What actors/actresses always play really good bad guys?

Cafe Society
21

Craig Parker plays a delightful bad guy.

Boondock Saints

22

Plus:

Body of Evidence
White Sands
Mr. Bean’s Summer Vacation

Funny, I don’t remember seeing a movie with Dafoe as the baddie. Oh wait, Spiderman 1.

23

James Woods. One of my favorite episodes of SNL is the one where he hosts and the joke during the monologue is that everyone is terrified of him. They have snipers in the balcony ready to fire if he attacks.

The three British supervillains from the Jaguar commercial are pretty good: Ben Kingsley, Mark Strong, and Tom Hiddleston.

24

Vincent Price

(re: William Dafoe–he was more or less the good guy in The Hunter)

25

J.T. Walsh

26

Without looking, is it the Pax Bisonica?

27

Darn, it wasn’t.

28

Has Ray Liotta played anything besides a mobster?

29

Twice

30

Frank Langella has played several evil characters.

31

Tim Curry

32

Field of Dreams?

33

Oh. I supposed if I watched that movie I would have known that.

34

Remember, it’s FUN to play the bad guy.

And no one’s mentioned Tom Hiddleston yet? He essentially MADE the first round of Marvel movies with a great villain.

And maybe it’s a Brit thing.

35

Charles Dance
Gary Oldman
David Warner
Camryn Manheim (specifically on Person of Interest.)

36

Miguel Ferrer

37

And he’s even more of an a-hole in “Water for Elephants” and douchebag in 'Carnage"

38

John Carradine (who is another good candidate for this list) once explained that he loved playing villains because “they’re the active ones. Leading men are acted upon, but the villains are the ones who do things!”

39

Well, to be fair, Fred MacMurray only played non-likable characters three times.
He played a manipulated douche in "Double Indemnity, a sniveling coward in "The Caine Mutiny and a narcissist womanizer in “The Apartment”.

The story goes, that one day in 1961, while enjoying a day at Disneyland with his family, a woman came up to him and yelled (may even have struck him) about what a horrible person he was, because of “The Apartment”. It was at that moment that he told his wife that he’ll only play good/nice characters from now on.

40

How about Kurtwood Smith (Clarence Boddiker in the original RoboCop, but also Red Foreman on That 70’s Show) and Sid Haig - Haig always plays the big baddie!