early days, Jerry was an antagonist, which was arguably his best casting. ‘The King’s’ quick wit is perfectly suited to be an antagonist, but at the same time, he’s so funny that it is hard to hate Jerry Lawler as the villain – especially at this stage of his long career.’ – Jim Ross

‘Jericho uses tried and true, fundamental pro wrestling villain techniques to make him effective. He’s a master in ring psychologist.’ – Jim Ross

‘When it’s a superstar’s movie, it does not matter whether I am a villain, comedian or father. Acting in such movies is always good and special.’ – Manivannan

‘It’s a business when the NBA cuts you, trades you or waives you. But you’re a villain, as a player, when you take your future and your happiness in your own hands and it’s unfortunate.’ – Matt Barnes

‘It’s funny that for women in horror, we have to use the term scream queen, because there is no term for a villain in horror who is female and powerful.’ – Pollyanna McIntosh

‘In Shoojit’s films, there is no hero and villain. Every character has its own space and there is a social message in all of his films whether it is ‘Vicky Donor’ or ‘Madras Cafe.” – Angad Bedi

‘It should be easily admitted that every hero is only as great as the villain that he prevails over.’ – Puneet Issar

‘When I met Feroz Khan, he offered me a role of a villain in ‘Yalgaar.’ He also asked me to build my physique. As for villains action is a must, so I joined a gym.’ – Vishwajeet Pradhan

‘If I am not playing the villain then I’ll play the friend, or the brother who dies in the third reel.’ – Vishwajeet Pradhan

‘In a typical Hindi film, there’s the role of the hero, the heroine, and the other important character is the villain.’ – Vishwajeet Pradhan

‘Yes, it is funny that most of the roles that I have played so far have been negative. I have been typecast as a villain.’ – Vishwajeet Pradhan

‘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.’ – Neeraj Kabi

‘I do not like to label the characters I am doing or even myself as a particular type of actor. I try to do different kind of roles which are not the same ‘hero’ or ‘villain’ kind.’ – Neeraj Kabi

‘Yes, I play a cop in Amit Kumar’s ‘Monsoon Shootout’ where Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays the villain.’ – Neeraj Kabi

‘There’s a certain section of the public who spot me in the street but it’s never horrible. I’m not a soap villain who gets spat at.’ – Holly Willoughby

‘No ideology better understands the need for enemies than neoconservatism, and when the cold war dramatically and unexpectedly ended, the way was prepared for the ‘Arab threat’ to emerge. ‘True Lies,’ the 1994 James Cameron comedy thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, duly served up the Arab villain Salim Abu Aziz.’ – Mark Fisher

”Profit’ was an intriguing fellow that couldn’t be approached as a villain or a hero. The challenge in hanging a show on a character like Jim Profit was that we knew that we were in for a rough reception.’ – Adrian Pasdar

‘Kids always like the villain or the guy who’s different.’ – Alvin Leung

‘Since childhood, I have always rooted for the villains. I would wish the villain beat the hero and get away with everything.’ – Chunky Pandey

‘Comedy completely depends on the script and the type of dialogues we get. Comedy is dependent on time and so I will say comedy is tougher than being a villain.’ – Chunky Pandey

‘I would like to become ‘Dilavar’ from ‘Muqaadar Ka Sikander’ played by Amjad Khan. That is the kind of negativity a villain should have.’ – Chunky Pandey

‘In normal life, we are all sweet and not vamp. So, to play a villain a lot of focus is required.’ – Payal Rohatgi

‘I’ve mostly played a villain in Punjabi films, but with ‘Mitti Waajan Mardi,’ I got to essay a comical villain, which the audience loved.’ – Binnu Dhillon

‘Sometimes, you have to reject a few, because of the maker, because of the money. But I try to play every role honestly, be it big or small, hero or villain.’ – Karan Wahi

‘In a lot of ways I would love to be another student and love to be looked at as a Duke student and a senior and psych major and someone on the basketball team instead of Duke’s polarizing, lightning rod, Grayson Allen villain, all those types of things.’ – Grayson Allen

