Dylan Baker Reveals Why He Gets Typecast as Secretly Sinister Characters, “I Gravitated Towards It”

Dylan Baker has been working in Hollywood for decades, and while he has the occasional genuinely likable character, many of the roles he plays are the kind of villain who starts out seeming innocent, only to reveal he has a pitch-black soul at a key moment. The Trick ‘r Treat and Along Came a Spider star says that he never set out to get those kinds of roles particularly, but once he figured out he was good at them, and being cast in them, he totally embraced it, developing a skillset that would keep him in work for years to come. He also said, like most actors cast as villains do, that you can’t approach the role knowing that you’re the villain.

Speaking with ComicBook.com in support of his upcoming role in LaRoy, Texas, Baker elaborated:

“I don’t know what it is about me as a person, but early on, I think I did plays and drama school and acting classes for ten years before I did Ishtar, which was my first movie,” Baker explained. “I think, for some reason, I was always that guy that looked like he’s a nice guy, and then all of a sudden he had a secret agenda going on. And I got cast in those roles a lot when I got into film and television, and I really enjoyed finding that stich — that duplicity of a character. I gravitated toward it in terms of choices. I’ve always felt like, with a bad guy — or a guy who does bad things — you can’t be a bad guy in their mind. You can’t think you’re doing awful things. I think you’ve got to find a way to think positively about it — that what you’re doing is good not just for you but for the world, for the people you love, your family. And I think as gruesome as that is, I’ve been able to find that.”

Here’s the official synopsis for LaRoy, Texas:

Broke and depressed, Ray (John Magaro) is mistaken for a dangerous hitman and given an envelope of cash. Along with his P.I. friend Skip (Steve Zahn), he must escape the actual hitman to make it out of LaRoy alive.

Besides Baker, the film stars Steve Zahn, John Magaro, Megan Stevenson, Matthew Del Negro, and Brad Leland.

LaRoy, Texas releases In Theaters and On Demand April 12