25 Actors Who Are Equally Good at Playing Heroes and Villains
You know what they say: Meryl Streep could do Cast Away, but Tom Hanks could never do The Devil Wears Prada. You’re just never going to buy America’s dad as the bad guy. On the flip side, Malcolm McDowell has probably given up any notion he had about being an action hero because he’s simply incapable of not looking like he’s thinking about mutilating you in ways you’ve never even heard of. It’s rare to find an actor who can pull a Prince Hans without being a literal cartoon.
That’s why Redditor Olivebranch99 recently asked r/Movies, “What actor can masterfully play a hero and villain equally?” They listed Michael Keaton (who “plays hero with emotional baggage really well” but “absolutely slayed as Vulture in the MCU and even the questionable Ray Croc in The Founder”); Daniel Radcliffe (who came off “as an incredibly douchey rich kid” in Now You See Me 2); and Rachel McAdams (who is “the good guy” in “90 pecent of the movies (they’ve) seen her in” but “one of the bitchiest bitches” in Mean Girls) as “a few that come to mind.”
The hivemind, on the other hand, threw out…
Gary Oldman
Anthony Hopkins
J.K. Simmons
Mads Mikkelsen
Christoph Waltz
Hugo Weaving
Alan Rickman
Edward Norton
Bryan Cranston
Ralph Fiennes
Sam Rockwell
John Lithgow
James Earl Jones
Joe Pesci
Russell Crowe
Kathy Bates
Lee Pace
Zachary Quinto
Adam Scott
Willem Dafoe
Denzel Washington
Woody Harrelson
Robin Williams
Mark Hamill
Daniel Day-Lewis
