Alan Rickman
In front of the camera... Is it enough to say that Rickman was Severus Snape in the Harry Potter saga? If not, let's remember his roles as Hans Grüber in the first installment of Die Hard, the sadistic Turpin in Sweeney Todd, and, in general, all the villains who have benefited from his deep, booming voice.
The personal story of the recently deceased Alan Rickman is exciting for many reasons. Without going any further, he launched himself into acting at the age of 26, giving up a productive career as a graphic designer. Or because of his relationship with politician Rima Horton, which lasted 49 years until his tragic death. We can also point out that Rickman must be the only guy in history who failed a driving test "for running a green light too carefully." But what convinced us that he was a charming guy is his open letter to J. K. Rowling and the cast of Harry Potter, thanking them for the experience.
Jack Gleeson
In front of the camera... With just one role, Gleeson has become one of the most popular villains on TV. But what a role: none other than Joffrey Baratheon, the unbearable and manic teenage king of Game of Thrones. If you don't enjoy watching him suffer Tyrion's (Peter Dinklage) slaps, either you haven't seen the series, or you're not human.
After the first season of Game of Thrones, Gleeson received a letter from writer George R. R. Martin that read: "Congratulations on your performance, everyone hates you." Of course, the author of the novels was referring to the character, because Gleeson (the actor) is very popular among the fandom of the series. This 21-year-old Englishman laughed heartily at the show and its things on his Twitter account (until he canceled it), he has a great friendship with Sophie Turner (the interpreter of Sansa Stark) and, in general, the cast of the series agrees that he is a very nice guy. Gleeson comments that he will surely stop acting when his seasons of Game of Thrones end to focus on his philosophy studies: for now, he has obtained an extraordinary award at Trinity College in Dublin.
Danny Trejo
In front of the camera... Well, okay, Robert Rodríguez's distant cousin doesn't always play the bad guy, but even in his most heroic moments (Machete) he demonstrates his ample ability to scare the living daylights out of him.
During the 60s and 70s, before finding a place in B movies, Danny Trejo was an amateur boxer with a serious drug addiction problem. His brushes with the law, in fact, led him to spend time in prisons such as Folsom (from the Johnny Cash song), Soledad, and San Quentin. Despite having visited some of the harshest prisons in the United States, the actor had the strength to rebuild his life, which is worthy of enormous applause. Not only that: but since he left the bank for the last time in 1972, Trejo has been advising juvenile delinquents in the process of rehabilitation. We suppose that, if someone with that face invites you to stay on the right path, ignoring the advice must be difficult.
Christopher Lee
In front of the camera... The older ones will remember Lee as the interpreter of a very stately Dracula and a very devious Fu Manchu in Hammer Film productions. For the girl, in turn, this man is the evil wizard Saruman from The Lord of the Rings. In any case, his name is synonymous with megalomaniacal villains, with or without fangs.
The reputation that the recently deceased Christopher Lee had as a gentleman with impeccable manners was not at all unusual for a Hammer actor: remember that his colleague Peter Cushing (Moff Tarkin from Star Wars) also left a Beautiful memory. But the case of this man is special because his biography combines the epic (he worked for the British secret service during World War II) with the endearing (he acted for free in low-budget productions, so that his presence would give them a boost at the box office) and with the openly geeky. Because, in addition to having personally known J. R. R. Tolkien and being the cousin of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, Lee was a self-confessed lover of fantasy literature and heavy metal, a genre in which he made his first steps by recording several albums.