‘I have been fortunate to get different types of work, but by and large till 90s for actors like me there were not many opportunities besides playing brother of the heroine or friend of the hero or young college villain after the earlier new wave was consumed by television.’ – Pankaj Kapur

‘Ruthless Villain’ was supposed to be E’s song. But it was too fast for him, so when I rapped it, they was like, ‘Man, you might as well just get in the group.” – MC Ren

‘When I was composing for ‘The Villain,’ I looked at it as a fan and came up with tunes accordingly.’ – Arjun Janya

‘I won’t deny it, but working on ‘The Villain’ has been quite a challenge, as Prem is not easy to please.’ – Arjun Janya

‘After all the hard work, today, ‘The Villain’ songs are creating records with online views and are being played at pretty much every festival. That gives me immense satisfaction.’ – Arjun Janya

‘I was in ‘Babes in the Wood’ at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow in the Eighties. I was the villain – the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham.’ – Roger Allam

‘Playing a villain would be great.’ – Roger Allam

‘You’re naturally the villain when you go in an opponent’s stadium anyway, so you might as well not shy away from it. You just bask in it and enjoy it.’ – Terrell Suggs

‘As an actor it gets boring to play always the villain.’ – Udo Kier

‘I’ve always wanted to be a Bond villain. I’ll probably have to do make do with being a henchman but I’d be quite happy to do that.’ – Ralph Ineson

”The Villain’ is another project with Mohit Suri under Balaji Productions. It was again very tough to impress him even after ‘Sun Raha Hai’ but some how I manage to get in.’ – Ankit Tiwari

‘Playing the villain is great fun.’ – Denis Lawson

‘I’ve been a tough sailor, a foppish-type landscape gardener, a French villain, a circus strongman.’ – Ted Cassidy

‘Villains are as important as the hero. Without the right villain, the hero isn’t heroic enough.’ – Mukesh Rishi

‘Being an actor, and a villain for various movies, I’ve played all parts of Ravana’s persona already. But as familiar as all these parts of it may seem, playing Ravana is a different ball game altogether.’ – Mukesh Rishi

‘Ravana isn’t the usual villain. He is smart, has a personality, and has shades of grey which make him a complex character. There is versatility in the role and I plan to maximize on that.’ – Mukesh Rishi

‘This I realized very late, that villain remains villain and are never able to become artists. We are never counted as actors and always addressed as villains.’ – Mukesh Rishi

‘I am a product of the Film and Television Institute of India, so I never categorised my roles, but yes I was typecast by the producers and the directors as a villain.’ – Raza Murad

‘The traditional villain has died a natural death. Today even a hero can portray a negative character. There are no lines drawn. The scope for actors like me has condensed.’ – Raza Murad

‘If ‘Passage’ works, then maybe they will ask me to play James Bond; if not, then I will play the villain.’ – Victor Banerjee

‘Raj Khosla’s ‘Mera Gaon Mera Desh’ was my truly memorable performance as a villain during my initial years. After that I did receive the required foothold in the film industry.’ – Vinod Khanna

‘I don’t have any characteristics that are usually associated with a villain. Like I am not tall, broad-framed or have any scars on my face.’ – Vatsal Sheth

‘I have been tagged as the sexy villain of Indian TV.’ – Vatsal Sheth

‘I played Big Brother in a Studio One presentation of ‘1984,’ and that should have marked me as a villain to American producers. But I went straight from that to placing a saint – St, Peter in ‘The Silver Chalice,’ which may have been one of the worst movies ever made.’ – Lorne Greene

‘There’s a million and one things an actor can do with a villain. He can go for all kinds of quirks and tricks. The hero is much harder to define for an actor. When you play a straight role or a hero, you’re kind of stuck, It’s much more difficult to give a good guy interesting qualities or to make him unusual.’ – Lorne Greene

‘I played every kind of role In Canada except that of a villain.’ – Lorne Greene

‘My food villain is salt. I’d love to be have the odd ready meal as a lazy treat, but some contain 33% of your salt intake! i just cant do it to myself!’ – Sara Cox

