Joe Morton Quotes

You know, the best-laid plans of mice and men... I like playing bad guys, and I don't have a problem doing that. They're interesting characters, and there's as many different kinds of bad guys as there are good guys - they're rich, they're strong, they're powerful, and so that's fine with me.

In the best works of fiction, there's no mustache-twirling villain. I try to write shows where even the bad guy's got his reasons.

Whenever I have tried to make a character bad, they end up being good in some way.

People are much more complicated in real life, but my characters are as subtle and nuanced as I can make them. But if you say my characters are too black and white, you've missed the point. Villains are meant to be black-hearted in popular novels. If you say I have a grey-hearted villain, then I've failed.

For me, one of the most beautiful and rewarding aspects of serial reality TV is that characters can move freely along a spectrum of heroism and villainy.

The difference between playing a positive and a negative role is only in the portrayal.

You go back to look over the body of my work, and there are no archetypal villains in my books.

With all due respect to the other writers, I don't want to disparage any other writers; I don't want to have to invent a bigger villain than Deathstroke so Deathstroke can seem heroic fighting this bigger villain. I'd rather just have Deathstroke be who is, and he's kind of a bastard.

You can't play a bad person; you can only be a person who does bad things for the right reasons.

I love playing roles where it's not just the good guy or the bad guy.

In any story, the villain is the catalyst. The hero's not a person who will bend the rules or show the cracks in his armor. He's one-dimensional intentionally, but the villain is the person who owns up to what he is and stands by it.

In the best stories, people are morally complex; they are flawed. We read them because the world is flawed, and we want to see it truthfully represented. And because it can be thrilling to be shocked and upset, and even to feel, for chilling moments, what it's like to be a bad person.

The more intelligent the storytelling becomes and the deeper the character development, people will realize in film and television, like they do in real life, that human beings possess both good and bad.

I've never seen any character I've ever played as a bad guy or a good guy.

Through all the bad guys that I've played, they're justifiably bad - they have their reasons. It's been important to me.

I've realized over the years I either play very good people or very bad people, and I think I always enjoy the very bad people more.

I enjoy played flawed men who are pushed to the limit, who make mistakes and then have to recover.

It's very true that you can be both selfless and selfish at the same time. What we tend towards, particularly in filmmaking, is this binary sort of, 'This is a good guy, this is a bad guy.' And I quite like the fact that life is a bit more complex than that.

I think the challenge for me in this role is going to be, is there any heart in Negan? For me, I look at that as a challenge as an actor, and that's the kind of thing that I embrace and really look forward to.

If your character is just out there acting a fool, viewers are gonna say, 'Why am I watching this?' But if he's whispering, 'I don't really want to die,' there's a level of vulnerability cemented in these bad characters.

I think many villains have the burden of not being very human.

I think the parts that I played sort of broke the mould in terms of - you know, I played grey characters, the bad girl with a good heart, there was a good reason for her to be bad.

In all our pictures, we had an antagonist who becomes the good guy, and the underdog fulfills his quest.

I try to give both my heroes and villains an emotional dimensionality which provides the motivation for their actions.

The villain of any story is often the most compelling character.