Nathan Phillips Quotes

The bad guys are not typical; they are not just bad, they are interesting. They might be good or bad.

I like movies that make you semi fall in love with the villain so you have sympathy for him.

I love playing bad. But my whole thing is usually villains that don't know that they're evil.

I don't mind playing somebody who's not likable, or makes the audience feel slightly conflicted.

I'm drawn to the classic antihero, the guy who's probably made a bunch of mistakes and really has the capacity to go either way. That's the most interesting type of character for me to watch, to see what decisions they'll make. There's a lot of gray area there for a writer to explore.

One of the things about the '70s films I love - the films 'Nightcrawler' is being compared to, like, 'Taxi Driver' - is that they never put their flawed characters into any one box.

No characters in 'Stay Close,' including the leads, are black and white. I want them to be grey. I think that makes for a much more interesting reading experience, something that will stay with you a little bit longer.

I'm always going with my visceral reaction when I read a script. I am more drawn to characters who are conflicted, and in developing a character exploration. If it's a baddie, I'm rarely intrigued, and if it's a goody two-shoes - too much of a good guy - I'm not, either.

I tend to always love material with flawed protagonists and morally ambiguous people.

For me, especially with the villain, it's not very interesting to write a guy who is just 100% bad.

I really enjoy those characters like 'Profit.' With those elements that are shady and dark, you're not responsible for being a likable character. Like some of Jack Nicholson's characters, you remember them for so long.

Yes, I do have a soft spot for complicated villains who can't help themselves.

I'm interested in flawed protagonists. I was raised on them.

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

I love the character of Jaime Lannister. He's just so complex - a character that we love to hate - but it's a lot more complex than hatred. It starts off, and he seems so arrogant and so smug.

I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giants or elves or dwarves, or whatever they are, they're still human, and the human heart is still in conflict with the self.

Very few of my characters are totally heroic or totally villainous.

I don't play the role of a villain, really, but I like playing anti-hero kind of roles. I like characters where there's conflict, drama, and more personal investment than just being heroes.

I love it when you like a character, and then she does something you don't like, and you hate her for a while - then you love her again. I'd like to see her have unlikable moments that the audience understands and sympathizes with.

I'm not sure why I'm so drawn to heroes who do bad things and to villains who think they're the good guys, but I do find that moral ambiguity and conflict makes for great characters.

I'm attracted to those kinds of roles that could be good or could be bad, and you just don't know.

I always say the classier cousin of 'Anchorman' is 'Mad Men,' because when you really look at it, why do people really love Don Draper in 'Mad Men?' He's just a terrible guy. But we know why he's terrible, and I think that's really key to why you can be sympathetic to a character.

What I always studied in screenwriting from my mentor John Glavin was that the most interesting characters are characters with shades of gray.

I think 'Scarface' is a great film, but if you have a character like Tony Montana, you don't identify with him at all. I think it's very interesting instead to identify yourself with a character you don't like all the time. You can create a tension between the fiction and the viewer. You force the spectator to wonder about his actions.

I love to make even villains people you can relate to. When you find out who did it, I think you almost like the person, which is not easy to do.