‘I like playing the villain role.’ – Hyun Bin

”Irumbu Kottai…’ is an action comedy. Even the villain, after beating up people, will keep laughing.’ – Raghava Lawrence

‘I am no more solely counted for comic or villain roles, which comes more often in mainstream, masala films.’ – Saswata Chatterjee

‘See, a villain takes the story forward. If everything centers around nice people, then there will be no twists and turns.’ – Saswata Chatterjee

‘I never agree to do a character that molests a woman. I have been very conscious not to do such roles. I believe that even a villain should have character, which people can remember.’ – Babu Antony

‘I will play a villain only if the role is a powerful one.’ – Babu Antony

‘Especially today, Mollywood’s action scenes comprise of many ‘hero touches and the villain flies’ scenes. I never promoted that, and only believed in realistic stunts, with just the right amount of cinematic feel seasoned on them.’ – Babu Antony

‘Disabled people used to be either the good person or the real evil villain. There’s no way in between.’ – Rosie Jones

‘Now, I don’t know if we’re at a place where we can see a nuanced transgender villain, because unless it can be written in a way that their transness is not the cause of them being evil, I don’t think a lot of cis screenwriters are willing to do that. It’s all through their lens of assumptions.’ – Patti Harrison

‘The British establishment sold its soul long ago and welcomes any foreign villain, crook and gangster that has dirty money to invest in the UK, buying luxury homes to fuel the upward spiral of house prices.’ – Gerard Batten

‘I’ve really enjoyed working with Brody King and PCO, and offering a different side of ‘The Villain’ to the audience.’ – Marty Scurll

‘The Villain wasn’t necessarily something I sat down and thought, ‘Oh this is going to be my character.’ It’s most like other great wrestling characters, where it’s more of a reflection of my actual character.’ – Marty Scurll

‘As a business man running a huge enterprise, it wouldn’t be smart for me to discuss my potential business decisions with a journalistic tabloid. That being said, I certainly aim to make waves in the wrestling world, and continue to raise Villain Enterprises stock through the roof.’ – Marty Scurll

‘The WWE has the largest amount of eyes on it and is the biggest wrestling company in the world. It would be a huge honor for myself to work there, but am I going to be given the same ‘Villain’ mic time?’ – Marty Scurll

‘I’m creatively driven to create a body of work. I was made to put on this Earth to wrestle and perform. Create a legacy, create this Villain persona to put down in the history books for people to watch for many years to come.’ – Marty Scurll

‘I can be the best Villain. If I make the Villain different and unique to a point where no-one else can do it, that’s where people are going to want me.’ – Marty Scurll

”The Villain’ doesn’t really have any heroes, as such, but as someone I looked up to more than anyone else and was influenced by, it was the ‘American Dragon’ Bryan Danielson.’ – Marty Scurll

”The Villain’ gets off on the idea of disgusting the crowd and then telling the crowd to keep the noise down while he does it. The reason it works is because it comes at a point in matches where the anxiety shows.’ – Marty Scurll

‘It was tough to play a villain. But if you need me acting, I can do that for sure.’ – Boban Marjanovic

‘That’s something that Stephen King always has in his works. There’s a human villain who’s just as bad, if not worse than the supernatural one.’ – Matt Duffer

‘In that world, ‘villain’ can simply be a label given to someone who doesn’t conform. There are these unwritten rules in Bachelor Nation… I never follow those rules.’ – Nick Viall

‘I’ve been called a villain and things like that, but I never put the blame on editing.’ – Nick Viall

‘I’d love to play a villain! I always end up playing people that are quite goody-two- shoes. I would love to play someone who is a little bit evil. I think that would be really fun.’ – Phoebe Fox

‘My favorite Marvel villain is Doctor Doom from Fantastic Four. For DC, I think it’s a popular choice, but it’s the Joker.’ – Brook Lopez

‘I don’t want to be typed as a villain or a comedian. One would be as bad as the other. I had to fight that sort of thing several times in my life. And it’s painful because it consists of turning down money to do a role.’ – Peter Lorre

‘I don’t like the word ‘villain’ or ‘heavy.” – Peter Lorre

‘I wanted the role the moment I learned that the naive legal intern Jang Joon-woo is the ultimate villain and the transformative, surprising character in ‘Vincenzo.” – Ok Taec-yeon

