Why do a lot of people take movies and especially TV shows so seriously?

i cannot give you the exact answer for that, the thing is those characters that you are mentioning they were chosen to play the role why? because they carry the right face for the role although in reality they are soft, gentle and polite, it's often the case.people react this way why, it's because some part of the soap they played is the reflection of life most people that are watching. in fact in the soap people see themselves so they put themselves in the scene imagining that they are the person whose being victimise by the actor that you mentioned, then when it happened they see him walking around they express how they felt while watching the tv serials. for these reasons that many known actors who played bad roles doesn't walk around without body guards as well or they don't show themselves in public places. but it's true these days many nuts who imagine things putting themselves in tv soaps, well you cannot help crazy people are everywhere in the planet, no one can just take tv series as they are it became as well a danger for those who plays the role.