I don’t mean specific roles. I mean, what types would a casting director see you playing?
male authority figure (big business and military or kings and noblemen)
female authority figure
action hero or villain
girl next door, “nice girl” type
slutty, “bad girl” type
suburban wife/mom
extra (“everyman” look; blends into a crowd)
geek/nerd type
etc.
I’d be the leading lady’s funny friend, the Eve Arden, Audrey Meadows, Rosie O’Donnell type.
I think I could be the quiet but funny, deadpan, self-deprecating, self-doubting “nice guy” who always ends up being friends with girls until they meet a cooler, more dangerous, or more ambitious and flashy guy. Basically a younger Bill Pullman, or if I’m lucky, a Zach Braff type.
I think I’d like to be the one who has his head screwed on right, and points out how the flawed main character is screwing up. I always identify with the level-headed character- Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Bluth come to mind.
I’d like to also be very cynical and angry about it; the kind of character that’s adding, “…you dumbass” to every bit of advice, even if they’re not saying it out loud. Like Lewis Black.
Very apathetic characters. Vince Vaughns character in Dodgeball comes to mind. I can also do the wacky, unpredictable types, similar to Kramer. Two opposite aspects of my personality.
Directors say that I do “demented” very well but have too much “natural dignity, intelligence and presence” to play a mousy character (I think this may be a nice euphemism for “fat and arrogant”) so when they cast me it’s usually an authority figure of some type. I’m usually cast as the Bumbling Gruff Father (Mr. Kirby in You Can’t Take it With You, Mayor Shinn in The Music Man, Harry McAfee in Bye Bye Birdie, etc.) in comedies (exceptions: Teddy in You Can’t Take It With You and Renfield in Dracula [not a comedy but the comic relief more or less]). In dramas I’ve had much wider range; my favorite roles include a depressed bitter gay art critic in The Museum and the senile hate-filled father in O’Neill’s The Rope. Roles I’d love to play include Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Franklin/Dickenson/or Adams in 1776, Higgins or Doolittle in My Fair Lady and Martin Dysart in Equus.
“Hi I’m Leroy Brown, you may remember me from such films as “Chunnel” (crushed by rubble in scene 23) and “Fire Storm” (falls into sink hole in scene 14).”
girl next door, “nice girl” type
slutty, “bad girl” type
And add in:
Precocious (male or female) child
Cute girl child
Ardent female hero
Talking Cat/Catgirl (anime style, not Eartha Kitt style )
Tomboy/Woman doing a “man’s job” and enjoying it/“Anything you can do I can do better or as well” attitude