We’ve all seen movies and TV shows where the antagonist is just plain evil. Those are the characters we love to hate, but are the actors to blame? Definitely not.
An article by Variety says that the official ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ TikTok account published a warning in relation to offensive comments and public death threats made to Gavin Casalengo, the actor who plays Jeremiah Fisher, everyone’s favorite Manchild. Situations like this have been happening for many years now.
Another infamous case that comes to mind was during the time of ‘Game of Thrones.’ Jack Gleason’s performance as King Joffrey was so impactful that the actor also started to receive death threats related to his iconic performance. This affected the life of the actor for a while. It is scary how hatred toward someone or something unites people. They don’t take into consideration how their reactions and opinions can change someone’s life from one day to the other. He stopped acting all together for around six years. He returned to acting in a small role in the TV series Out of Her Mind. Now, he is starring in Bryon Hedges’ newest show called House of Guiness.
Anna Gunn published an article in the New York Times talking about her character Skylar White on ‘Breaking Bad.’ She mentions how surprised she felt at the major hatred people were sharing on different social media pages.
People went to the extreme of creating a Facebook page called “I hate Skylar White.” She mentions that as an actor, she understands that viewers can have different feelings about the way she portrays the characters. Regardless, she is shocked as a person to see how toxic and opinionated people can be towards her character. She went on and won an Emmy for her performance as Skylar White.
In reality, that’s the life of an actor; to play someone. If you were the antagonist of the story and your character is not liked by the public, you’re probably doing your job correctly. Yet, that doesn’t mean viewers have to get out of their ways and cross the line by publishing backlash and affecting the private lives of those who have the courage to bring these characters to life.
If it weren’t for these characters, we wouldn’t be clinging to the edge of our seats.