Look, I happen to still like really dark, dramatic, fractured characters.
Maybe because I'm a nice and sweet person in life, I like the darker roles. The really dark one is Lady Macbeth.
My dad was always interested in characters he didn't understand - he was such a great bad guy in movies. And that is really the thing that calls me to the material often: something I struggle to understand in human behaviour.
I'm not a dark person at all, so those roles are the most challenging. I don't think I'm necessarily drawn to dark things. It just seems to work out that way.
Why was it important for women to be only nice? Why can't she have dark layers? So when they came to me - films like 'Maqbool' and 'Astitva' - they just grabbed me, and I wanted to be part of them.
It's not like I don't want to play the guy next door. But sometimes they're not the best written or the most complicated. But I am very, very particular about my bad boys. There are certain types of characters I will not play. I've said no so many times to so many parts that are just way too dark. You have to be careful.
I'm an actor, and I don't look at myself as providing comic relief. I have done diverse and dark roles such as a psycho, murderer, and others in films such as 'Don', 'Eklavya' and '3 Idiots.'
For 'Breaking Bad,' people were with Walter White for 99% of that show, even though that guy is a monster.
Akhnaten is kind of a dark, kind of mysterious character. We don't know a lot about him - a lot of information on him was lost. But he obviously was a kind of iconoclast of him time. I guess I'm attracted to people like that. Like [Albert] Einstein also, who radically changed our way of thinking about the world we live in.
Internationally if you see, 'Narcos' and 'House of Cards' are all very dark shows with very dark characters. The audience may hate the character but they will love the actor.
I like characters who have faults. I'm drawn to darker people.
People keep asking me, 'What evil lurks in you to play such bad characters?' There is no evil in me, I just wear tight underwear.
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.
Acting is an art form and you want to take roles that are challenged and it's more of a challenge I think to play dark characters. Not that I want to always play those, but it is a challenge and challenges are rewarding and fun.
I've played characters who are dark and have done things I never have experienced, which is why I try to find the reasons why they do what they do. We're all people, and go through similar emotions.
I like playing dark, offbeat, quirky characters.
I've played a heroin addict and a speed freak and dark characters throughout my career.
I always get cast as the girl who's dying or the girl who's killing or the girl who's suicidal - all these heavy roles. But I like playing them.
I had always studied French and was obsessed with French films. I hated the way American films always had happy endings. I liked the way French films had dark and unpleasant characters; it was much more realistic.
I felt audiences are happier to take comedy people who play darker people because there's a link between the psychosis of comedy and the psychosis of being a twisted character.
I like playing the bad guys. It's a way of exercising and exorcising my own personal demons.
I love playing characters who are multilayered and multidimensional and have a darkness to them, which makes them more realistic and more fun to play.
I actually prefer getting into roles that are the polar opposite of me; that's why I've done so many dark and dreary things.
I'm way more attracted to character stuff and darker roles. It's just my personality, I guess.
People focus on the darker female characters in my books, but for every one of those, I can also show you an equally screwed up man that no one ever comments about, or a nicer woman that no one comments about. I don't feel like that's my specialty.
