7 Actors Typecast in Bizarrely Specific Roles
Typecasting is nothing new in Hollywood; it's not very surprising, seeing as some actors just look and act like the cliched roles they attract. This phenomenon explains why Meg Ryan has never taken a role as a transvestite vampire, and Meatloaf has never been the object of affection in a romantic comedy.
But amazingly, some people seem to perform uncannily similar roles over and over, like Groundhog Day, but with less appealing actors. Causality loop, strange coincidence or extreme lack of range? You make the call.
#7.
Olga Kurylenko's Sexual Advances Are Constantly Spurned by Video Game Characters
Offending Roles:
Nika Boronina in 2007's Hitman
Natasha Sax in 2008's Max Payne
Inexplicable Similarity:
Nika and Natasha attempt to seduce the title character in a film adaptation of a popular, violent video game. Though he is interested in her tattoo, he brutally shoots her down (figuratively speaking).
Who would want to remove a sweet Turtleneck like this?
Hitman:
Erstwhile hit man Agent 47 is commanded to kill a sexy Russian named Nika, who he's told witnessed a recent assassination he committed. Upon meeting her, he figures out she couldn't have been present at the shooting, and decides to protect her. Nika tries her damnedest to seduce Agent 47 by showing off how good she looks in only panties, but he only seems interested in finding out about her tattoo. Finally, she decides to get aggressive and parades around him wearing almost nothing but a tiny red dress.
What does she get for her effort? A hypodermic needle to the neck!
Not the prick she was hoping for.
Max Payne:
Max Payne meets the sexy Russian Natasha at a party while investigating his family's murder. Natasha tries to put some moves on Max wearing a tiny red dress. He's interested in learning more about her tattoo, so he invites her back to his apartment. Natasha decides to turn up the seduction by showing off how good she looks in only panties. And what does she get for her effort? A rude expulsion from Marky Mark and the Angry Teeth!
At least he's not fighting killer plants.
She got off a lot easier, right? Wrong! Immediately after being kicked out, Natasha is killed by what appear to be the bats from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Batman's been breeding with the Cylon Raiders.
Logical Conclusion:
The men in Olga Kurylenko movies are insane and/or blind. Or gay. Or all three.
#6.
Cameron Bright Has Magic Blood
Offending Roles:
Leech in 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand
Six in 2006's (the same damn year!) Ultraviolet
Inexplicable Similarity:
Both Leech and Six cause massive fighting because a cure for super powers could be engineered from their blood.
X-Men: The Last Stand:
A cure has been found for the ever-growing mutant problem. In a highly secure government lab, the source of the cure is revealed to be Leech: a young mutant boy wearing a white outfit.
One of the less popular X-Men Halloween costumes.
Liking their mutant powers just the way they are, Magneto and his followers try to destroy the boy and his dirty, dirty anti-mutant blood, but the X-Men step in to stop them, whisking Leech away from the danger of a high security government facility and into the safety of a massive war zone between magical mutants with fatal super powers.
Ultraviolet:
In an incredibly hard to watch, understand or even look at, future, a new fatal virus, hemoglophagia, is turning people into superpowered vampire-like creatures called hemophages. Infected Violet (Milla Jovavich), wearing at least 10 percent more clothes this go-around, infiltrates a highly secure government lab to destroy a weapon designed to wipe out the hemophages, only to find out the weapon is actually a young boy, Six, who is immediately given a white outfit.
Cancel the casting call! This kid from the X-Men set should work just fine.
Violet finds out Six is actually a clone of the evil Vice Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus who is infected with antigens that target hemophages. In a move completely different from the exact plot of X-Men 3, Milla believes a cure can be made from Six's blood, and decides to grab him and drag him out of harm's way via a violent and dangerous escape.
Bonus Coincidence:
In addition to looking like the kind of kid whose blood might have special properties worth fighting over, Bright, apparently, also has that undeniable Xeroxed look about him. In 2004's Godsend, he plays Adam, an eight-year-old boy who dies in an accident and is then cloned by Robert De Niro. He loses the white outfit this time, but retains the otherworldly blank stare.
