Neil Patrick Harris on playing an evil villain, and the secret to parenting

Playing the bad guy might be the most fun an actor can have — especially when that character is the opposite of how the world thinks of you. Neil Patrick Harris can confirm. He says that embodying a villain on screen is "fantastically freeing."

The veteran actor is best known for his squeaky clean roles on Doogie Howser, M.D. and How I Met Your Mother. But his latest role in the Netflix adaptation of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events finds him playing the ultimate villain, Count Olaf — a maniacal man set on stealing the inheritance of three orphaned children in the cruellest way imaginable, and often by donning ridiculous disguises.

While Count Olaf is completely contrary to who Harris is in real life, in an odd way, it's a role that makes a lot of sense for the veteran actor. To bring the character to life, the multi-talented actor has had to sing, dance and even perform magic tricks, which, as Harris explains, all come in handy when you're trying to become a wicked villain.

In a special extended conversation, Harris speaks to q host Tom Power from Vancouver, where he's been filming A Series of Unfortunate Events. Seasons one and two are available on Netflix now. 

Below are a few highlights from the interview, including what he had to say about parenting and growing up as a child star.

On the joy and challenge of playing a villain like Count Olaf

You have to come up with these different personalities who have to be bad versions [of themselves], because Olaf is a bad actor. So all of these disguises and characters that he plays have to be ridiculous, but also fully realized, but not so fully realized that you think that he's a good actor. Those are the kind of challenges that I like. … You rarely get the opportunity as an actor to do this kind of thing for three seasons, where it's almost immersive theatre.

On whether A Series of Unfortunate Events can be seen as a positive story

I think it does speak to some kind of positivity, some level of strength that the Baudelaires have. They realize in season two, in book four or five, that they can't count on adults to solve their problems, that they have to stick together and create their own future independently. And I think that's noble.

On the importance of talking to kids like they're people

One of the things I'm most proud of as a parent, and David, my husband, agrees, is that we really have always talked to our kids as if they're people. … I would talk reason, I would explain how things worked, I would explain how the brain worked. And [David] would look at me and shake his head, saying, "Dude, they're three years old. They have no concept of what you're doing." But I think more of the energy of it all, of treating them like they're people, makes kids want to behave as such and not just stick a thumb in their mouth and wait for an adult to tell them not to touch something.

On his daughter's love of horror films

Our kids love adult content. In fact, our daughter Harper, [she's] seven, and she's just very interested in dark things. She really wants to watch horror movies. She doesn't understand why she can't watch Poltergeist. It's kind of all she wants ... She wants to be scared, but as an adult and as a parent, you have to draw the line and figure out what scared should mean to her. 

On how growing up as a child star has affected his parenting style

I was sort of put in a position at probably 15, 16 — probably when Doogie Howser started — where I was tasked with a lot of professional responsibility at an age where most kids are fumbling and thought to be incapable of that kind of responsibility. So I guess that kind of plays into that, but when I grew up in a small town in New Mexico my parents made a point to talk to us like regular people. I think it helps.

— Produced by Shannon Higgins