‘I wanted to portray Joon-woo as someone who breaks out into a song and dance in that situation, an unpredictable villain who doesn’t fit into the mold of a serious and scary psychopath.’ – Ok Taec-yeon

‘The character Jang Joon-woo isn’t a simple villain. He is multi-dimensional.’ – Ok Taec-yeon

‘Being perceived as a villain gave me energy.’ – Justin Gatlin

‘It was so exciting to me watching him go from villain to antihero over the last 10 years. So when I found out they were making a show about ‘Loki,’ I was very determined to get in the room for it, and they luckily met me and here I am. I would say I chased heavily after it as a ‘Loki’ fan.’ – Kate Herron

‘I think that if a villain’s done right, you don’t necessarily have to like their actions, but you have to understand them.’ – Kate Herron

‘I was in ‘Bigg Boss’ were people called me cute and bubbly, but I landed in ‘Jai Ho’ playing a villain.’ – Sana Khan

‘Villain roles tend to add more fuel to my desire for expression.’ – Kim Bum

‘I think it would be hard to simply call Yi Rang a villain. Rather than a villain, I think he’s someone who becomes very focused on something and hooked on it.’ – Kim Bum

‘The Biden administration has embraced the divisive curriculum of Critical Race Theory to rewrite history and paint the United States as a villain.’ – Tommy Tuberville

‘In the BA Test Kitchen, I don’t consider my station to be set up until there are at least 50 tasting spoons in the crock on my counter, and when I walk, my spoon-filled pockets jangle like a villain’s spurs in a spaghetti Western.’ – Chris Morocco

‘Once you watch any character for nine-and-half hours, be it good, bad or grey, you tend to attach yourself with it. You always feel for the character, even if he is a villain.’ – Pratik Gandhi

‘You were turning up to games and one or two people would boo. Then a few more would join in. I was painted as the villain of darts. I accepted it to a certain extent. But it got a bit over the top.’ – Gerwyn Price

‘You dont mind booing through games. The crowd pay their money, and thats how you earn a living. I can take a bit of the pantomime villain. But if youre going for a double, thats when you should just get a little bit of respect.’ – Gerwyn Price

‘As a player, I was a pantomime villain and I had my limitations. But I was also good enough to captain four Premier League clubs, win 39 caps for my country and be transferred for fees running into millions of pounds.’ – Robbie Savage

‘I’m not a villain.’ – Greg Hardy

‘What kind of villain would I be? I’ve never been convicted of anything that they said I was.’ – Greg Hardy

‘Everybody talks like they’re gonna knock me out. ‘Greg Hardy’s a villain, I’m going to put his face on the pavement’ and blah, blah, blah. Then they go surfing for shoelaces.’ – Greg Hardy

‘For nationalism, sometimes we need a counter point or a villain. However, you don’t need any such thing for patriotism. Patriotism is a pure love for your country and you don’t need a counterpoint.’ – Kabir Khan

‘I would love to play an out-and-out villain because I have always been perceived as the good guy.’ – Kunal Kapoor

‘Being from Bollywood, at the end of the day our audiences like hero, heroine and villain.’ – Esha Deol

‘Being bad for being bad’s sake is just being a villain.’ – Geraldine James

‘I want to play a villain.’ – Harris Dickinson

‘I always imagine myself in the Bond film as someone he encounters who’s a bit dodgy. A villain would be nice, or Bond’s dodgy cousin.’ – Harris Dickinson

‘In other parts of India, be it Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, the villain is celebrated as much as the hero, not only in the narrative, but also story telling.’ – Nikitin Dheer

‘If I need to play the villain, then I can play the villain.’ – Aaron Gordon

‘There’s always a balance to it, three times I’ve fought before in my home town, there is a different amount of pressure to it, when you’re the villain, there’s no pressure, everyone wants to see you lose.’ – Dan Hooker

‘I started my film career with cameos. I moved to playing the main villain. Then I reinvented my career as a leading man.’ – Shatrughan Sinha