Logical Conclusion:
Let's hope lil' Mr. Bright doesn't have a rare and desperately needed blood type, because you can bet he'll never voluntarily give blood the rest of his life for fear of major CG carnage.
#5.
Alan Arkin's Albuquerque Grandpa Character Tells It Like It Is
Offending Roles:
Edwin Hoover in 2006's Little Miss Sunshine
Joe Lorkowski in 2008's Sunshine Cleaning
Inexplicable Similarity:
They live with one of their children in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and, with the rest of their family, are trying to improve their unhappy lives with a plan that involves a shitty old van. Eventually they have heart-to-hearts to their young grandchild, telling them to never be afraid to be themselves, no matter what other people may tell them, in films that aren't nearly as cheerful as you might expect from a movie with "Sunshine" in the title.
Little Miss Sunshine:
When Edwin Hoover's granddaughter, Olive, qualifies for the "Little Miss Sunshine" pageant in California, the whole family piles in a VW Microbus to get there in time. Olive's dysfunctional family begins to take its toll on her, but Grandpa is there to give her self-confidence and false hope.
Then he dies of a heroin overdose.
Feeling sunny yet?
Sunshine Cleaning:
Joe Lorkowski's daughter, Rose, is barely making ends meet with her housecleaning job, but after hearing that big bucks could be made, she decides to buy an old van and open "Sunshine Cleaning," her own unlicensed crime scene cleaning company, because that's what people in real life just do. Meanwhile, Joe's grandson is having trouble in school and needs a self-confidence boost from Grandpa.
More of the same...
Logical Conclusion:
If you live in New Mexico and have a wise grandpa, get ready for some quirky wisdom, and possibly a funeral.
#4.
Edward Norton Has a Violent Alter Ego He Can't Control
Offending Roles:
The Narrator (AKA: Jack), in 1999's Fight Club
Bruce Banner, in 2008's The Incredible Hulk
Inexplicable Similarity:
[SPOILER ALERT FOR THE THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN FIGHT CLUB] They have split personalities that cause destruction on a massive scale, neither of whom are played by Norton.
Fight Club:
Jack's habits of living alone, travelling constantly and not sleeping are beginning to make his life miserable. The IKEA furniture didn't help much, either. As a coping mechanism, his mind creates a split personality, Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt), a muscular badass who enjoys creating chaos.
The break room at The Gap headquarters.
Jack winds up in strained relationship with a pale brunette, Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter from every Tim Burton movie ever). She ends up in harm's way when Tyler's followers come after Jack for trying to stop Tyler's destruction. In the end, Jack figures out how to take control of Tyler with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Plan B if the Unisom doesn't kick in.
The Incredible Hulk:
After exposure to Gamma radiation, Bruce Banner is forced to keep traveling constantly because of his rampaging split personality, the Hulk.
The Hulk learns the iPad doesn't support Flash.
The Hulk is a green, ridiculously muscled badass who can't help but create chaos when Bruce gets angry. All of this seriously strains Bruce's relationship with his pale brunette girlfriend, Betty Ross, who ends up in harm's way when the army comes after him to try to stop the Hulk's destruction. Eventually, in the end, he figures out how to take control of the Hulk with meditation.
This probably would have solved Fight Club, too.
Bonus Coincidence:
Edward Norton also played Aaron Stampler in 1996's Primal Fear, who had a fake split personality who killed an archbishop. Also, he had additional personas in Death to Smoochy, as Smoochy, and The Score, as a mentally challenged janitor.
Logical Conclusion:
If Edward Norton is in your house and your favorite vase gets broken, don't expect him to fess up to it anytime soon.
Ed Norton and Kevin Bacon are both great actors, not even a little typecast. also, i know Bacons son, and he is great with kids. not at all pervy. haha
ReplyI didn't know two movies made you typecast.
Replyit doesn't... I usually skim cracked articles now because of bullshit like this.
As a bonus: In X-men: First Class Kevin Bacon plays a sadistic "Doctor" who mind rapes Magneto as a child by making Magneto watch him murder Magnetos mother. Years later Magneto tracks him down and gives him what he deserves (Read: Violent and painful death) When confronting him Kevin Bacon claims he didn't mean no harm in it.
