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The Hunger Games Star Tom Blyth Opens Up About Why He's 'Drawn To Bad Guys' Character
Tom Blyth reflects on his love for playing complex characters but admits it's time to try some nice guy roles.
Tom Blyth is sharing his thoughts on the roles he's been taking on in films. While he enjoys the challenge of playing morally complex or bad guy characters, he feels it might be time to switch things up and play some nice guys.
In a recent interview with Vman Magazine, Blyth, known for his role as Coriolanus Coryo Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, explained why he's often drawn to darker characters.
He mentioned “I’m really drawn to bad guys for some reason, or to morally complex characters. I think that’s because I see the world that way, I look at people and think, no one’s really good or bad. Everyone’s this huge mix of ambitions and objectives, and they’re all kind of clashing every day. I’m fascinated by the gradients between the two.”
This perspective makes him interested in characters that aren't purely good or evil, but somewhere in between. Blyth sees playing these roles as an exercise in empathy, trying to understand the motivations of others.
Billy the Kid actor admitted that while he finds it fascinating to portray characters who do things he would never do in real life, like pulling the trigger or making ruthless decisions, it can be emotionally draining.
For his role in The Hunger Games prequel, Blyth dove deep into research, studying "about Vladimir Putin when he was a young man before he joined the KGB. As a young man in school, he probably didn’t know he was going to be who he is now, you know? And I did the same with Benito Mussolini, just like all these dictators.”
Despite his interest in these complex roles, Blyth recently discussed with his agent the idea of exploring different types of characters. He feels that after playing a string of morally ambiguous or evil characters, it might be refreshing—and less taxing—to play some nice guys for a change.
He noted that while playing bad guys is fun and offers a chance to explore behaviors he'd never engage in personally, it also leaves him feeling more emotionally exhausted by the end of the day.
At 29, he became widely known for his role as young Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. In MGM+’s Billie the Kid, Blyth stars as the famous outlaw from the 1800s, and his upcoming film Plainclothes will have him playing a cop in 1990s New York, based on true events.
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