Don’t forget True Romance Brad Pitt and Burn After Reading Brad Pitt.
There’s certainly an “action movie Tom Cruise”, but there’s also Magnolia, Rain Man, and Born on the Fourth of July.
Jeff Goldblum has such a Jeff Goldblum delivery that he can only do a version of himself whenever he performs a role.
Bill Murray.
I am surprised no one as mentioned William Shatner yet.
Christopher Walken.
I think that, in his case, it’s become more pronounced over time – I don’t think it was as obvious or as exaggerated in his roles in the '80s or '90s. But, I agree, now, he seems to always be playing the same affected, eccentric persona (and has the same persona in interviews).
And his pal, Joe Pesci.
I thought he delivered a pretty convincing performance as “not Jeff Goldblum” in The Grand Budapest Hotel.
I disagree with most of these. And I do believe that many who are more one dimensional are still playing a role that isn’t themselves. Movie Samuel L. Jackson is much different than talk show Sam. And when he’s with his wife he’s funny and adorable.
Henry Fonda was definitely not playing the same character all the time but he often played very affable characters. That was not his real personality. When Peter Fonda asked what his father was like in real life he said “Watch Fort Apache.”
Yes, this thread seems to be more about actors who have been typecast.
Kurt Russell. (I just watched “The Thing” last night.)
Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Robert Benchley wrote a hilarious article about him.
(Possibly published in Liberty magazine, March 12, 1932, then in the anthology The Best of Robert Benchley.)
And, in the same swashbuckling genre: Errol Flynn.
To the point where it seems he’s passed on the torch of playing Woody Allen. Watching Midnight in Paris, I couldn’t help but feel that Owen Wilson was playing the character that Allen had written for himself but was too old to play, and Wilson was doing a pretty good job of playing it the way Allen would have. I haven’t seen anything of Allen’s that’s more recent, so I don’t know if he’s done any more of that kind of thing.
I’ve seen Roger Moore in The Saint which was before he became James Bond and in a film called The Sea Wolves which was made during the time he was James Bond. He pretty much played with the same characteristics as he did in the James Bond movies.
The Sea Wolves also starred Gregory Peck and David Niven - both of whom I would say can be seen as playing themselves a lot of the time.
Burt Mustin.
Very hard disagrees on Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, Pitt especially has a very varied set of performances. Also disagree with Robin Williams where I guess I’m mostly thinking of Good Will Hunting.
And sometimes he’s a British woman!
…I may be doing this wrong.
I’ve always thought James Garner was the same kind of guy IRL that he was on screen, regardless of the role he was playing. An old girlfriend agreed, saying “He must be a real charming man.”
Jackson has discovered that he gets paid bonus to re-play the character written by Quentin Tarantino for Pulp Fiction. But if you go back to his roles before that one, each one is radically different and he sells them fully. There is no comparison between his role in A Time to Kill, for example, and The Long Kiss Goodnight.
And from all the interviews that I’ve seen with him, I have no reason to think he’s any more playing himself when he plays Jules, than that Bruce Willis is just being himself when he plays John McClain.