Is it good to be bad? To me, the idea of getting to be the bad guy has a lot of appeal. Emma Stone, unprompted, pointed out that it could be “cool” in my interview with her for “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” and it's the question I led off with when speaking to Jamie Foxx and Dane DeHaan who portray the film's villains, Electro and Green Goblin.
Foxx answered the question in interesting fashion – he didn't disagree with the premise but spoke more about something else he enjoyed. “To be able to play two characters, to be able to play Max [Dillon] and then develop into Electro, that's always good acting real estate.” DeHaan, for his part, absolutely agreed about liking to be able to play the transformation, but also more directly addressed the enjoyment of playing the bad guy, explaining that once the character go bad, “We get to misbehave and we get to do all these crazy things and that's fun. You know, It's fun to misbehave.”
As with many a superhero film, “Amazing Spider-Man 2” explores the origins of its villains and there are definitely moments when it seems as though these characters could, rather than going bad, turn good. When asked about that, DeHaan answered, “One thing you can take away from watching this movie is how life can get a hold of people and have either good consequences or bad consequences.” Clearly for both Max and Harry Osborn, there were some bad consequences.
What happens as a result of those consequences and Max and Harry becoming villains? Some pretty whiz-bang action sequences, and more.
“The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” directed by Marc Webb, makes its way into theaters this Friday, starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Sally Field in addition to DeHaan and Foxx.