Top 10 actors cast as supervillains

Where there’s a superhero, there must be a supervillain.
Supervillains are the ultimate antagonists to a superhero. They’re not just some elaborate criminal or gang, but they must try to break a hero in order to defeat them. The real meat in any heroic story is that the hero overcomes the antagonizing of the villain in order to defeat them.
Many supervillains aren’t just evil for the sake of being evil. Some villains have tragic stories which create their eventual emergence. Others find themselves as an antithesis to the main superhero, such as the Joker in the Batman series.
The actors who portray supervillains have to work creatively to find more nuances to a villain than a screenplay describes, depending on the character. Those actors may help make those villains darkly sympathetic or somebody audiences love to hate.
The Celebrity Café counts down the top 10 actors cast as supervillains.
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10. Robin Lord Taylor as the Penguin, ‘Gotham’
Taylor brings audiences a bizarre but darkly entertaining version of Oswald Cobblepot on this prequel series, playing weak to crime bosses yet conniving and killing his way up the city’s criminal underworld. Despite the character’s villainous determination, Taylor also makes him darkly likeable. It will be interesting to see his rise in the series.

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9. Zachary Quinto as Sylar, ‘Heroes’
Before Spock, Quinto had a major role in this show about normal people discovering extraordinary abilities. Before the show soured, Sylar was a clock repairman who discovered that he could inherit people’s abilities by killing them. Quinto played the character with such sadism and monstrous insanity, challenging the protagonists of the show at many points.

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8. Dane DeHaan as Andrew, ‘Chronicle’
DeHaan’s character Andrew is similar to a certain Stephen King character; bullied at school, abused at home, and virtually alone until he gains telekinetic powers with two other people. His move to the dark side is also scary and tragic, and DeHaan conveys the characters pain and dark transformation very well. And to think this film wasn’t based off of an existing book or comic.

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7. Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus, ‘Spider-Man 2’
Molina’s turn as the famous Spider-Man villain was fantastic. A brilliant, ambitious scientist who’d do anything to make his dangerous energy machine work after a disastrous accident, Molina managed to convey that dark ambition with tragedy and determination, yet not without sympathy. That sympathy made his sacrifice all the more believable by the end of the film.

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6. Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith, ‘The Matrix’ films
A viral Joker to Neo’s Batman, the program Smith emerged as the opposite of what Neo became. Where Neo fought for freedom, Smith fought for power and control, eventually becoming a virus that affected people both in and out of the Matrix. Weaving annunciated every word the character said with a mechanical precision and cold yet subtly sadistic candor.

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5. Tom Hiddleston as Loki, ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Thor’ films
Loki craves power, and will use his intelligence and sympathetic demeanor to get what he wants, among other tricks. Hiddleston conveys that in his portrayal of Thor’s brother in the Marvel films, with the actor’s charm making the character devilishly likeable in the process. It may not be hard to fool Thor, but Hiddleston makes it all the more entertaining to the audience.

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4. Terence Stamp as General Zod, ‘Superman II’
Michael Shannon played Zod without much restraint when compared to Stamp’s portrayal in the older Superman film. Stamp’s portrayal also showcases a fanatical, power-hungry Kryptonian, but without being as over-the-top as Shannon. His cold demeanor commands a presence to his two Kryptonian assistants, and conveys a no-nonsense personality to the audience.

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3. Aaron Eckhart as Two-Face, ‘The Dark Knight’
Heath Ledger may be one of the best Jokers in any iteration of Batman, but Eckhart as Harvey Dent is at one point inspirational and at another point tragic. Before he gets half his face burned, Eckhart portrays Dent with charisma and heroism, even when he slips into desperation. Upon becoming Two-Face, Eckhart shows his damaged conviction and scarred outlook on justice.

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2. Sir Ian McKellen as Magneto, ‘X-Men’ films
Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier was fantastic, but McKellen as Magneto was just as good casting. McKellen played Magneto with conviction and power, but also had a fantastic chemistry with Stewart in their scenes together. Audiences could believe that they were quasi-friends on opposite sides of a conflict who knew they would always fight each other.

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1. Mark Hamill as the Joker, ‘Batman: The Animated Series’
Heath Ledger came very close with his surprising performance as mentioned before, but Hamill caught both the darkly humorous and scary quality of the anarchic character. Just by using his voice, Hamill portrayed the character with equal parts dark humor and sadistic danger, widely different from playing the heroic Luke Skywalker. With the help of scriptwriters as well, Hamill is the best, and most surprising, actor cast as a supervillain.