Jul 6
The Colorful History Of Action Movie Villains
British actor Alan Rickman, best known for playing a variety of movie villains, once was cornered by a kid, who asked why he always played villains, Rickman calmly replied, “I don’t play villains. I play very interesting people.”
And that’s the allure for playing villains instead of the hero in action movies. The villain is often the most interesting character in the film because heroes behave far too predictably in comparison.
The first movie villain actor that really caught the public’s imagination was Tod Slaughter. He transitioned from the stage to silent films to “talkies”. Since actors in silent films could not speak, they over-exaggerated their body movements and facial expressions. His most famous villain was Sweeny Todd.
When cowboy movies took over the screen in the 1930s, the villain always wore black hats. This was a leftover stage device to help the audience easily identify the villain. By World War II, villains still wore black or had black hair and often had a German or Japanese accent.
Villains also tended to be male. Sir Anthony Hopkins would win the Oscar for his unforgettable portrayal of Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lector in “The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991.) But the character often voted the worst of movie villains in poll after poll is a woman — Nurse Ratched, portrayed by Louise Fletcher, in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975.)