Do actors who play evil roles become evil IRL?

If you play an evil character, it’s gotta stick a little.

And if you’re a character-actor who always gets the evil role. If you play 100 evil guys. Then 100X moreso.

You get into the evil role. See the world through evil eyes and evil motivations.

And over time, It’s gotta bend your personality towards real evilness. Right?

I suppose you could google evil-character-actors. 20 years later, how many got arrested for something heinous.

What do you think?

EDIT

Put more generally : Can habits gained in one context bleed over into another context?

Yes.

Do they?

Possibly. With increasing probability as the habit becomes stronger. And there’s self-awareness to consider. And how much the habit clashes with the new context.

theywilleatthestars,

No

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I’ve only heard of this happening to a degree with the super deep method actors. And even then they didn’t become evil, so much as fall into a depression and fuck up their mental health which possibly lead to some of them dying (example: Heather Ledger after taking on his role as The Joker).

I’m not a big star or anything, but I do local theatre sometimes and I also love to roleplay in D&D and such, and I think playing the villain is the most fun because it can be cathartic to a degree. It’s fun because it’s out of character, not because I want to do the things my evil characters do. It’s just fun to pretend and explore ideas that you can’t IRL without hurting people.

108,
@108@kbin.social avatar

Personally I'd say no.

For what it's worth I been DMing campaigns for 20+ years playing evil characters and monsters. You have to get pretty elaborate and good at planning "evil" things. I put evil in quotes because it's acting, you aren't evil you are playing a role.

Mobiuthuselah,

You’re phrasing this as a question, but it’s clearly not for you.

froghorse,

My god some of you people would rather twist yourself into a pretzel than address the question.

Fine, so pretend that it’s due to a clumsiness of phrasing on my part. Mea culpa maxima.

Now pretty please, address my question.

Susaga,

We did address your question. We said no. You started twisting the question to try and get the answer you wanted. We still said no. Actors have a strong enough sense of reality and fiction that they do not take on the traits of their characters, good or bad. Beyond that, you have to be humble as fuck to regularly play a character everyone’s meant to hate, and it’s not uncommon for hero actors to develop a hell of an ego. This is your answer.

froghorse,

Actually some of you said no, some said yes, some said maybe and some said it bears further discussion. But your song is a bit gimpy I think.

Susaga,

One person said yes (and literally nothing else). Nobody said maybe. Everyone else said no. You are the only person who thinks it bears further discussion. I checked.

froghorse,

I dunno man, have you asked your mom?

Mobiuthuselah,

Asked yours last night. Hard to understand with her mouth full, but ultimately confirmed that it was no. We laughed pretty hard because otherwise she kept repeating the opposite all night.

Mobiuthuselah,

What twisting? I only pointed out that you posed a question in bad faith. You gave an answer to your own dumb “question” and then proceeded to argue with and insult anyone who disagrees with your opinion. Why even ask in the first place? Clumsiness in phrasing is obviously not your greatest fault.

shinigamiookamiryuu,

Most evil characters are cartoonishly evil. I’m yet to see the headlines “grocery store grazer gets put in police car while bellowing an evil laugh”.

TheFerrango,

Yes

Susaga,

I can’t help but notice how rarely actors become crime-fighting billionaires.

froghorse,

Maybe they feel a little empowered. Maybe their thoughts are slightly more inclined to judgment. There’s infinitely more to a person than their obvious behavior.

The thing to do would be to examine your own behavior. Has a habit gained in one context ever noticeably bled over into another?

Susaga,

“You are aware that I am not actually a wizard”

Conyak,

Of course not.

DigitalTraveler42,

Some of the best regarded actors in terms of sincerity and generosity are actors who notoriously play villains, like all of the stories about how Alan Rickman was on the set of Harry Potter, he played Snape in the movies and his breakout role was as Hans Gruber in Die Hard, but to the Harry Potter kids he was their favorite mentor and they have quite a few stories about him that they’ve shared with the public since Alan’s death in 2016.

Playing a villain is hard when you’re not that sort of person, that’s why actors treat playing a villain as a challenge, and why the villain role is treated with prestige. However, that’s acting, acting is the art of transforming yourself into somebody else, and some people simply do it far better than others, and some people simply aren’t acting that’s just who they are, only history will spot the difference.

froghorse,

Ya but the question was “does playing evil make you evil?”. Not “does playing evil reveal a preexisting evil?”. It’s a big difference.

OverfedRaccoon,

I would say no. The point of acting is to slip into a role and sell a part - ideally, believably. That’s what makes a great actor.

froghorse,

Well how about for normal people who aren’t “a great actor”? Does playing evil make them evil?

OverfedRaccoon,

I guess I’m struggling to fully understand the logic of “playing pretend” making you the thing you’re pretending to be. You would need to already be a psychopath, lack empathy, etc, etc. That’s not something you learn.

froghorse,

You watch a movie with a scary horse and feel a bit scared. Later you visit a farm and see a horse and feel a bit scared. You react that way because of the movie. You see how it works.

And you could say that an evil person is somebody with evil reactions. Reactions of behavior and thinking.

NPC,

I’m a chef. Sometimes I need to raise my voice at staff. Sometimes I need to be harsh and make snap decisions in the heat of service. I not always a nice guy then, but I have to be for my job. But when I get off, of when it’s calm in the restaurant I’m not at all like that. It’s been years since I’ve yelled outside of my job. Having to “play” someone I’m not to keep the place running is tiring and when I’m done I don’t want anything to do with that for the rest of the day.

I imagine it’s the same way for actors. After a long day of playing the bad guy, I can totally see you want to be anything but that afterwards. Though, if you’re an asshole to begin with, you’ll be an asshole no matter what.

P.s. Don’t go thinking I’m some sort of bully chef, last time I actually had to get mad and yell at someone at my job is when an intern tried to open a plastic jar by pointing a blade directly at their stomach.

Susaga,

Fun fact: Bob Ross used to be a drill sergeant, and he thought exactly like you do.

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