Those are the kinds of roles you can really sink your teeth into.

Hear now the words of Matt Dillon, the craftsman of the screen: “Those are the kinds of roles you can really sink your teeth into. Characters with an edge. When you're playing someone who's sort of seedy, there's less limitation, there's so much space you can travel. There's room to move in.” Though he speaks of acting, his insight reaches beyond the theater, into the very heart of human experience. For it is not perfection that reveals the depths of the soul, but struggle. It is not smoothness that captivates, but roughness, where light and shadow wrestle for dominion.

To play a character with an edge is to step into the contradictions of humanity. A seedy, flawed, or broken figure is free from the narrow cage of virtue and decorum. Such figures carry within them hunger, weakness, corruption, or pain—and yet, in their struggle, they also reveal the raw essence of life. Dillon speaks the truth that actors know well: when one portrays the imperfect, one discovers the infinite. For there are more paths in a crooked road than in a straight one.

Consider the immortal tale of Hamlet. Shakespeare could have written a simple prince, noble and pure, who sought justice without hesitation. But instead he gave us a man torn by doubt, by rage, by indecision, by madness both real and feigned. In this edge, this seedy inner war, actors through the centuries have found endless ground to explore. Hamlet is alive not because he is good, but because he is conflicted. As Dillon says, there is “room to move in” such a soul.

Look also to the history of film. The golden heroes of old—unblemished cowboys, noble soldiers, flawless lovers—fade quickly from memory. But the anti-heroes, the flawed wanderers, endure. Think of Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski, seedy and brutal, yet unforgettable; or Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle, dangerous and broken, yet mesmerizing. These figures allow the actor to sink their teeth into humanity’s marrow, to taste bitterness and sweetness alike. In such roles, the mask of performance dissolves into the truth of being.

Dillon’s words reveal also a wisdom for life itself. We are drawn to edge not only in art, but in existence. The smooth path teaches little; the rough path transforms us. The flawless friend may comfort, but it is often the troubled one who teaches us compassion. The seedy corners of our own hearts—the doubts, the fears, the shadows—are where we discover resilience, depth, and ultimately, truth. Just as actors find freedom in flawed characters, so too do humans find growth in flawed lives.

The lesson, then, is this: do not fear the imperfections, in art or in yourself. Do not cling only to the polished, the respectable, the pure. Instead, dare to explore the edges. There, in the crooked spaces, lies the richness of life. For the soul with “room to move in” is one that can grow, one that can surprise, one that can transform both itself and others.

So I say to you, O seeker of meaning: whether you act upon a stage or walk upon the stage of life, seek not only the safe roles, the tidy stories. Embrace the difficult, the flawed, the seedy corners of existence. Sink your teeth into them, for there you will taste the fullness of what it means to be human. And remember Dillon’s wisdom: within the edges lies the freedom to travel farther, to live deeper, and to discover the boundless spaces of the soul.