# Best Performances "Against Type" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 5, 2020, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938 "2020-03-05T00:16:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/61 "2020-03-07T16:32:32Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > The obvious one is Adam Sandler in _Uncut Gems_. I thought he did a good job in he first real non-comedic role. You missed _Punch Drunk Love_. I thought he was pretty good in that, too, thought even better in _Uncut Gems_. ETA: Kneadtoknow beat me to it. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/62 "2020-03-07T17:57:27Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > How on earth Helena Bonham Carter (archetypical costume drama English rose) got herself cast as the female lead in Fight Club has always been a mystery to me. But well done to her for managing it, and she did a great job. > > j She was also hilarious as Lady Tottingham (“Call me ‘Totty.’”) in Aardman’s _ **The Curse of the Were-Rabbit** _. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/63 "2020-03-22T00:05:36Z")
Did Jimmy Stewart ever play “the bad guy”? I think his good guy image sometimes would backfire. For example, in “The Flight of the Phoenix”, you know he’s going to do the right thing, so that “squabble” with the German scientist wasn’t believable. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/64 "2020-03-22T00:19:07Z")
> [@MortSahlFan](#): > > Did Jimmy Stewart ever play “the bad guy”? He was awesome in AFTER THE THIN MAN, where his aw-shucks demeanor makes him perfect for a talky whodunit where the killer tries to pass himself off as an innocent man. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/65 "2020-03-22T00:31:43Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > How on earth Helena Bonham Carter (archetypical costume drama English rose) got herself cast as the female lead in Fight Club has always been a mystery to me. But well done to her for managing it, and she did a great job. In recent years she’s specialized more as deranged villainesses or oddballs: Beatrix Lestrange in the _Harry Potter_ movies, Madame Thenardier in _Les Miserables_, Mrs. Lovett in _Sweeny Todd_, the Red Queen in _Alice in Wonderland_, Miss Havisham in _Great Expectations_. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/66 "2020-03-22T01:05:38Z")
> [@MortSahlFan](#): > > Did Jimmy Stewart ever play “the bad guy”? > > I think his good guy image sometimes would backfire. For example, in “The Flight of the Phoenix”, you know he’s going to do the right thing, so that “squabble” with the German scientist wasn’t believable. In John Ford’s “[Two Rode Together](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Rode_Together)”, he played a downright morally bankrupt, corrupt Marshall with no redeeming features whatsoever. Richard Widmark is the good guy in that. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/67 "2020-03-22T01:23:07Z")
Retroactive playing against type: Roger E. Mosley as a ruthless loan shark encountered by Jim Rockford. This was three years before playing Magnum’s friend and a bit jarring when watching retro TV. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/68 "2020-03-22T06:18:23Z")
The ultimate playing against type—no other examples can beat this—: Marcel Marceau in _Silent Movie_, speaking the only word spoken aloud in the entire flick. _“Non!”_ ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/69 "2020-03-22T06:44:50Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > Retroactive playing against type: Roger E. Mosley as a ruthless loan shark encountered by Jim Rockford. This was three years before playing Magnum’s friend and a bit jarring when watching retro TV. I remember that episode. Electric Larry: Smick, the club soda dispenser in the bar is busted Harry Smick: It was fixed last week. Electric Larry: Uh huh, fixed last week. You go down there and tell that to the customer standing there drinking scotch and air. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/70 "2020-03-22T07:11:48Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Sandra Bullock as a racist bitch in _Crash_. I know may people disliked the film; I loved it. But her in that role was . . . curious. It almost shouldn’t have worked but someone it made it more horrifying to me. I loved it, too. Did I miss someone else mentioning Jim Carrey in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?” He and Kate Winslet both play against type. He’s more buttoned-down and subdued, and she’s the wild one. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/71 "2020-03-22T10:00:45Z")
Sascha Baron Cohen’s performance in The Spy was convincing, sensitive and subtle. These three words have NEVER been used in relation to any of his earlier work. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/72 "2020-03-22T11:50:47Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > In John Ford’s “[Two Rode Together](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Rode_Together)”, he played a downright morally bankrupt, corrupt Marshall with no redeeming features whatsoever. Richard Widmark is the good guy in that. Wow, interesting. I was watching a John Ford documentary last night, and when this came on, I FF’d it because I was planning to watch it one day, and didn’t wanna know. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate this? (I have 1,400 on my watchlist!) ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/73 "2020-03-22T13:29:23Z")
What about actors playing against in such a way that the arc of their careers was altered forever? Kurt Russell had been in movies and television for 20 years - starting with Dennis the Menace! - playing mostly Disney movie kids of one sort or another or goofballs with hearts of gold like in Used Cars. Then in 1981 John Carpenter turned him into Snake Plissken - I heard he was dead - and suddenly he had a new career as an action star that’s lasted to this day. Or… I can’t be the only one here old enough to remember being surprised when it was announced that Bruce Willis - who had a career going as a TV funnyman - was going to star in an action shoot-em-up called ‘Die Hard’. I remember discussing it with my pals and being just confused. “The guy from Moonlighting? Really?” ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/74 "2020-03-22T13:43:56Z")
