Don Johnson seeks out the 'humanity' in bad guys

Don Johnson searches for the "humanity" in villains.

The 74-year-old star plays antagonist Sandy Burnne in the Netflix thriller 'Rebel Ridge' and described how he tries to explore all facets of a character when playing the part of a bad guy.

In an interview with Collider, Don said: "I love playing all different types of characters. I especially love playing this bad guy because this bad guy is actually a good guy.

"In all the bad guys I play, I find the humanity. Even bad guys, even – dare I say it – some of the most heinous people in history were human.

"To deny the humanity is to deny yourself. So, playing villains is a pretty exciting part of the equation. In discovering the humanity and why they do certain things that they do, it's like they were inexorably drawn on a string by their DNA to be at that place, that spot, that time, for that incident to happen."

Don recalled how he drew on his vast experience in the industry to give director Jeremy Saulnier some advice on how to shoot a scene.

The 'Miami Vice' star said: "Jeremy knows this because we talked about it: when I first arrived, Jeremy hadn't worked with somebody with my experience.

"So, the first day, he's directing the hard way – setting up and then backing the actors into it and into the blocking. I said, 'Between the three or four of us in this scene, we've got 150 years of experience. You got to take advantage of that.'

"I said, 'Let's do this scene again. I'm gonna rehearse it first and see where it falls in naturally. Then you figure out how you want to shoot it.'

"He stopped, he thought about it a second, and it was like it hadn't occurred to him. Then I did it, and he said, 'Oh yeah!'"