Len Wein Quotes

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.

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

No matter how heinous someone's behaviour, if you make them a comic character, you can't expect people to hate them.

I can play really terrible human beings, and I seem to have a quality that people can, if not necessarily forgive me those sins, at least cut me some slack.

You hope that when you're playing someone possibly unsympathetic that you can bring them something redeeming, something people can hang onto.

Any character you play, you're on his side. You do have the third eye that looks at what an appalling creature he is, but you have to look at what's good about him.

I think there is something in my books that says these are people doing their best under difficult circumstances - sometimes they do wrong things and make mistakes, but who doesn't? And who wants to read about somebody who never does?

I happen to like movies and plays about dislikeable people as long as I get to know why they are what they are.

Maybe it's because I'm a little naive, but I do like to think that there aren't really very many truly bad people in the world. I think that everybody has their reasons for what they do, and if you really look through their eyes, you could probably understand them.

I like the opportunity to play characters who have these dark sides but make the audience empathize with them. You want them to think there is some kind of sweeter, softer side to it.

Flaws make us all human, and you're rooting for characters because of those flaws. It's ageless if you're interested in relationships and the way people can or can't relate to each other.

The thing is, I never see my characters as psychopaths. I see them as really crippled victims who just happen to do bad things. And I never see them as bad guys; I see them as darker characters. I never see anything as good or bad; it's more light or dark, and the in-between is the grey.

The thing is, when you paint somebody in all of their colors, they're never all bad or all good. Even the worst person has humanity in there somewhere.

There's gotta be a human being in everybody, regardless of what they do or what people think they did.

I am constantly interested in people who society calls 'bad' because I don't like to just buy into something that everybody's going to say. I want to investigate that for myself. With a character, you get to fully investigate that emotionally and understand the parts of them that are in pain and scared and are good. That's human.

I like to play people who are deeply flawed, and I want to find the good nature in them. I even try to be kind to myself when I've made big mistakes.

I can find some part of me that relates to even the most evil characters. At least in my imagination.

Characters, like people, don't need to be right - only understood and, perhaps, accepted. We are all grey, lighter and darker, depending on our state of security.

You think of a criminal, and you already judge them for the crime, and you don't really see the human side of them. We all have our sides that we're not proud about.

It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise.

Personally I don't believe in bad people. I think there's always a reason for people acting badly.

Women have a special corner of their hearts for sins they have never committed.

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.

It is a very delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimation, and yours too.

I feel like life is much greater than a hero or a villain: there's good people that sometimes make mistakes.