You all know them. You may not always recognize the actor’s name but you know if he or she shows up in a movie there’s bound to be some bunny-boiling trouble ahead. I started thinking about this sub-group of thespians and their deliciously evil characters. These are actors who have not just played one iconic villain but have perfected the craft of being bad in multiple roles. Keep in mind this is not a “best villains of all time list”, you will notice some obvious absences (Anthony “hello Clarice” Hopkins, Tom “insert Bane voice here” Hardy, Jack “here’s Johnny” Nicholson, Daniel “Bill the Butcher” Day-Lewis and Kathy “hobbling” Bates to name a few) but feel free to comment with those you feel should have been represented. So without further ado, I present to you some quintessential bad guys in no particular order:
10.) ALAN RICKMAN
Ok, ok…so Snape didn’t exactly turn out to be a villain in the Harry Potter books/movies but Mr. Rickman sure did a damn good job convincing us otherwise. Just look at that furrow in his brow, he could kill a fly in there. His velvety voice is saturated with the kind of intoxication that could only be born from evil. It oozes darkness. And who can forget his turn as the smarmy executive in Love Actually who toys with beginning an affair with his tawdry secretary. WHO MAKES EMMA THOMPSON CRY!? For real. He’s also played the russian villain Rasputin, Tybalt, and an extra rape-y Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Oh yeah, and three more words for you: HANS. EFFING. GRUBER. He’s going to count to three…
P.S. Everything is forgiven because he plays the gentle and chivalrous Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility. #Willoughbysucks
9.) JEREMY IRONS
Dude. Homeboy orchestrated the saddest Disney moment of all time (in my opinion) when he let Mufasa fall to his death and ran Simba out of town. And his voice as Scar in The Lion King is just the tip of the iceberg. Have you ever caused the demise of a 12 year old girl’s mother and then began a torrid sexual affair that ends in tragedy with said 12 year old? No? Well Jeremy Irons did as Humbert in the 1997 adaptation of Lolita. Evil pope in The Borgias? Check. Evil hacienda owner in The House of Spirits? Check. Hans Gruber’s brother Simon in Die Hard: With a Vengeance? Check. You get the picture.
8.) TIM CURRY
Yeah, it’s Pennywise time. I couldn’t sleep by myself for a week after seeing Stephen King’s IT for the first time at age 7. I didn’t even know it was Tim Curry under all that terrifying clown makeup for a long time. In the movie he personifies fear itself and indeed it is an incarnation not soon to be forgotten. But Mr. Curry’s villainous chops don’t stop there; he was disguised in makeup and prosthetics again when he played the horned monster, Darkness, in 1985’s Legend (Tom Cruise’s first movie and worth checking out to see his original teeth–yikes), the wife-beating Bill Sikes in Oliver, the delightfully witty but diabolical butler in Clue, and the evil lusty cardinal in The Three Musketeers (shout out to Sting, Brian Adams and Rod Stewart for the soundtrack gem “All for Love”). He’s also voiced many animated villains including the pollution blob monster, Hexxus, in Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (that one was for you, children of the 90s). It should be noted that Mr. Curry also portrayed Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show but I think that’s categorized more under naughty than villainous.
7.) JAVIER BARDEM
Descended from spanish film royalty, Javier Bardem is no stranger to the business and especially not the business of being bad. His performance as Silva in the Bond movie Skyfall was haunting and twisted (his face was even twisted). He plays a conflicted member of the Spanish Inquisition in Goya’s Ghosts and the drug lord, Felix, in Collateral. Perhaps his most defining role was that of the ruthless Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. When a villain has such utter disregard for human life as illustrated in this role, they become killing machines. He’s also slated to play a villain in the latest installment of Pirates of the Caribbean opposite Johnny Depp.
6.) ANGELICA HUSTON
Time for the ladies to represent and one of the Grand Dames of villain town is none other than Ms. Angelica Houston. She has an air of elegance to her that can only be described as regal. (Side note: any woman who could put up with Jack Nicholson’s shenanigans for 17 years must be part magic). The villains she portrays are often of noble birth such as Rodmilla, the cruel stepmother, in Ever After: A Cinderella Story (I still can’t believe she sold the little old servant man, nothing made me cry tears of happiness more than when Drew Barrymore got him back). She can play a sexy tangoing villain you root for (Morticia in The Addams Family), a misunderstood villain (Viviane in The Mists of Avalon) and she’s played the ice queen in a couple of Wes Anderson flicks. The apex of her villainous career would have to be as the Grand High Witch in the movie adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches. When she removes her human-approved disguise to reveal her true form, 2nd graders wept everywhere. And who knows, maybe there really are people trapped in paintings…shudder.
5.) WILLEM DAFOE
Talk about a face made for villain-dom, Mr. Dafoe was chiseled to be a villain. No one has the maniacal smile/raised eyebrows down like him. For me the eerie smile registers somewhere between “I ate a cookie and I wasn’t supposed to” and “I for sure 100% have someone locked in my basement”. He is probably most recognizable for his role as the Green Goblin in Spider-man and most recently he played the alcoholic professional author/jerk Van Houten in The Fault in Our Stars but his career as a villain extends way beyond those roles. He played the leader of the Barillo drug cartel in Once Upon A Time in Mexico, the crazed kidnapper Raven in the cult-classic Streets of Fire and he also voices Gil in Finding Nemo ( not technically a villain but is still extremely sinister looking and has a dark past).
