James Woods and Dennis Leary. Not only do they pretty much play the same person in their own films, but they pretty much play the same character between the two of them.
Jim Carrey
It’s interesting seeing so many people list an actor and then disqualify their own entry by listing films in which said actor shows some range. Once again a narrowly defined OP with a negative tinge has become a general complaint thread. This isn’t “actors I don’t like”.
Having a signature element that is repeated from film to film does not make the entire performance the same.
All of Costner’s scenes were cut from his first movie (The Big Chill). The only thing left of him is his wrists in the opening scenes.
Rebuttals:
Mchael Douglas: Falling Down, Wall Street, Wonder Boys
Kevin Costner: Silverado, Field of Dreams, JFK, Bull Durham
Harrison Ford: American Grafitti, Star Wars, Witness, The Mosquito Coast
Robin Williams: Awakenings, Good Will Hunting, What Dreams May Come, Jack
Whoosh! 
I haven’t seen (and likey won’t) Wonder Boys, so I can’t say anything about his performance there. But Godon Gecko from Wall Street is in line with most other characters he plays, even if it’s a perhaps more vocal personnage, and I see it as somewhat similar in many ways to other characters. I saw Don’t Say A Word (or whatever his new one is called) at a preview last week, and during the whole thing I thought “Starring Michael Douglas as Michael Douglas Guy!” Oliver Platt is in it too, and I thought the same thing about him. It was basically MD playing the same type of guy (pretty similar to the drug czar in Traffic, but in more of a “nice family guy” style) he almost always plays.
In Falling Down I think he actually broke away from the standard Michael Douglas Guy character quite successfully. And wasn’t he in some flop comedy a little while ago playing a toupeed hitman? So MD does not always play the same type of character, but probably more than half of his films he plays Michael Douglas Guy. He’s probably a good actor, but it’s really hard to tell in Michael Douglas Guy films, because Michael Douglas Guy is really kinda wooden. Gordon Gecko is probably the most enigmatic of these characters, but most of them are… well… Michael Douglas Guy!
Thanks, Archive!
steven segal
Hey! I was going to say Steven Segal. In fact, I think not only does he play the same character in each movie, but all the movies use essentially the same script, just changing names, locales and jobs.
That kid that was in American Pie (Stifler) who was also in Dude, Where’s my Car?
Ethan Hawke
Minnie Driver. She always plays the dream of my life.
Clint Eastwood anyone?
I must respectfully but indignantly disagree with RufusB here. IMO, Woods could possibly be the best actor of the last 25yrs - at least as good as and maybe exceeding DeNiro, Hackman, Beatty, Spacey, etc…
Woods resume includes a scumbag drug dealer in “Another Day in Paradise”, a white-trash racist southerner in “Ghosts of Mississippi”, a hippie lawyer in “True Believer” and a depression era New York gangster in “Once Upon a Time in America”.
Plus, he has made several excellent TV/HBO movies and greatest of all - a Simpsons cameo!!!
Signed,
President of James Woods Fanclub
thermalribbon
P.S. - Alec Baldwin always plays a smart wise-ass take-no-shit character. But I love him too!
Mickey Rourke always plays Bruce Willis (badly).
Yeah - as pointed out by Number Six, Douglas has demonstrated some range, but I think there is a distinct pattern going on with his movies. I’d call it “successful/powerful male turned victim.” Examples: Fatal Attaction, Basic Instinct, Disclosure, The Game, and (from the looks of it) Don’t Say a Word.
Humorous aside: remember the urban legend about the man who has his kidney stolen? I once heard this described as the urban legend “most likely to be made into a movie starring Michael Douglas.”
I forgot one: Meg Ryan, who always plays the Adorable Love Interest ™
Yeah…I have most of them on DVD too. I mean, yeah he cant act or anything, but its fun to watch him beat people up…
We’ve gotten this far and no one has mentioned Hugh Grant? Who always plays the nice British Guy? (o.k., I haven’t seen Bridget Jones yet. I hear he plays the somewhat-less-nice British Guy in that one).
My sister has claimed that Scott Glen always plays “the Scott Glenn character” in every movie he’s in.
Not what I heard. Wife, kids and drives a stationwagon.
[curious]
I wonder if there are real actors who are SDMB members?
[/curious]
Pet-peeve: Why is Keanu Reeves always mentioned in these acting threads??? Nevermind, I’ll just ask.
Ok, I’ll bite. What did I miss? Dinsdale said Costner was unusually animated in his first movie. I assumed he was referring to The Big Chill in which Costner played a suicide in flashbacks, and all of his scenes were cut except for a brief flash of his razor slashed wrists–i. e. he played a corpse. I got the sarcasm there. Ethelrist posted that half his scenes were cut, and my post was a correction of that. Unless both comments were actually referring to Fandango, I’m not sure what I’ve missed here.
Not complaining, mind you. I don’t mind being whooshed when it’s deserved, but I’d appreciate being let in on the joke.
Re Michael Douglas: Sure, he usually plays similar characters, but he has range and has shown it. John Wayne always played the same character because he had no range (but did a magnificent job of playing that one character). My list has three distinctive characters.
Wall Street: Powerful, practical, calmly confident WASP.
Falling Down: Impotent, unimaginative, raging everyman.
Wonder Boys: Artistic, insecure, introspective intellectual.
And convincing in each of the three.
Here’s a rebuttal from Eastwood’s own mouth…
"When I was doing The Bridges of Madison County, I said to myself, ‘This romantic stuff is really tough. I can’t wait to get back to shooting and killing.’ " --Daily News, November 15, 1996
His credits thus far…
True Crime (1999)
Absolute Power (1997)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1996)
The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Clint Eastwood - The Man From Malpaso (1993)
In the Line of Fire (1993)
A Perfect World (1993)
Unforgiven (1992)
Hollywood Remembers - Gary Cooper: American Life, American Legend
(1991)
Here's Looking at You, Warner Bros. (1991)
White Hunter, Black Heart (1990)
The Rookie (1990)
Pink Cadillac (1989)
Bird (1988)
The Dead Pool (1988)
Wild West (1987)
Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
Pale Rider (1985)
City Heat (1984)
Tightrope (1984)
Sudden Impact (1983)
Firefox (1982)
Honkytonk Man (1982)
Any Which Way You Can (1980)
Bronco Billy (1980)
Escape From Alcatraz (1979)
Every Which Way but Loose (1978)
The Gauntlet (1977)
The Enforcer (1976)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
The Eiger Sanction (1975)
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
High Plains Drifter (1973)
Magnum Force (1973)
Breezy (1973)
Joe Kidd (1972)
Dirty Harry (1971)
Play Misty for Me (1971)
The Beguiled (1970)
Kelly's Heroes (1970)
Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)
Paint Your Wagon (1969)
Where Eagles Dare (1969)
Coogan's Bluff (1968)
Hang 'Em High (1968)
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1967)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
The Witches (1965)
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
Death Valley Days on Laser (1963)
Maverick - Duel at Sundown (1959)
Rawhide (1959)
Rawhide - V. 2 (1959)
Lafayette Escadrille (1958)
Ambush at Cimarron Pass (1958)
Escapade in Japan (1957)
Lady Godiva (1956)
Francis in the Navy (1955)
Revenge of the Creature (1955)
Death Valley Days - V. 3
Death Valley Days
Maverick - The Collector's Edition - V. 4
Unforgiven
The man has been busy since he first entered the world back in 1930 hasn’t he?
Not true…he wasn’t a goofball in ‘Gods and Monsters’, just a good-natured guy who is brighter than he seems, and in ‘The Passion of Darkly Noon’ he is a psychotic weirdo.