If you play an evil character, it’s gotta stick a little.
And if you’re a character-actor who always gets the evil role. If you play 100 evil guys. Then 100X moreso.
You get into the evil role. See the world through evil eyes and evil motivations.
And over time, It’s gotta bend your personality towards real evilness. Right?
I suppose you could google evil-character-actors. 20 years later, how many got arrested for something heinous.
What do you think?
EDIT
Put more generally : Can habits gained in one context bleed over into another context?
Yes.
Do they?
Possibly. With increasing probability as the habit becomes stronger. And there’s self-awareness to consider. And how much the habit clashes with the new context.
I would say no. The point of acting is to slip into a role and sell a part - ideally, believably. That’s what makes a great actor.
Well how about for normal people who aren’t “a great actor”? Does playing evil make them evil?
I guess I’m struggling to fully understand the logic of “playing pretend” making you the thing you’re pretending to be. You would need to already be a psychopath, lack empathy, etc, etc. That’s not something you learn.
You watch a movie with a scary horse and feel a bit scared. Later you visit a farm and see a horse and feel a bit scared. You react that way because of the movie. You see how it works.
And you could say that an evil person is somebody with evil reactions. Reactions of behavior and thinking.