Times when actors "played against type"

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#1

Let’s have a thread where we chat about times that actors “played against type” and how successful they were at it

You know, like when Robin Williams was a serial killer in Insomnia (pretty good) or when Henry Fonda was a black hat cowboy in Once Upon a Time in the West (also pretty good)

off you go DIS

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#2

Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo

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#3

chat it up please

yes - a great example, I rewatched this recently and he really is a total shit in it

#4

I think the 1st time I saw it I was so used to “nice guy JImmy Stewart” , it took me a while to realise how nasty he is in this

#5

I think you’ve summed it up here.

Tony Curtis in The Boston Strangler is another one - at that point he was still deemed a heartthrob and so to take on that role was a big change.

(he’s excellent in it, too)

#6

Maybe Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight? Was known as a handsome heart throb type, tended to do mainly light-hearted stuff (Brokeback Mountain notwithstanding). When he was cast, no one thought he’d do a good job.

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#7

I heard once Leslie Nielsen was only known as a straight actor before Airplane - so him being wacky in that was playing against type, but then that type became his type

Imagine Leslie Nielsen trying to play a straight role post Airplane, impossible

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#8

then he found that Tom Waits interview on youtube and he was sorted

#9

De Niro was great in ‘A Bronx Tale’ playing a mild bus-driver getting into trouble with a gangster (Chazz Palminteri).

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#10

He’s really good in The Forbidden Planet, a sci-fi version of The Tempest.

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#11

Bruce Willis as the bumbling island cop in Moonrise Kingdom (very good)

Owen Wilson as a soldier in Behind Enemy Lines (very bad)

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#12

yeah this is good

I wonder if King of Comedy counts as him playing against type - or when he switched to more comic roles like Midnight Run

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#13

I’m finding that quite difficult to imagine, and stop calling me impossible

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#14

Remember when Shaun Penn played Robert Smith from the cure in a film?

probably not cos I don’t think that film exists

#15

Michael Caine as a cuddly stoner who calls people ‘amigo’ in Children of Men

#16

Hugh Grant in Cloud Atlas is the correct answer methinks. Bad and distracting.

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#17

I’ve seen this film, but I seem to have erased the Michael Caine bit from my memory

#18

John Cleese’s current role of racist prick

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#19

Even by his standards he was deeply annoying in that film.

#21

Have you never seen Nielsen fight a bear in Day of the Animals?

Trying to defeat a bear using a bear hug is the ultimate baller move.

Also I’m pretty sure Vince McMahon stole his onscreen persona from watching the campfire monologue.

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