You've got to have a villain and they'll always make me a villain. I'm used to it - it makes me work harder and it makes me fight harder.

There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.

The Joker is my favorite villain of all time: You don't know his past; you just know what his plans are.

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

Empathy is much bigger than sympathy. When the character is empathised with, that means you have succeeded as an actor. So even if it's a villain, the audiences don't hate you... they understand why you have turned into a villain.

Too often, we get attention and sympathy by being a victim. If we're invested in someone being our villain, we must love being the victim. We have to let go of both characters in the story.

The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful in society, had that society been well organized.

There is something sad about malevolence, to be wicked. I have always tried to make that come across in the villains I have played.

I think the best romantic comedies don't have villains.

I want to play a villain. I want to play a romantic heroine.

A good villain exudes charisma and power. He has principles, though; that just gives him a level of dimension. It makes him seem to be a bit unpredictable, because he's usually deemed as some type of evil, ruthless person, and then he shows you his principles, and you don't know what to think of it.

The only difference between a hero and the villain is that the villain chooses to use that power in a way that is selfish and hurts other people.

I've been on both sides: the victim and the villain. I was the victimised model, and everything from my weight to my fertility was held up for discussion. And then I was the person that could garner some kind of positive outcome, by taking on the role of vice chairman of the British Fashion Council and becoming an activist of body image.

I have a little bit of a pet peeve about how the middle class is depicted in movies. I feel like they tend to be either depicted in a very sentimental way, where everybody has a heart of gold except for the villains you're supposed to hiss at, or there's a sort of indie-style version... When it's done well, it's brilliant, it's 'Blue Velvet.'

Doom is a classic supervillain, akin to the Phantom of the Opera. It's not about revenge so much as, like, 'I'm back - now watch this!' It all boils down to the music. The mask is a slight theme for people to enjoy, and it adds mystery.

Movies are full of leading men, most of whom aren't working. It's much harder to find a good villain.

I've played a lot of bad guys in my time, especially in movies. It's delightful playing the villain. It's almost the most interesting and most complicated role in a film.

One doesn't need a particular height or body to be a villain in movies. He needs the brain and the look.

I define 'social thriller' as thriller/horror movies where the ultimate villain is society.

A cinema villain essentially needs a moustache so he can twiddle with it gleefully as he cooks up his next nasty plan.

I did this within a philosophical framework, and a moral and legal framework. And I have been turned into a cartoon of the greatest villain in the history of lobbying.

So, I'm thinking of a name for a villain that has a sense of humor. I thought of 'The Joker' as a name, and as soon as I thought that, I associate it with the playing card, as my family had a tradition of champion playing; my brother was a contract champion bridge player. There were always cards around the house.

So once I thought of the villain with a sense of humor, I began to think of a name and the name "the Joker" immediately came to mind. There was the association with the Joker in the deck of cards, and I probably yelled literally, 'Eureka!' because I knew I had the name and the image at the same time.

Without the villain, the hero sits at home on his couch.