I’m talking about the one actor who, in whatever movie, is guilty as sin from the get-go. Its not a “shock” that he turns out to be the bad guy all along! Take your pick from Sean Bean, Gary Sinese, Peter Saarsgard, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon… whenever I see these guys I’m just waiting for them to double-cross the hero. They just scream guilty! I wouldnt be suprised if, during CSI:NY, Gary Sinese turned out to be the murderer, week after week. Am i missing anyone? There doesnt seem to be any actresses that fit this bracket though. Anyone else with a really guilty look on their face?
Michael Gross (formerly the dad from Family Ties) is always the-one-who-did-it. Especially if its an episode of Law and Order, or* Murder She Wrote * or some made-for-TV movie.
But… but… Kiefer Sutherland is Jack Bauer! The only guy who could take Batman, Deathstroke, Captain America, or a pissed-off Buffy Summers in a fair fight! He can’t be the bad guy!
That’s what he wants you to think. The other 364 days of the year, he’s plotting his bloody takeover bid.
And Gary Sinise is Stu Redman, man! He’s East Texas integrity incarnate.
Sean Bean. The poor son of a bitch; he’s typecast as the bad guy for life. His face says “I did it.” If he could have any other career, he’d be a butler.
If Sean Bean starred in a movie as Jesus Christ, somehow things would go so wrong that, by the end of the movie, Jesus would murder Moses.
Alan Rickman. It’s the voice.
How about the Swedish actor Peter Stormare, of whose acting I am kind of a fan.
Never seems to get to play anything but creeps: (I don’t know what his Swedish roles were like before he got to Hollywood.) A mostly wordless psycopath in Fargo (at the end he grinds up his ex-partner in a wood chipper); producer of snuff pornography in 8mm; sadistic zapper of, and eventually eaten by) little dinosaurs in The Lost World; imbecile “nihilist” in The Big Lebowski; drunken wife-beater in Chocolat…does he ever get a good guy part?
Ok, maybe Kiefer has mellowed abit, but there was a day when he was the most untrustable hoodlum ever seen… He seems to have handled this mantle down to his son, Peter Saarsgard. Peter stars in a recent movie, I’m sure you know which one, and from his first appearance, he may as well have a t-shirt on saying “Yep. It was me. Guilty party, right here.”
Please note, Peter Saarsgard is no relation to Kiefer Sutherland, well, not that I know of. Just a freaky resemblence.
How could anyone not have yet mentioned Michael Ironside yet? If you ever see his face and he’s not presented as the obvious villain, he will undoubtedly be a “surprise” villain later in the movie, guaranteed.
D
Michael Madsen! OK, so he was surprising as the dad in the “Free Willy” movies, but besides that, he’s scaring the crap out of people in films like Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill, etc.
Speaking as John Voight, I’d just like to say how very much I agree with bubastis’ OP, and that I have no hesitation about throwing my support wholeheartedly behind this worthy endeavor.
smiles tightly and moves up to stand about a pace behind bubastis
Everything I can think of that I’ve seen Christopher Walken in has had him as The Bad Guy.
Count me in on the Sean Bean pity party. Even Boromir looked shifty! 
And I like Bean.
Check out Scotland, PA. It’s MacBeth set in a 1970’s fast-food franchise. Walken plays the MacDuff role. He was also the hero in the Dead Zone movie. I like him better as a good guy, but maybe that’s just me.
Before That 70s Show, Kurtwood Smith was always a bad guy, sometimes a real nasty one too.
Joaquin Phoenix. Beginning with “Parenthood” he just look like he’s about to do bad things to people.
I beg to disagree on two actors mentioned.
Gary Sinese was definitely NOT the bad guy in Of Mice and Men.
And Alan Rickman was the **Voice of God ** in Dogma. Assuredly NOT a bad guy.
Have to agree with Sarsgaard. How can someone who seems so laid back be so evil time and time again?
Christopher Lee
James Cromwell
A friend of mine can’t watch any movies with Damon/Affleck because “they look a fratboy date rape waiting to happen”.
How about Amanda Plummer and Miranda Richardson? They’re basically walking spoilers for any whodunnit they appear in.
Kevin Spacey.