4. MALCOLM MCDOWELL
Movie villains love to have German, Russian or British accents. This British actor rose to fame wreaking havoc in a cod piece as the menacing sociopath Alex in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and hasn’t stopped since. Trust me, you don’t want to hear this guy’s version of “Singing in the Rain”, it’s not pretty. He’s also played Caligula, Satan and he even killed Captain Kirk in a Star Trek film. In TV he’s been featured in Tales from the Crypt and was the asshole who out ass-holed Ari as Terrence on Entourage.
3.) CHRISTOPH WALTZ
If the rest of the actors on this list kill it at being villains than Christoph Waltz kills it, cooks it, eats it and then tortures its eternal soul in hell. He is evil in whatever costume you put him in. There is a special place in hell for people who abuse animals like his character in Water for Elephants. He dropped jaws with his chilling performance in Inglorious Basterds when he assassinated the french jews hiding underneath his feet. He’s also played villains in The Green Hornet, The Three Musketeers and rumor has it he’s slated to be the next Bond villain…I approve.
2.) GLENN CLOSE
And now we’ve come to the bunny-boiler herself, Ms. Glenn Close! Just looking at this picture creeps me out. I once read that Glenn Close is like Meryl Streep’s evil twin and I wholeheartedly agree (although Meryl makes a damn fine villain herself now and then…ahem, Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada). As they say, “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Fatal Attraction singlehandedly scared a whole generation of men to keep it in their pants when Michael Douglas’ character made the biggest “whoops” mistake of his life. As Alex, Glenn’s wild hair and flashing eyes only add to her aura of craziness; we are seeing a true psychopath at work here. Ms. Close’s characters often use sexual manipulation as a weapon as illustrated again in her scheming role as the Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons (one of my favorite movies and the plot base for the movie Cruel Intentions). She is the puppet master in a game where the pawns don’t know they are being played. And let us not forget Ms. Close’s appearance as the demanding Cruella De Vil in the live action version of 101 Dalmations…she wants to make a fur coat out of puppies for pete’s sake. Cruella’s vanity makes her especially alarming to audiences–beware the materialistic fashionista! Ms. Close has also taken her turn as a television villain most recently in the show Damages.
1.) GARY OLDMAN
Gary Oldman creates masterpiece villains. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, his backstory of lost love almost makes you root for the tormented monster. This is a villain skilled in the art of seduction and Oldman executes without disappointment. His portrayal of unhinged, pill-popping DEA agent, Norman Stanfield, was brilliant in The Professional. The rest of Oldman’s body of villainous work speaks for itself in volume and diversity. He plays Dreyfus, a rigid leader of a group of humans in Dawn of Planet of the Apes, the quirky Zorg in The Fifth Element, deformed child-molester Mason Verger in Hannibal, Carnegie in The Book of Eli and Ivan Korshunov in Air Force One. All hail the king of the villains.
If you can make what is essentially a 2 hour car chase continually engaging and entertaining, then I think you’ve accomplished something pretty special in filmmaking. The George Miller directed action flick is a non-stop thrill ride from start to finish and I was holding onto my Diet Coke for dear life the whole time. It is visually stunning, the stunts and acrobatics are jaw-dropping and it still manages to engage your emotions. Viewers will have only have to wait a couple minutes after the movie begins for the first car chase–dialogue is sparse but the little dialogue that is spoken carries significant weight. No romantic storyline, no unnecessary plot devices. It’s just a fast-paced, twisted action ride that will have you fist-pumping on the inside.
First of all, see this in 3D and 3D IMAX if possible. There is so much amazing CG work on Mad Max it is hard to fathom. It is a veritable feast for the senses. In the theater, when I saw the wall of the sand storm approach, all I could do was just shake my head in awe. That whole scene in storm is sure to go down as one of the greatest action sequences of all time. When CG is done on a scale as tremendous as that and executed so well…you can’t help but get lost in it. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it, so cool.
A violent and seemingly lawless patriarchy presides over this futuristic wasteland, led by the ruthless Immortan Joe. He not only controls scarce resources but controls women by pumping the older women for their nourishing milk and impregnating the younger ones to make further offspring. Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a female truck-driver and warrior, escapes with Immortan Joe’s “breeders” who are essentially female sex slaves. When we catch our first glimpse of these women onscreen, they are decked out in muslin dresses in light neutral colors giving them an almost virginal and ethereal aura. Furiosa is every bit as capable as any male protagonist and her character has been likened to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley from Alien.
Mad Max’s world is fire and blood where his only motive is to survive. He can’t comprehend hope but he wants to eradicate the demons of his past that haunt him by seeking redemption. For him, redemption means “a selfless act that stops the unbidden memories.” He is ferocious and unpredictable. Furiosa on the other hand, has a purpose and a plan–to reach the “Green Place”. They are both equally as badass but they need each other to survive their trek. Immortan Joe is an epic villain that will go down in the history books and I also highly enjoyed Nux, the feisty but ill-fated warboy. Plenty of skilled and courageous characters to go around in this film, many of whom blur the line between hero/anti-hero.
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