I dunno, the OP presumably knows what he means by the thread topic, so saying that he’s wrong (he’s the one who led off with Morgan Freeman) seems a little … odd!
I think Johnny Depp is typecasting himself as Creepy White-faced Dude – Edward Scissorhands. Sweeney Todd, Willie Wonka, and now the Mad Hatter. I roll my eyes every time he takes another predictable Tim Burton role.
Alan Rickman certainly has a niche as a smooth-tongued evil genius, but he defies it well in Love, Actually and Sense and Sensibility, the latter portrayal having turned him into one of the most romantic heroes ever. Those of us into costume dramas will always sigh over “give me an occupation, Miss Dashwood, or I shall run mad…”
I never thought I’d see Woody Harrelson as anyone but bright-eyed and bushy-tailer bartender Woody Boyd from Cheers. Then Oliver Stone went and cast him in Natural Born Killers. The rest is hemp-hazed history.
An amazing example of going-against-type(casting)!
I can see Depp as being typecast now, choie, though I think it is more a function of always working with Tim Burton, who seems to like his leads to be creepy, white-faced dudes. He gets other types of roles away from Burton, though Disney probably wanted that sort of role for Captain Jack, and even Depp needs a big payday now and then. Cigarettes are expensive (assuming he hasn’t kicked the habit).
As for the OP, I just wanted to challenge why he thinks Freeman would be typecast. Sure, lots of black actors get the roles specifically because they are black, but I don’t think that ever happened with Freeman, nor do I think he is known for any one type of role. Polycarp can, of course, expand on his thinking and we’ll either agree, or agree to disagree.
I do think that Rickman is a good choice. I’ll also go back and say that Oldman may have, at one time, been typecast as the crazy, bad guy, but he has outgrown that.
Carroll O’Connor could easily have been typecast after playing a character as distinctive as Archie Bunker. But he was able to go on and establish himself as Sheriff Bill Gillespie on In the Heat of the Night.
Jimmy Stewart. He was always instantly recognizable, but convincingly played everything from befuddled scientist to grizzled cowpoke to airforce officer.
Well, if you know anything about his real life, you’d know that Jimmy Stewart was hardly acting as an Air Force officer. Per Wikipedia, he was a pilot in the Air Force Reserves.
IIRC, Dustin Hoffman was worried about getting typecast after his Oscar-nominated star-making role in The Graduate, and specifically took the high-profile (and, as it happens, Oscar-nominated) role in Midnight Cowboy to preemptively counter that – figuring that the opposite of Benjamin Braddock, the cheerfully straightforward and stammeringly apologetic preppie bound for law school, would be an ultra-scruffy pimp who only drops his nasal whininess to smack the hood of a car and shout I’M WALKIN’ HERE! I’M WALKIN’!
A prostitute in Taxi Driver , a musical (Bugsy Malone) and a Disney comedy (Freaky Friday) all in the same year (1976) then went on to do more drama The Accused, Silence of the Lambs and Sci Fi (Contact) among other varied roles .
and is supposedly playing Leni Riefenstahl in a forthcoming Bio Pic.-
McMahon was a Jarhead and was promoted after his retirement. Stewart, not being a mere pilot, also retired with one star, but in a proper branch and was promoted while still on active duty. I mean, the dude flew a mission in Nam.
Tom Hanks. He started with a long string of lightweight comedy roles on TV and Film, then in three years busted out A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13 and Toy Story, with two Best Actor Oscars.
I thought Daniel Day-Lewis was going to be the next great leading man following his stint as Hawkeye on “Last of the Mohicans.” Then he followed that up with several indy-type movies where he disappeared in the role.
Wait a second. You mean those are supposed to be three different characters?
Being typecast doesn’t mean playing one single character. It means you’re cast in a type of character. Do you think Groucho Marx put a lot of thought into the subtle shadings he would bring to the roles of Captain Spaulding, Professor Wagstaff, and Rufus T. Firefly?
I will mention Clint Eastwood. Coulda been stuck in spaghetti westerns forever, but he went through musicals (Paint Your Wagon), comedy (Every Which Way But Loose), circus-type cowboy (Bronco Billy), reality-type cowboy (sorta) in Unforgiven, and WWII action guy (Where Eagles Dare).
