Jonah Hill is "attracted" to morally ambiguous characters.
The 32-year-old actor has revealed that he finds himself drawn to roles where it isn’t clear whether the person is a good or bad guy, as it means that audiences can draw their own conclusions as to what the character’s motives are.
Speaking to NPR about his new movie ‘War Dogs’, the ‘Superbad’ star said: "I’m very, very attracted to morally ambiguous characters, not just pure bad guys or pure good guys. But I think morality is so individual and personal, and people draw their own lines of what that means for them. And I like playing characters that, you know, a couple could go see the movie and one person could love him and one person could hate him."
‘War Dogs’ is based on a true story, in which Efraim Diveroli – played by Jonah – and David Packouz (Miles Teller) are 20-something-year-old drug-addicted arms dealers who receive a government contract to supply weapons for US troops in Afghanistan.
Speaking about his character,Jonah admitted he was fascinated by how he wasn’t initially a criminal.
He said: "I think his lines of ink are pretty thick of – already drawn. But just the idea of what he’s doing, initially, is not illegal. That, to me, was the most interesting part is that he’s really easy to paint as a criminal – he eventually is. But initially, he saw a loophole, and he went for it. It could have been selling oats, but it was selling guns."
In the film, Jonah portrays Efraim with a distinct laugh, something which he says came from the idea that his character needed to be remembered.
Recalling how the laugh was developed, he said: "When I met David Packouz, he said, if you met Efraim once, you never forgot him. And I thought about people in my life I had met once or twice and I remembered forever. And a lot of times, I realised they had a really distinct laugh. So I tried to create a laugh for Efraim that was distinct but that fit him. "And moreso, the way it started to be used during the scenes was in a way where he was encouraging the person talking by laughing. He was making them feel comfortable and at ease and put their guard down so he could then easily manipulate them."
Jonah Hill is fascinated by morally ambiguous characters
