Wicked Local: Faran Tahir and Seamus Doyle

Richard III kills a man and then has the audacity to seduce, marry and murder the widow. Later on, he has two royal kids assassinated in order to secure his place on the throne. And yet, when Faran Tahir looks at Richard III, he sees a good guy. Maybe “good guy” is too positive a description of Tahir’s reaction to Richard. But, in playing one of Shakespeare’s most notorious villains, Tahir isn’t interested in the villainy. “One can always look at the prevailing action of the play and say, ‘Richard is evil,’ ” says Tahir, who plays the title role in “Richard III,” July 18 to Aug. 5, on the Boston Common. “But I think it’s too easy to demonize him; the bigger challenge is to humanize him.”