It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Savages, or Pray for the Wildcats, but they had Andy Griffith playing the bad guy
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.
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A long time ago now but Mary Tyler Moore was a cold blooded monster in Ordinary People. Only played very warm blooded people before that.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson went from Schwarzenegger 2.0 uber manly man to a pink loving (probably closeted) gay man in Be Cool and he was fucking hilarious.
Robert Walker played kid-next-door and best friend types and was the psychopath killer in **Strangers on a Train **(1951).
Not someone you would want next door as your best friend.
When Ray Romano first appeared in the Parenthood series in 2012-2013, I only knew him from stand-up and Everybody Loves Raymond. I was really impressed with his portrayal of Hank Rizzoli, a photographer with Asperger syndrome.
Angela Lansbury in the first Manchurian Candidate
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.
Fair to say Ben Kingsley’s Don Draper in *Sexy Beast *was a bit of a departure.
Not sure he had a type, but Ghandi is his career-defining performance and you can’t get further away from Don Draper than that.
And before that in Punch-Drunk Love.
My nomination would be Gene Hackman in The Conversation.
Nitpick - Eddie Albert. Eddie Arnold is the country singer.
We talked about this recently in another thread, but I nominate Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, and especially Leslie Nielsen in Airplane! Straight dramatic actors all, doing great jobs in a satirical comedy.
For the exact opposite of what this thread is talking about, Will Farrell attempts and fails miserably at drama in Downhill.
Fred Munz in an episode of Criminal Minds playing a man who is killing off the gang members who forced him to watch them rape and murder his pregnant fiancee before almost knifing him to death. He is in a psychotic break, not remembering actually doing the murders. It was a marvelous episode, where the murderer was not the bad guy.
And not Malcom in the Middle.
Frankie Muniz, not Fred Munz.
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.
Yes, but *Will Ferrell *does an excellent job with a dramatic (and reserved) performance in Stranger Than Fiction.
I just watched a movie last night where he played Adolf Eichmann.
The mention of Malcolm in the Middle a few posts back got me thinking – does Bryan Cranston really have a “type”? When Breaking Bad started airing, most people knew him from Malcolm in the Middle and assumed he was playing against type, but I’m not so sure. Before Malcolm he had a recurring role on Seinfeld, but IIRC he also played a string of bad guys on various TV dramas. From what I recall from an interview I heard years ago, it was his role as the villain in an X Files episode that got him considered for Walter White.
Not to mention her debut film performance - a conniving little schemer in Gaslight.