David Walton Quotes

A character on screen that's the 'good guy' or the 'bad guy,' they're never interesting. There's got to be an internal struggle, the duality is important to find.

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.

Look, we're in the time of the anti-hero.

I think a villain who starts his morning looking in the mirror, wringing his hands, and going, 'How can I be evil today?' is not an interesting villain. An interesting villain is a person who you understand on some level, I think.

I think that it's possible to have someone who is an anti-hero, who does tear hearts out and break necks, and you can still relate to him on a certain level.

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.

Gray space is fertile ground for fiction. When I can see both sides of an argument and feel strongly in both directions, then there's a story there, then I can write real characters that I care about and believe in and champion on both sides.

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.

If you don't care for the villain, if you don't love him and hate him at the same time, then he's just boring.

If the reader cares, I don't think it matters so much whether your hero is in fact an anti-hero.

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

Audiences grew to like this duality of feeling, where you're both championing a character and you're revolted by them.

I work very hard at creating complex characters, a mix of positives and negatives. They are all flawed. I believe flaws are almost universal, and they help us understand, sympathise and, paradoxically, feel closer to such characters.

If you can make a character likable that's not very nice, that's the challenge of the job.

I thought that would be kind of cool, to make a bad guy look sympathetic.

I have been thinking a lot about what we see in villains, how we relate to villains, and what it is about certain villains that we actually empathize with. Like Macbeth. We're not supposed to like a guy who kills the king and takes over, but there's something about him we're really fascinated by.

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.

This high-end, novelistic form of TV, you know, is just peppered with despicable people who do marvelous things and marvelous people who do despicable things.

I'm trying to make really flawed characters that have got redeeming features so people can say, 'I don't really like that character, but I can understand a bit where they've come from.'

I tend to root for characters who have a lot of negative qualities, but what's driving them forward is their passion. They're on a mission, and maybe their approach is misguided, but you can't fault them for giving 150%.

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

I don't think there are any negative roles anymore. I think we can aptly put such characters under 'anti-hero' tag.

'Profit' was an intriguing fellow that couldn't be approached as a villain or a hero. The challenge in hanging a show on a character like Jim Profit was that we knew that we were in for a rough reception.

The truth is that, to me, a likeable character is a character that is really flawed, so I don't know what people mean when they say 'likable.'

It's really interesting to play someone you wouldn't want to ever spend more than a couple of drinks with - but who has redeemable characteristics.