ReplyIn the defense of Little Miss Sunshine and Sunshine Cleaning, they were written and produced by the same person, so they're bound to have some similarities.
ReplyAlso, I loved Little Miss Sunshine and hated Sunshine Cleaning. So...yeah.
Go back to the big studio days and you find a lot more of that happening. For instance, there's Fritz Feld, who played some kind of harassed waiter/maitre d' more than 25 times in his 7 decade career. I can't be more specific since most of the rest of his roles are sus**ciously waiter-sounding proper names. He made almost 100 movies, hist last when he was 89, and he played a very-dignified-but-doing-slow-burn-from-chaos waiter in at least 1/4 of them.
ReplyEva Mendes: 12% of Eva Mendes' career has been spent playing the girlfriend of a corrupt cop; 66% of those cops have been played by Denzel Washington.
Replyf**k dude, you just ruined Fight Club for me.
ReplyHow is that possible?
Fight Club cannot be ruined. Each disillusionment only unlocks the next level of understanding in Project Mayhem.
JODI BENSON - always plays a redhead in an animated movie wherin the plot is that the female lead is dissatisfied with her own species.
ReplyNOTABLE TIMES THIS HAS HAPPENED -
Ariel; The Little Mermaid
Jenna; Balto: Wolf Quest
Thumbelina; the terrible Don Bluth Thumbelina that had "Marry the Mole' in it.
3 ROLES. not just two like these.
Lindsay Lohan does double duty for Disney.
ReplyFirst, she played two different characters in the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, then played two different characters in the 2003 remake of Freaky Friday. A year later she played one character named Mary in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen... who insisted on being someone named Lola. A year after that she played someone named Maggie in Herbie: Fully Loaded... who was masquerading as someone named Max for much of the movie. Bonus points, played twins again in I Know Who Killed Me (although, not for Disney.)
dude... you crazy!
Two roles does not a typecast make.
ReplyJodi benson was typecast as a redhead in an animated movie wherein the female lead is dissatisfied with her species. (Ariel in Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, and Jenna in Balto II) That's three, right?
My thoughts exactly.
Not quite the same thing, but Milla Jovovich has four instances of waking up naked and not knowing where she is... and did it in just three movies. Fifth Element (okay, mostly naked), Resident Evil (twice!) and a replay in Resident Evil 2.
ReplyDoes that happen in Ultraviolet or RE3 or 4? Didn't see those. Anyone?
i think thats under the artcile 5 totally awesome typecasting that should keep happening.
No, in Firefly Nandi DIES.
ReplyOnly after she talks things out with Mal and helps him sort his feelings out does she die.
...I just realized how much of a nerd I am...
Chaz Palminteri: When you absolutely need a gangster, call this guy. A Bronx Tale, Boss of Bosses, Bullets Over Broadway, Analyze This
ReplyThe Ed Norton and Kevin Bacon examples are terrible. They both have long and versatile careers.
Replyactually in the bonus features it clearly shows that the Hulk's facial exprecians were based on Ed Norton's and that he pretty much did half of the Hulk's acting/choriography
Replycollin farrel twice plays a cop in a tom cruise movie(minority report, collateral)that becomes aware that the person he is chasing is innocent and then gets shot.
ReplyActually that was Mark Ruffalo in Collateral.
Edward Norton is soooooooo not typecast. All main characters in any good drama genre film go through changes and develop as the movie progresses - that doesn't mean that he is typecast to playing characters with multiple personalities. And so what that in Primal Fear and The Incredible Hulk he had a hidden identity? If you look at the actual characters (Aaron Stampler and Bruce Banner) they are completely versatile. This only goes to show what a vresatile actor Edward Norton really is.
ReplyPrimal fear, now that was a good one
Replyhuh... Alan Arkin's one, i thought lil miz sunshine and sunshine cleaning were related...
Replylololol u serious?
Considering Norton, Death to Smoochy was a Hell of a stretch. There's a difference between having a split personality and playing a character.
ReplyThat's why it was called an "additional persona" in the "Bonus Coincidences" section. The article does not say it's a split personality.