My worst moment: William Fichtner didn’t know how to ride a horse. Then he was asked to do a horse-riding stunt

In the thriller “Hypnotic” from writer-director Robert Rodriguez, William Fichtner plays a man who uses high-tech mind control for nefarious purposes and Ben Affleck plays the cop who must stop him.

“I’ve turned down plenty of bad guy roles in my life, even when I needed to work,” said Fichtner. “I can’t find some redeeming quality — something that drives the character — then I don’t know what to play. And I found so many layers with this guy. You gotta find that thing that the character cares about, and if you find that, you can make him a real person, whether we like him or not. I like to joke that if you’re an actor and you try to make interesting choices and you have cheekbones? You kill people. That’s all there is to it.