My favorite is Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They cast him as the father of Indiana Jones because he was James Bond. And they allowed him to be 100% opposite of James Bond, which made the whole thing so great. It’s probably my favorite performance of his. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/75 "2020-03-22T14:37:59Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > My favorite is Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They cast him as the father of Indiana Jones because he was James Bond. And they allowed him to be 100% opposite of James Bond, which made the whole thing so great. It’s probably my favorite performance of his. And that flick and BATMAN went #1 and #2 in the world that year — and the other way around in the United States — and I remember the eyebrow-raising o’er the land when Michael “Mr. Mom” Keaton got announced for that one. You know, the guy who’d done a sitcom with Mary Tyler Moore before doing some light comedy with Henry Winkler and Shelley Long, and who memorably clowned around as Beetlejuice after joking his way through a parody movie with some SNL types? Okay, so: maybe this will be some Adam-West-type stuff? Like, maybe the short list was him or Bill Murray for the title role? Yeah, I guess I could see that; pretty sure he won’t be portraying the character as grimly driven to put people in the hospital before using military hardware to gun down crooks. I mean, there’s no way you’ll look at this guy’s eyes and say, _you know, he genuinely seems obsessive enough to put on a bulletproof Dracula costume and dangle a terrified mugger off a rooftop_. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/76 "2020-03-22T16:18:26Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > My favorite is Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They cast him as the father of Indiana Jones because he was James Bond. And they allowed him to be 100% opposite of James Bond, which made the whole thing so great. It’s probably my favorite performance of his. Watch _North Sea Hijack_ a.k.a. _ffolkes_ a.k.a. _Assault Force_, in which Roger Moore plays the Anti-Bond. “He loves cats, hates women, and is about to save the world.” Watch _The Tailor of Panama_, in which Pierce Brosnan plays the Anti-Bond. He still drinks, smokes, and womanizes, but in this movie, it comes across as sleazy rather than cool. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/77 "2020-03-22T17:41:11Z")
> [@MortSahlFan](#): > > Wow, interesting. I was watching a John Ford documentary last night, and when this came on, I FF’d it because I was planning to watch it one day, and didn’t wanna know. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate this? (I have 1,400 on my watchlist!) I’d give it a solid 8. It’s a good classic Ford western, maybe not his best, but solid. James Stewart plays the sleazy marshal totally convincingly, and every other major character is disgusted by him. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2020, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/78 "2020-03-23T04:55:51Z")
Jim Carrey in _The Truman Show_. ---
**Author:** ![jerez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@jerez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jerez)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2020, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/79 "2020-03-23T09:29:37Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > Jim Carrey in _The Truman Show_. What an excellent film!!! He’s still doing the nutty-zany schtick but without the painful excess of prior films. Not performing against type, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2020, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938/80 "2020-03-23T11:09:31Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > In the 1990s, John Ritter starred in a made-for-TV movie about a man who’s going through a divorce that is amicable, until his STBX starts dating a guy who the kids instantly dislike, and he turns out to be an unemployed psycho stalker. John Ritter plays the villain in an episode of _Law & Order_, and he’s great, especially because he’s playing the kind of psychopath who doesn’t know he’s a psychopath, and admits to things because he doesn’t even get just how terrible they sound. Henry Winkler is the villain on a L&O as well. > [@kitap](#): > > Former child actress Kim Richards, maybe best known for her Disney films, turned in an excellent little performance as Christina Ricci’s angry, abusive mom in Black Snake Moan. Ooooooh! _Escape to Witch Mountain_ was one of my favorites when I was a kid! I liked Kim Richards enough that I actually watched every episode of that sitcom she was on with McLean Stevenson. I didn’t know she was still working. Some of my nominees are Ingrid Bergman in the 1941 _Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde_. She plays the “bad girl,” with Lana Turner playing the good girl. It was supposed to be the other way around, but Bergman begged the casting director to give her a chance to play something besides an ingenue. Admittedly, she isn’t as good as Miriam Hopkins in the 1931 version, but Hopkins had the advantage of playing the role before the institution of the Hays code. But within the bounds of the Hays code, Bergman is very good. In _A Passage to India_, Judy Davis plays against type (she usually plays outspoken rebels) as Adela Quested. She is perfect in this role. In _The Poseidon Adventure_, Shelley Winters, who usually plays loud, selfish, self-indulgent drunks, plays a kind, quiet, unimposing woman, whose talents aren’t even revealed until they are needed (she’s not a braggart), and then she uses them to sacrifice herself so other people can escape and live. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-performances-against-type/848938.md?page=5)