Typecasting

[Splendid Splinter]

I was thinking about actors who get pigeon holed in certain types of roles and never break out of. Anybody jumps right at you?

 

[outofplace]

Marisa Tomei blamed taking the role of Aunt May in the MCU for her only getting roles as mothers and grandmothers now. Sure, she is 56 years old, but it's not like male actors stop getting leading roles at that age.

 

[DanOregon]

Octavia Spencer said she's played a nurse about 15 times in her career. And she has played a character labeled as a "nurse" 15 times on IMDB - so the number is probably higher.
A ton of character actors do a lot of "cop" roles, or maybe they are more the "doctor" type, or the "priest" type.

Hal Holbrook always seemed to play a "type." Dude oozed gravitas, whether playing a cop, a whistle blower, a judge, or politician.

 

[sgreenwell]

Marisa Tomei blamed taking the role of Aunt May in the MCU for her only getting roles as mothers and grandmothers now. Sure, she is 56 years old, but it's not like male actors stop getting leading roles at that age.

It's probably more that if you're a woman and older than 40, the number of roles available to you dramatically shrinks, which sucks. Marisa Tomei is two years younger than Tom Cruise - I'd love to see her in a Mission: Impossible-like action movie. Charlize Theron gets some of those roles, but she's "only" 45. It'll be interesting to see if she and Emily Blunt (38), who are incredibly in action movies, will still get offered them into their 50s, like Cruise and Liam Neeson (68). Sigourney Weaver is probably the GOAT for female action star, but she's been busy for the past decade with Avatar movies, seemingly. (Linda Hamilton is also an interesting "what if?" to me. She got absolutely shredded for the later Terminator movies, and also has Dante's Peak on her resume, but she wasn't in a movie for three years after T2 - had a child during that time span.)

 

[outofplace]

It's probably more that if you're a woman and older than 40, the number of roles available to you dramatically shrinks, which sucks. Marisa Tomei is two years younger than Tom Cruise - I'd love to see her in a Mission: Impossible-like action movie. Charlize Theron gets some of those roles, but she's "only" 45. It'll be interesting to see if she and Emily Blunt (38), who are incredibly in action movies, will still get offered them into their 50s, like Cruise and Liam Neeson (68). Sigourney Weaver is probably the GOAT for female action star, but she's been busy for the past decade with Avatar movies, seemingly. (Linda Hamilton is also an interesting "what if?" to me. She got absolutely shredded for the later Terminator movies, and also has Dante's Peak on her resume, but she wasn't in a movie for three years after T2 - had a child during that time span.)

Theron has quite a few action movies on her resume, going back Two Days in the Valley in 1996. There is another Atomic Blonde movie in the works. I'm hoping for a sequel to Old Guard as well. She certainly doesn't seem to be anywhere near the end in playing those roles.

I'm certainly all for seeing more of Theron, Tomei, and Blunt in all sorts of roles going forward.

 

[sgreenwell]

I'm 37, so my only exposure to him is via old mystery and detective shows, but it seems like Robert Vaughn pretty much always played the bad guy in shows like Columbo, Matlock, Murder She Wrote, etc. I think it was such a trope that in one episode of Columbo, he actually gets killed in the first 20 minutes, and it's a big surprise. Robert Kulp, Jack Cassidy and Patrick McGoohan fall into that category as well for me.

Jack Warden would usually play an angry crank in most of what I saw him in, although I think he did comedy and drama.

There have been plenty of comedians who have shown no interest in doing non-standup or comedy work - Gilbert Gottfried, Norm Macdonald, Conan O'Brien, Letterman - but I don't think that's the same as typecasting.

 

[Neutral Corner]

Marisa Tomei blamed taking the role of Aunt May in the MCU for her only getting roles as mothers and grandmothers now. Sure, she is 56 years old, but it's not like male actors stop getting leading roles at that age.

Yeah, but that's an age old problem for Hollywood actresses once they age out of sexy ingenue roles. No matter how good they still look, the number of roles of any sort drop precipitously and the choices get very narrow in most cases. Meryl Streep gets the choice roles and everyone else has to fight like hell for bad ones, let alone the good scripts that remain. You know the competition for those is fierce.

 

[Neutral Corner]

Theron has quite a few action movies on her resume, going back Two Days in the Valley in 1996. There is another Atomic Blonde movie in the works. I'm hoping for a sequel to Old Guard as well. She certainly doesn't seem to be anywhere near the end in playing those roles.

I'm certainly all for seeing more of Theron, Tomei, and Blunt in all sorts of roles going forward.

