"You know, it's always fun to play the bad guy at the end of the day"
About this Quote
"At the end of the day" is the crucial pressure valve. It frames screen evil as a day job with a clock-out time, a reminder that the performance is contained. In a culture that increasingly treats fictional behavior as a moral referendum, McMahon is staking out a boundary: craft is not confession. The subtext is also practical. Bad guys are structurally central - they're the engine of plot, the source of escalation, the character allowed to be glamorous, petty, hungry, and complicated without needing to be "relatable" in the TED-talk sense.
Context matters with McMahon in particular: his career is threaded with charismatic antagonists and morally gray power brokers. He's naming what audiences already reward - the pleasure of watching someone break the rules safely - while quietly defending the actor's right to enjoy that transgression without carrying it home.
Quote Details
| Topic | Movie |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
McMahon, Julian. (2026, January 17). You know, it's always fun to play the bad guy at the end of the day. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-know-its-always-fun-to-play-the-bad-guy-at-80835/
Chicago Style
McMahon, Julian. "You know, it's always fun to play the bad guy at the end of the day." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-know-its-always-fun-to-play-the-bad-guy-at-80835/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"You know, it's always fun to play the bad guy at the end of the day." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-know-its-always-fun-to-play-the-bad-guy-at-80835/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.



