Whenever your villain becomes a bore, whatever you’re writing—play, film, whatever—wrap it up, abandon ship. Conversely, first-rate villains very often, by the mere reflection of the infinitely greater attractiveness and scope that villainy has over virtue, will endow the most numbing of dullard heroes and heroines with an appeal they couldn’t possibly attain on their own. From Mephistopheles to Rupert of Hentzau. It’s my guess Will Shakespeare found Iago a breeze to write compared to Othello; and that he sweated more over Brutus than Cassius.

JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