taken a role playing a villain or a "bad guy?"

I think this thread will contain spoilers but I am curious about famous male actors with more than a few movie roles that have never played a bad guy/villian.

Maybe Will Smith if Six degrees doesn't really count.

I also wanted to say Morgan Freeman because he always plays the trusted President or confident but then he

1. "Teaser" subject header? Come on, you've been around long enough to know better.

2. Morgan Freeman? Come on, his breakout role was in Street Smart.

Jackie Chan steadfastly refuses to do it, owing to his public image in Asia. He once bitched out a magazine for publishing a picture of him smoking, as he wants to set a good example for Chinese kids. Not smoking would be a better step, but he's got a point.

Christian Bale?

Edit.. Nevermind he was in the terrible Shaft movie.

I can't recall a movie where Harrison Ford was the "villain" per se, but he has played less-than-likable characters who weren't the heroes.

He could be considered villainous in What Lies Beneath.

How about Mark Wahlberg?

^ Mark Wahlberg....Fear

Ha! He says that now but cue up Enter The Dragon. He gets killed by Bruce Lee when Lee has his famous nunchuck rage scene. Chan's the one attacking Lee.

Maybe...

Shia LeBouf?

Kevin Smith?

Keira Knightly?

Zooey Deschanel?

Cameron Diaz?

Brendan Fraser?

Ryan Reynolds?

But before he became a star, there was The Killer Meteors...

Don't just stare at it...eat it.

Depending on your interpretation of that film, he was either a villain or just an a-hole.

Not to mention more recently in:

Hayden Christensen tried to, but wasn't very convincing.

Morgan Freeman in Chain Reaction, Christian Bale in American Psycho.

Not necessarily a bad guy per se, but she did play a in Vanilla Sky.

I was going to say John Ratzenberger but he's the Underminer.

John Wayne
Clint Eastwood
James Garner
Jimmy Stewart?
Errol Flynn

Clint Eastood was Bill Munny in Unforgiven.

Eastwood played a villain in "The Beguiled" 1971.

Stewart was the heavy in his first film, one of the Thin Man series. Eastwood was often a villain, even if he was the main character.

It seems that Morgan Freeman never plays villains, but he does...also was villain in:


Other actors that should play villains:

Clint Eastwood (likable vigilante roles with a heart don't count)
Naomi Watts (she's so likable in all her roles, but we know she can act psychotic)
Jessica Alba (she just seems so nice - I want to see her in a real meaty villain role...her mean role in Never Been Kissed doesn't really count)
Dakota Fanning (I would like to see her play some child mafia kingpin)
Natalie Portman (she's too nice in all her roles)


The last really great female villain role was Salma Hayak in Lonely Hearts. It was a truely awful movie, but Salma Hayak was genuinely scary and unlikable in it.

Julia Roberts?

The Oceans movies?

Or there was that one episode of Friends.

The Last Supper
Being John Malkovich

Rent Awake with Hayden Christiansen. Not a great movie though. But you get your wish.

Somewhat in Red River. Cary Grant should have been the bad guy in Ronald Reagan only played the heavy in The Killers ('64) and Henry Fonda played a memorable baddie in Once Upon a Time in the West.