Check out Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins someday. Brimley plays the head of a secret government agency who recruits an ex-cop (Fred Ward), has him trained by a Korean martial arts master (Joel Grey), and then sends him to bring down a corrupt defense contractor. I wouldn’t quite say it’s a great movie, but it’s so much better than it should have been.
It may be that Brimley has just a few bad-guy roles and that they’re among the few films of his I’ve seen. The Firm is one, for sure, and maybe I’ve only seen a few more.
Malcolm McDowell has to be up there. And two guys that played Dracula- Christopher Lee and Gary Oldman.
Esposito was the hero/martyr in one of the greatest political satires ever made, “Bob Roberts.” He works so well as a bad guy, for me, that I always think of him , deep down, the decent guy he played in that.
Adding to the list:
Fairuza Balk
Tobin Bell
Robert Carlyle
Glenn Close
Charles Dance
Bette Davis
Brad Dourif
Michael Emerson
William Forsyth
John Glover
Sidney Greenstreet
Sid Haig
Margaret Hamilton
Angelica Huston
Burl Ives
Brion James
Boris Karloff
Udo Kier
Peter Lorre
Bela Lugosi
John Carroll Lynch
Mercedes McCambridge
Malcolm McDowell
Tom Noonan
Michael Rooker
Robert Ryan
Rade Serbedzija
Peter Stormare
Jo Van Fleet
J.T. Walsh
Michael Wincott
James Woods
He is even more famous for being the british anti-hero, even clockwork orange had that going.
Rondo Hatton
Since someone already mentioned Christopher Walken, I’ll name Gary Oldman.
Does Tarantino count? Is he an actor? Or does he not count because he’s an actual asshole? Hard to say…
Rondo Hatton
Robert Z’Dar - even his name seems comically villainous.
Richard Lynch
He definitely counts as always being a bad actor.
Eric Campbell. He appeared in 11 films with Charlie Chaplin and always played the villain, so his ratio is 100%.
John Carradine. If not overtly evil, then definitely sinister and creepy.
John Colicos. Evil scientist, OC figure, agent of tyrannical empires, prick traitor. Has he ever played a good guy?
I will second Gary Oldman. Especially since he was such a scary crazy bad guy in Léon. Playing Commissioner Gordon does not cancel out that performance.
//i\
Funny. I think of Gary Oldman as the hero in Romeo is Bleeding. It always seems strange to see him play a villain role.
The nicest person I’ve ever seen Kurtwood Smith play was Forman’s dad, which isn’t that big of an improvement over Clarence from Robocop if you ask me.
Have any of these characters played bad guys? I mean BAD guys. Not “morally complex characters”, I mean BAD GUYS. If they have, I don’t know about it. But I will admit I haven’t seen literally every single movie they’ve ever made, just the most famous ones.
Paul Newman played Sidney Mussburger in The Hudsucker Proxy, definitely a bad guy.