Finn Wittrock Quotes

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.

In general, I am more interested in the darker characters when I watch or read stories.

I'm more comfortable writing traditional protagonists. But 'Steve Jobs' and 'The Social Network' have antiheroes. I like to write antiheroes as if they're making their case to God about why they should be allowed into heaven. I have to find something in that character that is like me and write to that.

Yes, I do have a soft spot for complicated villains who can't help themselves.

Nobody's really unsympathetic, I think. People do good and bad things. If a character's totally unsympathetic, they're not real and I'm not interested.

The villain of any story is often the most compelling character.

I wanted readers to be genuinely unsure as to whether she's telling the truth or lying. It meant making her partly sympathetic, and partly unsympathetic, which wasn't easy.

In the best stories, people are morally complex; they are flawed. We read them because the world is flawed, and we want to see it truthfully represented. And because it can be thrilling to be shocked and upset, and even to feel, for chilling moments, what it's like to be a bad person.

Nobody's really unsympathetic, I think. People do good and bad things. If a character's totally unsympathetic, they're not real and I'm not interested. Even the real monsters have to have a spark of something you can relate to.

It's as boring to see a completely evil villain as it is to see a completely good guy.

No actor can play a villain if they don't sympathise with him or her - otherwise the character just becomes a two-dimensional caricature.

For 'Breaking Bad,' people were with Walter White for 99% of that show, even though that guy is a monster.

It's fun to play a character who lives on the edge, who is an ethical and moral mess, and is paying the price for some of his actions.

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 think many villains have the burden of not being very human.

If you're going to make a movie about a character who is a supervillain, it's fantastic to have a core sense of empathy for that character.

With all due respect to the other writers, I don't want to disparage any other writers; I don't want to have to invent a bigger villain than Deathstroke so Deathstroke can seem heroic fighting this bigger villain. I'd rather just have Deathstroke be who is, and he's kind of a bastard.

I think the parts that I played sort of broke the mould in terms of - you know, I played grey characters, the bad girl with a good heart, there was a good reason for her to be bad.

At the end of the day, what I try to bring to villainous characters is a sense of humanity.

I did this movie, 'A Walk Among the Tombstones' - I truly play a horrible, horrible individual in that - and I would occasionally go to the theater and watch what people's responses were, and they would laugh. He makes jokes, and people would respond to him in a human way. Then I've really done my job if I've humanized a really horrible person.

The more shaded, flawed characters that are struggling, I think there's something very relatable about that.

I'm interested in flawed protagonists. I was raised on them.

I love the character of Jaime Lannister. He's just so complex - a character that we love to hate - but it's a lot more complex than hatred. It starts off, and he seems so arrogant and so smug.

It seems to me that most characters, in anything, are flawed in some way, just like most people. You look for the good in the flawed people and vice versa, and then try and make them appealing in some way.

If you're playing the bad guy, you have to find what you like about them.