Ask any actor who has been in this business for any length of time—

What is more fun? Playing good guys or bad guys?

Bad guys will be the response almost every time.

It is important to remember that these characters are fun as they let us access, often forbidden, parts of who we are and say and do things we’d never do in real life.

But these characters aren’t different than “the good guys” in how they see themselves, and thus you must honor this when portraying them and their goals with a level of truth and sincerity. Bad guys don’t walk around thinking they are bad guys. In fact, they often think they are the good guys.

It is always okay to turn down roles or projects for any reason, but when you accept a role, you have one job – serve the story.

And you must do so truthfully.

Darth Vader didn’t walk around thinking “I am so awful. I can’t wait to do more awful things to good people who deserve better.”

From his paradigm, he was doing the right thing. He was justified.

You can’t just try to understand your character, you must become your character and you must always do so from a place of authenticity.