“It’s not a matter of not willing to get dark,” he says. “Look, I played an executioner in a movie. Then the journalist says, ‘Yeah, but you were a nice executioner.’ It wasn’t fun to play a guy whose job it is to put everybody to death. In ‘Road to Perdition,’ I played a guy who shot people in the head. And you know what they say? ‘Yeah, but you shot him in the head for all the right reasons.’ I’m not interested to play a guy who is some version of ‘Before I kill you, Mr. Bond, would you like a tour of my installation?’ I like stories in which everybody makes sense, so you can hear their different motivations and understand them, as opposed to ‘When this elixir goes in the Gotham City water structure, then the city will be mine!’

“I think the best examples of a bad guy that I would jump to be able to play would be Richard III or Iago. I get that. Richard III is this misshapen guy who’s sick of being treated like a dog and he’s got a shot at being the king of England, and Iago lost out on a promotion. But the vast majority of bad guys — what am I going to do, play Loki? No one wants to see me do that. But I could play Jefferson Davis. The biggest thing I have to consider is: What’s my countenance? I don’t have a great deal of mystery.”

Doesn’t he ever want to be like Larry David and start yelling at people on the street? It must be hard when everyone expects you to always be nice.

“I think I am! I’m sorry!” he says, laughing. “I think I give everybody a fair shake. But I will tell you this, and there’s plenty of people who can attest to it, don’t take advantage of my good nature, because the moment that you do, you’re gone, you’re history. I mean, look, I’m not a sap. I’m not naïve. At least I don’t think I am. I understand that part of it is my nature, part of it is my DNA, part of it is the sum total of everything I went through, and it came out O.K. But part of it is a choice that just says, How do I want to spend my day? How do I want to spend these hours, pissed off at something or you just kind of let it roll off you. But don’t take advantage of my good nature because if you do, it will come back to haunt you and you will hear from me in no uncertain terms. I’ve yelled at people.” Even used vulgarities.