Haven’t seen her in that many films but just thinking of three of her most famous 70’s roles :Godfather 1/2, Manhattan and Annie Hall, you have three significantly different characters.
Lucille Ball was more typecast than “playing herself”. She was noted as being a shrewd businesswoman.
But her children should qualify. Someone joked that you could view the reruns from different series and watch her kids grow up.
Going back a few years, I would say Clark Gable.
Was he, though? This was a guy who declined to fight in World War II, when other actors of his generation were volunteering for combat James Stewart was much more John Wayne than John Wayne was.
Kevin Costner.
And “Blinky” - Hugh Grant.
IMHO, character actors should be exempt. They’re supposed to be a limited, dependable quality. (My grandmother had a weakness for supporting actor cowboys, back when she was living hand-to-mouth as a movie actress - though “hand” is a polite euphemism. A risky proposition since it was another cowboy extra who gave Carol Lombard the scar on her face).
For Baby Boomers, the IMDB full cast list for any long-running show can be a treasury of hundreds of familiar faces (four non-white. Five if you count Mike Ansara)
Not claiming that anyone is necessarily wrong, but, unless you have at the very least hung out with him at a party a couple of times, how do you have any idea of what Will Smith is really like? Or Clint Eastwood, or whom have you.
Just a slightly off topic question- does Rhys play just a minor character in Sweet Tooth? I had no interest in watching it but might try it if Rhys is in a significant # of episodes. Loved him since Flight of the Conchords and he was great as Psycho Sam in Hunt for the Wilderpeople . I did not recognize him immediately so in at least that part he wasn’t really playing Rhys Darby.
Well, I guess in real life Clint Eastwood doesn’t really blow bad guys away all the time. But I bet if someone pushes ahead of him in the line at Burger King he says “Do ya feel lucky, punk?”
I was thinking of Baby Boom, The First WIves Club, Something’s Gotta Give, Father of the Bride - I couldn’t get past it being Diane Keaton - she never became the characters to me. Maybe I just don’t like her…
In a slightly different vein, the Australian TV series “The Games” (1998-20000) had all the actors using their own names. Since it was a “mockumentary” about the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, that was part of the drama. Even if I didn’t recognize any of the actors (except Sam Neill), still a funny show.
This thread is getting close to Adam Westing.
I see your Bond and raise you another - Sean Connery.
OB
John Wayne. Whether dressed as a soldier or western gun slinger, he was the same character. Very little range.
In my opinion, most well-known, professional actors stay within a relatively narrow range of roles, and it doesn’t mean they aren’t good actors. It’s just how the best results are obtained and how successful careers are formed. Again, just my opinion, and I’m just a film buff.
Speaking of which, most of us are not experienced professional actors and don’t understand the details of the profession. Actors and musicians have similar jobs insofar as doing their thing in real time, and both are often the subject of opinions expressed by a general public that doesn’t really understand what they do. Most of us don’t have the knowledge to fairly judge how well a script or a character has been interpreted, and we wouldn’t be as quick to praise or dismiss the work of a painter, a sculptor, etc. Also, and maybe most importantly, most of us have probably seen only a few films of any given actor.
I think it takes an extraordinary actor to play against type and pull it off consistently. I’d say Hoffman, Streep, Oldman and a few more are examples of well-known, veteran actors who have done this. Among younger actors, Christian Bale (very different roles in American Psycho and The Machinist) is one, and there are certainly others.
In Awakenings, De Niro and Williams both played against type, especially the latter.
It would be interesting to look at the overlap in the posts in this thread and those in another about actors who play against type.
I remember when Adam West was interviewed about accepting his role of Quahog’s idiot mayor in Family Guy. He said he welcomed the opportunity for “self-depreciation.”
(All in good fun, of course.)
BTW, has anyone noticed how all the parts that used to be played by the late Donald Pleasance now go to Ben Kingsley?
This assumes that there is some meaningful metric for good acting other than whether the majority of the (non-expert) target audience find the acting convincing and effective. I’m not sure I buy it. Obviously there are endless examples of groundbreaking painters or sculptors or composers or writers who are not initially appreciated, but later widely acknowledged to be geniuses. But is acting analogous? Can someone really be said to be a good actor if nobody in the target audience perceives them to be a good actor? Does it often (ever?) happen that an actor is widely panned, but is later recognized to be a fine actor?
Well, for one thing, people mature and their tastes change. So, across generations and in the extremes you’re proposing, I suppose not. But within individual lifespans, yeah, I think so.
Ok, so cite an example of an actor who was poorly regarded at first, but later recognized to be fine actor. For the same performances, I mean. Obviously plenty of actors put in new performances that are much better than earlier ones.