John and Craig twirl their mustaches and discuss what motivates our villains. Why does past trauma lead some characters to become villains, while others become heroes? What separates good and evil, and what makes a villain great?

We also celebrate Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy TV special, and follow up on office phones, #PayUpHollywood, and American military influence in film.

In our bonus segment for premium members, we discuss Craig’s new tattoo of Ellie’s switchblade, and our first tattoo experiences.

Links:

• Amtel Systems
• The U.S. military’s Hollywood connection by Rebecca Keegan for Los Angeles Times
• How E-girl influencers are trying to get Gen Z into the military by Günseli Yalcinkaya for DAZED
• Warren Beatty Appears in Bizarre Dick Tracy TCM Special in Apparent Film-Rights Ploy by Dan Clarendon
• The 1000 Deaths of Wile E. Coyote by T.B.D.
• Why do good people do bad things? by Daniel Effron
• Why some people are willing to challenge behavior they see as wrong despite personal risk by Catherine A. Sanderson
• WGAw Late Pay Desk
• The Puzzling Gap Between How Old You Are and How Old You Think You Are by Jennifer Senior for The Atlantic
• Tattoo artist Yeono
• Craig’s Tattoo
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Instagram
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• John on Mastodon
• Outro by Dilo Gold (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt with help from Chris Csont and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at [email protected]

You can download the episode here.