Greg Welsh
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Offending Roles:
Sean Nokes in 1996's Sleepers
Walter in 2004's The Woodsman
Inexplicable Similarity:
They sexually assaulted children and have to face the repercussions years later.
Sleepers:
Sean Nokes is a guard at a juvenile detention center where the main characters are sentenced after accidentally injuring an old man in what would have otherwise been a hilarious hotdog-stealing caper. Nokes and the other guards take full advantage of their powers over these children by raping them while making them recite prayers. Surely he'll get away with it, right?
Years after their release, two of the children, now grown, run into Nokes at a restaurant and confront him. Despite the fact that he claims he meant no harm by it.
"Let's not bicker and argue about who raped who!"
The two aren't feeling too forgiving and give him what he deserves: a gunshot in the dick (link provided for the two people on the planet who for whatever reason actually want to see that) and then several more times throughout his body. He survives. Just kidding.
The Woodsman:
Walter has just been released from an adult detention center and is trying to get his life back together. He gets a job at a lumber mill and meets a new lady-friend, Vicki. Once things start to get serious, Walter confesses why he was in jail: He molested little girls. You're cool with that, right Vick?
Vicki is appalled, despite the fact that he claims he meant no harm by it.
"How did this get in here? Somebody's pulling a prank on me!"
Eventually, Vicki gets over it, because what's a little molestation among friends, but when people at work find out, they aren't nearly as forgiving, and give him a fraction of what he deserves: a serious pushing around which is immediately broken up by... David Alan Grier? (And was that Eve watching?)
Bonus Coincidence:
In The Woodsman, Walter's girlfriend was played by Kyra Sedgwick, who was in Phenomenon with John Travolta, who was in Pulp Fiction with Bruce Willis, who was in Twelve Monkeys with Brad Pitt, who played the grown up version of one the kids Sean Nokes sodomized in Sleepers.
Logical Conclusion:
Though Bacon claims, "I worked with kids quite a bit in kind of rough situations... and what I like to do is make it as clear as possible to them... that we are actors and we're going to pretend together. That we are going to be colleagues and roll up our sleeves and act off of each other," we still wouldn't let him babysit our children.
Offending Roles:
Lady Heather on TV's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Nandi on TV's Firefly
Inexplicable Similarity:
They turn to the male lead for help when a girl from the brothel they run gets into trouble and worries for her other girls' safety. They then discover a mutual chemistry and eventually sleep together, but after he helps, their romance turns into friendship and mutual respect, just like in real life on planet Zongo.
C.S.I. (The first one, in Las Vegas):
When one of women working at Lady Heather's brothel turns up dead in a sandbox, forensic entomologist Gil Grissom and company show up to investigate. Gil is immediately drawn in by the dominatrix's seductive talk and big ol'... uh, bangs.
"So how much do you charge? We need to know for the case and stuff."
In her second appearance, Lady Heather is reunited with Gil when another murder leads him back to her Internet-savvy whorehouse and things heat up between them. Of course, because a lot of old people watch the C.S.I.'s and would take issue with their favorite investigator banging a whore, Gil and Heather's sexin' had was merely implied off-screen.
Thanks a lot, gramps.
Lady Heather returns several more times (eventually making the transition from dominatrix to therapist) and she and Gil become friends, and she helps him sort out his feelings, and, we'd guess, locate his missing balls.
Firefly:
When one of Nandi's girls gets knocked up by a powerful and dangerous man named Rance Burgess, space cowboy Malcolm Reynolds is called in to protect her and the other space whore. Malcolm is immediately drawn in by her seductive talk and big ol'... uh, bangs. Because a lot of Firefly's fans are horny geeks, the two go at it on-screen with plenty of almost nudity.
Mal... just, come on... to the left... move over...
Afterwards, Malcolm feels odd because he's in love with Inara, Nandi's old friend. While preparing for battle with Rance's men, Nandi talks things out with Malcolm and helps him sort his feelings out.
Logical Conclusion:
Melinda Clarke has daddy issues.
Offending Roles:
Suicidal breeder of suicidal horses, Richard Morgan, in 2002's The Ring
Mutant-hating military scientist, William Stryker, in 2003's X2: X-Men United
Minor Similarities:
They were married with one kid.
They were bitter people.
They had a tendency to bring their work home.
Inexplicable Similarity:
Their wives were driven mad and committed suicide as a result of their children's supernatural ability to put images into people's heads.
The Ring:
Rachel Keller is investigating a video tape that, after being viewed, causes a little girl to crawl out of your TV and kill you. Her search for an explanation brings her to Richard Morgan, a bitter horse breeder whose wife and horses all killed themselves. After further investigation, Rachel learns that the little girl on the tape is Richard's adopted daughter who was killed and believes it was Richard who killed her, which is odd because he's such a positive guy surrounded by happiness and all.
Appalled, Rachel returns to Mr. Morgan's house to confront him about how he could do something so terrible to his own child, and catches him about to commit a somewhat elaborate suicide. Before taking the final plunge, Richard reveals to Rachel that his daughter could torture people by putting images into their heads, and that's why his wife killed herself.
For the love of god, not Nancy Pelosi doing naked push-ups! No!!
X2: X-Men United:
The X-Men's base of operations, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, is raided by the military and Xavier is brought to a secret base. There, William Stryker, a bitter government operative, tries to use his semi-lobotomized son to force Xavier to locate every mutant on Earth and wipe them out.
Eh, it beats working at the DMV.
Appalled, Xavier asks Stryker how he could do such a horrible thing to his own child. Stryker reveals that his son could torture people by putting images into their heads, and that is why his wife killed herself, and why William wants to wipe out the mutant race. Plus he keeps leaving the toilet seat up.
What? It's messy, that's why.
Logical Conclusion:
Brian Cox might just be a bad husband and father.
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And find out about some of Hollywood's go to actors for the same exact role, in The 9 Most Typecast Actors of All Time. Or check out some actors who are glad they didn't get typecast in these commercial roles, in The 5 Most Ridiculous Celebrity Cameos in Japanese Ads.
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