Some actors, like Daniel Day Lewis and Gary Oldman, are famous for completely disappearing into varied roles. But there’s another class of famous actors who are often perceived to be “playing themselves” [1][2][3][4][5]. That is, no matter what role they assume, they seem to be doing more or less the same character—perhaps a slightly dramatized version of themselves—albeit with a different backstory. John Wayne, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, and Jack Nicholson are commonly cited as examples of this phenomenon, though if you read through the pages I’ve linked to above, you’ll find many more.
Do all of these “always playing themselves” actors really have such a narrow range, or could it just be that they are essentially (but perhaps willingly) typecast, with filmmakers selecting them specifically because they want the kind of character they’re famous for? In particular, are there any counterexamples where an actor known for “always playing themselves” convincingly plays a role that in a way that is completely different from their standard performance?
Has Bill Murray successfully pulled off anything other than a jaded, world-weary smartass with a deadpan delivery? Has Jeff Goldblum, who famously “loves being asked to play Jeff Goldblum”, ever excelled at played anything but a quirky oddball who stammers each line as if he’s only just remembered it? Has Jack Nicholson ever inhabited a role so completely that you didn’t even realize that it was him?
Surely at least one such actor must actually have a broad range that genuinely exists but that we don’t normally get to see.
Bill Murray played FDR and was magnificent in Hyde Park on Hudson 2012. He was in character the entire movie.
Jack has had a few exceptions over the years, but like Pacino or Connery, he overwhelmingly plays their signature roles. For Jack I think Terms of Endearment qualifies and probably Heartburn.
I can’t think of any examples where Pacino or Connery went off-character. Pacino came closest as Michael Corleone in The Godfather, but not the sequels.
ETA: I think Connery almost went off character for Finding Forrester in 2000. Much more subtle than usual. And before the Connery character was established of course, he was not the Connery Character in 1959’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People.
Though I think early performances probably don’t count.
I don’t know that Jack Nicholson always plays himself really, we just tend to remember him for his over the top performances. I find that his characters in About Schmidt, The Pledge and As Good as It Gets are quite different, you can see it in his mannerisms and how holds his hands, etc. Yes, you can see a lot of the same in say A Few Good Men. The Departed and Batman, which is why I think we think of him as only playing himself, but unlike some other actors I really don’t find him to be just the same in every role he plays.
For Jack delivering a non-Nicholson performance, I recommend The Pledge, directed by Sean Penn. Penn also directed Nicholson in The Crossing Guard, which is also a solid movie, and I don’t remember too much Jack-ness in it.
The best performance I’ve seen from Goldblum was in Paul Schrader’s Adam Resurrected. He plays a concentration camp survivor living in an asylum in Israel in the sixties. The holocaust scenes are some of the most chilling I can remember onscreen, and he’s not doing any Goldblum-isms in them.
De Niro has often disappeared into his roles. He was a master character actor. Then he got a little lazy in the 90s I guess. But go back early and he was a great actor, not just a great character.
Robin Williams really came into his own later in life.
At first he was just the wacky, zany guy who made people laugh. Then later he really honed his craft with roles in Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poet’s society, and Good Will Hunting.
Yeah, I’m not sure De Niro is a member of this category. He may be known for his many tough-guy roles, but he’s had some very memorable high-profile ones of other sorts, even in the '90s. (Awakenings, for example.)
There exist Movie Stars and Actors. You can be both, but typically people specialize.
No one wants The Rock to be in an Anne Frank picture and no one needs the significant acting credentials and experience of Gary Oldman to drive a car in Fast and the Furious XI: The Most Furious.
He also got an Oscar nomination for his subdued supporting role in REDS: he’s not the shouty and having a good time kind of drunk, so much as he’s the sad and self-pitying kind of alcoholic — who, sure, occasionally breaks off from his quiet brooding to try his hand at an insult, but without sounding like there’s any fire behind it — just like he never sounds like he’s joking around, or like he’s a step ahead of someone. Or like he’s got any reason to, if you will, smirk.
Crossing Guard (1995) Jack Nicholson plays a sarcastic asshole jeweler who lost a daughter so begins like every Jack film. The man who killed her in a traffic accident years ago was just released from prison. You want to like Jack and hate the killer, but then the movie happens.
He was terrifying for a very understandable reason and the film draws you in, I don’t recall just watching two hours of Jack Nicholson schtick.
Similarly Jake Gyllenhaal doesn’t have vast range, but he absolutely pulled off a god damned psychopath in Nightcrawler
I found it depressing that the most recent F&F movie had no fewer than three Oscar winners in its cast (Helen Mirren, Charlize Theron, Alison Brie). I know it’s likely fun without a lot of heavy lifting, and the payday must be good, but that franchise has been on the skids (no pun intended) since part 7, so it feels like slumming.
That said, does Oldman ever play himself? He always struck me as one of those “disappear into the part but you still know it’s him” kind of actors. Plus he balances schlocky Hollywood dreck with more serious Oscar bait. His Lost in Space co-star William Hurt might fit the OP’s theme…he always seemed to give the same kind of measured performance in every role. I found him pretty unconvincing as Thunderbolt Ross in the MCU, because he brought a kind of sad-sack blandness to the character. That role had been cast perfectly in Ang Lee’s Hulk with Sam Elliott, but in those pre-multiverse days he was out of the running for the reboot, I suppose. Maybe playing a dopey stoner hitman in I Love You To Death?
For Dwayne Johnson, much like Schwarzenegger, there is only so much you can do given your size (both are over 6 foot tall) so I would not expect them to play too far against type just because, even with modern technology, there is not a lot you can do to hide their physical attributes, and why would you?
Connery never changed his voice (except in Bond, a bit…), but his character? I would argue absolutely. Compare The Untouchables with The Last Crusade for example.
Will Ferrell is a current example where he always seems to play the same annoying, grating character, that for some reason people find funny. But then he did Stranger Than Fiction which was very different.
