The Psychopath Playbook: A Killer Guide to Chilling Performances

A psychopath (or sociopath; despite some diagnostic differences, the two are often used interchangeably) is someone who lacks the ability to tell right from wrong and doesn’t have a “normal” developed sense of morality. In psychology, psychopathy is a clinical diagnosis, although the term is somewhat outdated in the medical sphere. Patients are now more likely to be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), an umbrella diagnosis that includes both psychopathy and sociopathy. We may encounter people with ASPD tendencies more often than we realize (Psychology Today suggests that 4% of people may be sociopathic), because in real life they often seem like regular people.

When you think of a psychopath, the first thing that comes to mind may be extreme examples—murderers, bunny boilers, and the blatantly evil—but psychopathic behavior is often more nuanced.

Characteristics of a psychopath

The main motivator for psychopathic behavior is a lack of caring about what other people think. Behaviors that would normally make the rest of us feel guilty—lying, cheating, stealing, and so on—is all fair game. This means that psychopathic characters are generally:

• Self-centered: If you don’t care what other people think about you, and you don’t care how other people feel, is it any wonder you’d end up pretty self-involved? The psychopath will always be working to serve their own needs.  
• No empathy: Psychopaths don’t have a normally developed sense of empathy, so they won’t be taking other people’s feelings into account. Not all characters who do bad things are psychopaths; the lack of remorse is key.
• Little fear of consequences: The law, public opinion, or even just natural physical consequences don’t worry psychopaths one bit, which often makes them risk-takers and rule-breakers.
• Charming: Make no mistake—just because psychopaths are capable of scary things doesn’t mean they’re inherently intimidating. Many psychopathic characters are smooth, charismatic, and even funny, all in the name of manipulation and self-gain.

The psychopathic character in film, TV, and theater is usually a villain or side antagonist, whose malevolent presence forces the protagonist to make difficult choices. This character type can also be a way for writers to explore issues of morality, empathy, psychology, and societal ills. 

Although most (but not all) cut-and-dry villains fit under the psychopath umbrella, the recent trend toward giving so-called villains more complex backgrounds threatens to change that. For instance, Cruella de Vil (voiced by Betty Lou Gerson) in the original “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” (1961) wants to kill puppies to wear them as coats—pretty psychopathic behavior. The same character (Emma Stone) in the 2021 live-action film “Cruella” is given a gritty backstory about dalmatians killing her mother, making her more of a nefarious yet fun antihero than a true psychopath.

Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), “The Night of the Hunter” (1955, dir. Charles Laughton)

Mitchum created the template for the silver-screen psychopath with his terrifying performance in this Southern gothic noir. He plays Harry Powell, a charismatic traveling preacher who ensnares his victims by charming them straight into his clutches. He easily sweet-talks grieving widow Willa Harper (Shelley Winters) into marrying him—while unbeknownst to her, he’s really after the money her deceased husband stole in a bank robbery. But “The Night of the Hunter” is best known for its second act, in which Harry pursues Willa’s children down the Ohio River, singing hymns under his breath as he makes his way toward them. Nearly 70 years later, the image of Harry strolling through the dark with a smirk on his face, “LOVE” and “HATE” tattooed across his knuckles, remains indelibly haunting.

Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), “Psycho” (1960, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

It’s impossible to talk about psychopaths in film without bringing up the most famous one of all time: the crossdressing, mother-mummifying, shower slasher Norman Bates. Perkins’ portrayal of the character is expertly executed; his flat but gentle affect tips viewers off that something isn’t quite right—or maybe it’s just his love of taxidermy—but it doesn’t give away just how unwell he is until the film’s conclusion. Bates’ split personality is just a little something extra (and not a required facet of the psychopathic character), but his other behaviors—killing, lying, covering up crimes—make him live up to the movie title: Psycho, indeed. 

Jason “J.D.” Dean (Christian Slater), “Heathers” (1988, dir. Michael Lehmann)

Played by Slater in the cult classic and later by Ryan McCartan in the 2014 Off-Broadway musical of the same name (book, music, and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy), J.D. takes the bad-boy trope to new psychopathic depths. While his teenage killing spree may start out as a way to free his love interest Veronica (Winona Ryder) from a group of girls she can’t stand, it eventually escalates (if you can spiral past murdering your peers) to attempting to blow up their entire high school, even when Veronica begs him to stop.

Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991, dir. Jonathan Demme)

Played most delectably by Hopkins in the Oscar-winning film, Hannibal the cannibal subverts many preconceived notions audiences may have about psychopathic characters. Sure, he’s a man-eater and a murderer, but he’s also educated, intelligent, and articulate. And he isn’t the villain of the story! Though his motives are as self-serving as the human flesh meals he prefers, he does help hero Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) to ultimately catch serial killer Buffalo Bill.

Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), “No Country for Old Men” (2007, dir. Ethan and Joel Cohn)

According to a paper published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, Bardem’s performance as hit man Anton Chigurh is the most accurate representation of psychopathy ever committed to celluloid. The actor earned it: As he cuts a bloody swath across Texas and Mexico, evading Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) at every turn, Chigurh is such a terrifying presence that it feels as if he’s about to leap from the screen and strangle us to death. With his hulking frame, dead-eyed stare, and off-putting pageboy haircut, it’s clear that he draws deep satisfaction from feeling his victims go limp in his arms. But it’s somehow even more chilling when he offers a way out to those unlucky enough to cross his path in the form of a coin toss. Bardem more than earned his supporting actor Oscar for this indelible performance. 

Amma Crellin (Eliza Scanlen), “Sharp Objects” (2018, created by Marti Noxon)

On the HBO miniseries based on Gillian Flynn’s novel of the same name, Amma is a textbook psychopath, even if that isn’t immediately evident. Viewers learn very quickly that she’s manipulative, as she leads a double life roughing it with her friends while maintaining her reputation as a dress-wearing, doll-playing good girl at home—but we’re also being manipulated as an audience. While we spend the bulk of the series fearing she’ll be the next victim, we eventually find out (spoiler alert!) that she’s the one responsible for the deaths of the young girls in town. And as if murdering them weren’t bad enough, she pulled out their teeth and used them for the floor of her dollhouse.

Villanelle (Jodie Comer), “Killing Eve” (2018–2022, created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge)

It’s not often you come across a spy thriller that’s less about action than deep character work, laced with dark wit and a complex exploration of the female experience. That’s certainly thanks to “Fleabag” creator Waller-Bridge’s take on the genre. But the main appeal of “Killing Eve” is the crackling cat-and-mouse chemistry between MI6 agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) and globe-trotting assassin Villanelle (Comer). We already knew that Oh was a brilliant actor, but Comer came out of nowhere and knocked us sideways. Far from the grimdark serial killers we’re accustomed to seeing onscreen, Villanelle is a manic pixie dream psychopath who delights in devising innovative ways to take down her victims. It’s easy to see why Eve falls fast and hard for her target despite her body count—and that’s down to Comer’s performance, which blends childlike glee and shape-shifting allure with chilling depravity. No wonder the actor won both an Emmy and a BAFTA for the role.

There may be few characters who seem as difficult to tap into as the psychopath, but to quote Norman Bates, “We all go a little mad sometimes.” Here are some ways to approach the role.

1. Study your character. When receiving a script for the first time, one of the initial steps actors often take is to figure out their character’s motivations. Keep in mind that a psychopath’s motivation will always be self-serving, so keep other characters out of it (at least at first). What is the character hoping to gain for themselves, and themselves alone?

2. Play up the charm. It can be tempting to play the psychopath as an all-around creepy person, but that’s both unrealistic and uninteresting. Figure out why your character is compelling—whether it’s the sex appeal of Amy Dunne, the intellect of Hannibal Lecter, or the vulnerability of Amma Crellin— and use that to turn up the charm. 

3. Be bad. You’ll have to throw your morals out the window (at least temporarily) to play a truly malevolent character. To portray Marla Grayson, for instance, Pike said she had to create a character “who is devoid of shame, who is ruthlessly ambitious, and so without compunction.”

4. Look within. Spend some time remembering when you behaved in a self-centered way or may have lacked empathy, and use these moments to inform your character. To transform into the famed lover of liver (“with some fava beans and a nice Chianti”), Hopkins said he “tapped into the despot” of darkness within. “We all flirt with this part of ourselves,” he said. “If we accept it, we render it harmless. By denying it, we drive it underground and it wreaks havoc on our lives.”

5. Strive for nuance. Unless you’re cast as a one-dimensional, mustache-twirling soap-opera villain, your character needs to be multifaceted—like Amma, who Scanlen played with great complexity. “I wanted to show her vulnerability and to not let the audience forget that she is a victim of trauma and mental illness,” she explained. “While she is a psychopath and while she does have a lot of demons, she is just a little girl in the end. You can’t play a psychopath or an evil character if you hate them. So I had to find a reason to really empathize with Amma and that was her need to be loved.”