I did a play once where a reviewer said, 'Martin Freeman's too nice to play a bad guy.' And I thought: 'Well, bad guys aren't always bad guys, you know?' When I see someone play the obvious villain, I know it's false.
The very first things that I did, even in theater, were bad guys. They are meaty roles for the most part. With the bad guy you have more freedom to experiment and go further out than with a good guy.
You couldn't pay me enough to be a law enforcement officer. Their job is a tough job. You have to solve people's problems, you have to baby-sit people, you have to always be doing this cat-and-mouse game with the bad guys. My respect for them is immense.
You know, the best-laid plans of mice and men... I like playing bad guys, and I don't have a problem doing that. They're interesting characters, and there's as many different kinds of bad guys as there are good guys - they're rich, they're strong, they're powerful, and so that's fine with me.
It's easy for me to play bad guys because it's a very linear acting. Bad guys aren't empathetic. Being a bad guy is great because you're not friendly and you don't have to do much with your face.