Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, and others bring some iconic film villainy to new life

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

So, ‘Henry Spencer’ from David Lynch’s ERASERHEAD was a villain?

As part of her “Touch of Evil” art project for the New York Times, photographer and filmmaker Alex Prager assembled some of the year’s top performers and had them choose iconic movie villains to breathe new life into. I still don’t get how Henry fits in as a villain, but whatever. Brad Pitt’s video short as the big-haired ERASERHEAD character is kind of hilarious.

Included in the project are also George Clooney as ‘Captain Bligh’ from MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, Ryan Gosling as ‘The Invisible Man’ (how can we know for sure??), Rooney Mara as A CLOCKWORK ORANGE’s ‘Alex DeLarge’, Gary Oldman as the dummy ‘Fats’ from the Anthony Hopkins horror flick MAGIC (f*cking YIKES!), Michael Shannon as WALL STREET’s ‘Gordon Gecko’, and many others all representing some form of cinema’s great bad guys.

Be sure to check out the video clips of each actor’s character RIGHT HERE. And HERE is a handy key in case you need help figuring out who some of these guys are supposed to be.