So Rami Malek says that playing the villainous Safin for No Time to Die, the last Bond movie that will feature Daniel Craig, took a psychological toll on him? He’s obviously never written for a living and discovered what it’s like to jump inside a villain’s head and figure out just how to properly put them down on the page, but he’s definitely learned, as his role as Safin has forced him to at least dig into the character in a way he didn’t expect. The capacity to act as the villain is something that each person harbors inside them, whether it’s believed or not, and Rami has managed to find out just how disturbing that can be since the best villains are those that come off as realistic, and those that don’t see the diving line between good and evil as a barrier, but a cute impediment that many people think of as a concrete ideological barrier that keeps them from slipping to the side they don’t want to be caught on. To create such villains however a person has to do more than toe the line, they have to jump across it and learn how to play hopscotch with that thing. Some actors have needed therapy after playing villains since the depths to which they’ve gone have been either too far for their psyche or have been disturbing enough that they don’t want to have nightmares of the type that might one day convince them of the logic that is able to be applied to the darkness in the back of their minds.
Writers, particularly those that deal in dark fiction or write about some of the most disturbing subjects, know more than a little about the dark side of humanity, as they traverse these depths more than a few times in life and have to find a way back more often than many that might have dark thoughts that they never act on. Why is this? It’s largely because people want a good story, they want a villain that feels real, they want someone that will gladly justify the things they do and will follow through on the dark acts that they propose, even if in the movies and in TV we don’t necessarily get what we want. We tend to get villains that talk too much, that give the heroes too much of a chance and have to show off their superiority because of hubris. In many ways, there are a lot of people that want a villain who will follow through on their threats and simply stamp out the hero when they have the chance, rather than play with them since they want to prove that they’re better in one way or another. That’s a true villain, one that can justify the things they do, and in the process simply do them without the need to talk, following through on their convictions without the need to show off, or make it clear that they are in any way superior. Sometimes there doesn’t need to be a conversation to prove that a villain is serious since actions can speak much louder than words.
The hope here is that Safin will be Bond’s match, but will prove this to be true without talking as much. The realization though is that this isn’t how Bond movies work. In fact, it’s not how any movie with a villain works since the villain always has to give the hero a chance, and rarely do the villains win since they pause for some reason, they talk too much at the wrong moment, and they somehow underestimate the heroes that are coming after them and make one fatal flaw that can upset their plans. When the day comes that villains really need to be outmaneuvered because they’re serious about their plans and aren’t bound to describe them or tell the hero why they’re inept, then movies with truly diabolical villains will be a little more impressive. Until then, telling the world that it took a lot to tap into a character that’s as evil as can be with the logical assertions that they’re in the right isn’t quite as impressive as it sounds since those that do this tend to do it now and again, not all the time as some folks do when creating said characters. Rami Malek is a talented actor and he has the awards to prove it, but now and again it is enough to make a person roll their eyes when it comes to describing just what it was like getting into character, especially when someone had to create that character in the first place. Hopefully, No Time to Die will live up to its hype, since many people have been waiting patiently for this next chapter in the life of James Bond.
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