Old Guard 2: Force Multiplier was greenlighted in January. No info on a production/release date.

 

[Octave]

Steve Urkel.

The guy could obviously act (whether the character sucked or not) but he never got a whiff of a bigger role.

 

[outofplace]

Yeah, but that's an age old problem for Hollywood actresses once they age out of sexy ingenue roles. No matter how good they still look, the number of roles of any sort drop precipitously and the choices get very narrow in most cases. Meryl Streep gets the choice roles and everyone else has to fight like hell for bad ones, let alone the good scripts that remain. You know the competition for those is fierce.

It definitely isn't a new problem, but it does fit the topic and it sucks.

 

[outofplace]

Old Guard 2: Force Multiplier was greenlighted in January. No info on a production/release date.

Nice. I'm curious to see where they take it given the huge change in Andie from the source material. Theron really is perfect for the character. The comic is really a trilogy of sorts, so perhaps they will do the same with the movies.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Dustin Diamond in Saved By the Bell. Never could get anyone thinking of him other than as Screech.

Meredith Baxter Birney did fine on Family Ties, but always seemed to play a crazy woman in roles afterward

Adam Sandler has tried non-comedy roles, with limited success because everyone keeps thinking of him as a comic.

Clancy Brown was memorable as the prison guard in Shawshank, but frequently played either a cop or a villain afterwards.

 

[sgreenwell]

Adam Sandler has tried non-comedy roles, with limited success because everyone keeps thinking of him as a comic.

I'd disagree with this one - I think most people *like* Sandler's non-comedic roles. If anything, it's more that he doesn't want to stretch himself. He's famously quite comfortable taking the money or the free trip to an island, to shoot a movie with his friends, vs. doing something like Uncut Gems more on the regular. I can't say I blame him, kind of like how if I owned a pro sports team, I'm probably running it like Jerry Jones runs the Cowboys and doing the **** I want.

 

[Splendid Splinter]

Steve Urkel.

The guy could obviously act (whether the character sucked or not) but he never got a whiff of a bigger role.

To piggyback on this one, Reginald Vel Johnson always played a cop for the most part.

 

[Octave]

I think the Urkel actor at one point said something like, "If you ever see me playing that character again, please blow my head off."

I guess when you're a 16-year-old playing a dork you don't realize this is what it is you're laying down at the recording studio.

 

[outofplace]

Dustin Diamond in Saved By the Bell. Never could get anyone thinking of him other than as Screech.

Meredith Baxter Birney did fine on Family Ties, but always seemed to play a crazy woman in roles afterward

Adam Sandler has tried non-comedy roles, with limited success because everyone keeps thinking of him as a comic.

Clancy Brown was memorable as the prison guard in Shawshank, but frequently played either a cop or a villain afterwards.

He was playing those sorts of roles before Shawshank. Eight years earlier, he was the Kurgan in Highlander in 1986. He has always played tough guy roles in live-action and voice work, with one major exception. He has provided the voice of Mr. Krabs for over 20 years.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

He was playing those sorts of roles before Shawshank. Eight years earlier, he was the Kurgan in Highlander in 1986. He has always played tough guy roles in live-action and voice work, with one major exception. He has provided the voice of Mr. Krabs for over 20 years.

Bull****. Everyone knows Mr. Krabs is a tough guy (or rather, a tough crab). Especially when it comes to money.

 

[outofplace]

Bull****. Everyone knows Mr. Krabs is a tough guy (or rather, a tough crab). Especially when it comes to money.

Ha! Fair point, but I still see Mr. Krabs as a bit of a departure from the Kurgan, Captain Hadley, and Lex Luthor. I also draw the distinction because he doesn't use his natural voice. I'm usually pretty good at picking out voice actors, but I had no idea he was Mr. Krabs until I read it somewhere.

 

[cyclingwriter2]

Dustin Diamond in Saved By the Bell. Never could get anyone thinking of him other than as Screech.

Meredith Baxter Birney did fine on Family Ties, but always seemed to play a crazy woman in roles afterward

Adam Sandler has tried non-comedy roles, with limited success because everyone keeps thinking of him as a comic.

Clancy Brown was memorable as the prison guard in Shawshank, but frequently played either a cop or a villain afterwards.

I was watching Buckaroo Banzai the other night, and Clancy Brown played one of the Hong Kong Cavaliers. He played a smart cowboy, and it was a definite departure from pretty much anything he did later.

 

[Alma]

Adam Sandler has tried non-comedy roles, with limited success because everyone keeps thinking of him as a comic.

Sandler's dramatic work hasn't been bad.

His comedies are generally awful.