After watching The Patriot last night for the gazillionth time (my husband loves that movie), it occurred to me that I’ve never seen Jason Isaacs play a good guy. Or Billy Zane either. Or that guy from Long Kiss Goodnight. . . hold on. . . I’m looking him up. . . Craig Bierko. The thing that gets me is that these are not like the classic bad guys. They don’t look particularly mean or menacing or crazy. In fact, they’re rather good looking.
These guys must have played sympathetic characters at least once but I can’t think of when or where. If you can name a movie, I’d like to see it.
Also, is there a quintessential bad guy actor? An actor we’d all recognize, even if we can’t name, that never, ever played a good guy?
Billy Zane was the Phantom in the bad movie (given the current comic book movie trend, isn’t it time to do a good Phantom movie?). He was the actor in Tombstone too, probably one of the goodest guys in that film, but not exactly a hero part.
I think he looks kinda evil, though. At least he has the capacity for it. I actually liked Demon Knight and his menacing villain was the best thing about it.
Craig Bierko and Jason Isaacs have played sympathetic characters, Bierko in The Thirteenth Floor and Isaacs as Mr. Darling in addition to Captain Hook in Peter Pan.
I saw Marc Lawrence play mobsters and heavies for a long, long time, before he died at 95. With so many credits to his name, I’m sure there must have been a good guy role here or there, but I never ran across it.
Gary Oldman strikes me as an actor who plays either villains or villains with mitigating circumstances. I’ve never seen him play a straight-up sympathethic character.
I think there’s a gap between villain and straight-up sympathetic character, but Gary Oldman was Commissioner Gordon in Batman Begins and Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films. They weren’t villains.
I will agree that he does villain extremely well, though. Rewatched Leon yesterday. Da-amn.“What… filthy… piece of shit did I do now?”
“You killed my brother.”
“I’m sorry. And you want to join him?”
“No.”
“It’s always the same thing. It’s then you start to become really afraid of death that you learn to appreciate life. Do you like life, sweetheart?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good… because I take no pleasure in taking life… if it’s from a person who doesn’t care about it.”
Danny Trejo is the first one who came to my mind. Granted, he may not have been an actual villain in every single role (he has over 150 listed on imdb), but he is consistently a bad mofo.
He was the hero in The Diamond Of Jehru, which is notable solely for the fact is has a Jungle Carbine .303 in it. And some jungle. And there’s a diamond in there somewhere too.
[QUOTE=Biggirl]
After watching The Patriot last night for the gazillionth time (my husband loves that movie), it occurred to me that I’ve never seen Jason Isaacs play a good guy. These guys must have played sympathetic characters at least once but I can’t think of when or where. If you can name a movie, I’d like to see it.
/QUOTE]
Well, Jason Isaacs was fantastic in “The Curse of Steptoe”, portraying Harry H Corbett. Smpathy is a little qualified as Corbett was by all accounts something of a flawed human being, but it is a great well rounded performance and ultimately rather moving. He captures the spirit of Corbett’s screen presence wonderfully without descending into mere impersonation. (Phil Davies is in the same film is also amazing, almost eerie, as old man Steptoe).
As for the eternal bad guy, I don’t recall George Sanders played many good guy roles. Also I suppose he might be more accurately seen as the eternal cad/ rotter.
He sometimes does the old switcheroo where he’s meant to look like a bad guy but is really not so bad. Wasn’t he the one in Desperate Housewives (I know, not a movie) who was sent to keep an eye on Eva Longeria? He then proceeded to scare the crap out of her because he’s so scary but ended up helping her.
He’s is the ‘quintessential’ Mexican bad guy. Along with the guy in Blazing “We don’t need no stinking badges” Saddles. (Boy, these character actors are hard to name!)
A more recognizable bad guy-- Christopher Walkins. Although he leans more toward the crazy.
Didn’t Gary Oldman also play Sid Vicious in “Sid and Nancy”? I’d totally forgotten about his role as Sirus Black in the Potter movies. He and Walken play the evil, psychotic bad guy very well IMO.
Unless you consider “smug prick” as being a “bad guy”, Isaacs as the NASA scientist who supports the drill-then-nuke approach in “Armageddon” might count as a “good guy”.
I think I’ve only seen Zane as not the bad guy in smaller roles (like Dana Delaney’s brother in “Tombstone”).
I’ve not seen much of Bierko. But I do recall him being the good guy/lead in “The Thirteenth Floor”. As I checked his IMDB filmography, I didn’t realize he was Max Bear in “Cinderella Man”. I didn’t even recognize him ! I actually thought he did really well in that role.
Danny Trejo pretty much can’t avoid playing a bad ass mo-fo just because of how he looks. But maybe his most toned down role was as part of the gang in “Heat”.
Peter Lorre’s played good guys – Heck, he starred as Japanese detective Mr. Moto in a series of films.
He played a steward in Around the World in 80 Days, a naval officer in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (the original move), and arguably a good guy in the Roger Corman film The Raven.
Jason Isaacs played the reliable gay best friend who nurses a dying Charlize Theron (who’s had a carefree, yet altruistic, last fling with Keanu Reeves) in the execrable Sweet November. Trust me, although Isaacs’ character is like a bohemian Albert Schweitzer and his small role is probably the best thing in this movie, you really don’t want to waste two hours on this Bermuda Triangle of Cinematic Suck: the *WTF?! * plot and script; Keanu Reeves [always a *WTF?! * element in a film]; and the utterly unrealistic fake economics of this tale of a dying woman who still has a very nice apartment, no overly demanding career (that would use up the energy she needs for her altruistic flings) and yet apparently no money troubles. Well, that’s how I remember it, anyway.
He played Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (whether that counts as “straight-up sympathetic” is debatable) and Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
