Chris Elliot as “Eagleheart”.
Do I win?
Chris Elliot as “Eagleheart”.
Do I win?
Nicholas Cage…
I was just coming in to mention Cage. Maybe not unlikely, but his earlier films like Birdy, Raising Arizona and Wild at Heart were definitely squarely in the offbeat category rather than action.
A little off-topic, but one that really threw me was Wilford Brimley in the Firm as the bad guy.
They needed someone who audiences felt could take Tom freaking Cruise and Wilford Brimley gets the part. Really?
Tom Cruise always looked like somebody’s grandma, armed with a fly swatter, should be able to take him.
Yeah, I wouldn’t want hang out with him on an Antarctic base either.
In the mid-Nineties, there was an action movie called Executive Decision. I suppose it was trying to be *** Die Hard ***on an airplane.
The ostensible star was Steven Seagal, who played a hard-nosed leader of a Special Forces military unit. Sounds like a plausible action star, right?
Except they KILLED Seagal’s character very early in the movie! So, the rest of the action had to be carried out by his crack, macho, commando team, which consisted of…
John Leguizamo???
Oliver Platt???
BD Wong???
(What, was Charles Nelson Reilly unavailable?)
Yeah, I came in to post that too. Hello, fellow middle-aged poster!
how about michael keaton in the batman movies?
Does The Longest Yard count as an action movie? Because if so, you’ve got Adam Sandler.
i guess it’s subjective. she’s tall but not Amazon tall, whom i imagine to be at least 2 metres.
But IIRC, that was nothing compared to the outraged cries of comic fanboys when the first Tim Burton Batman movie was being filmed, and they cast … Michael Keaton as Batman! You’d think the executives at Warner Bros. had just slaughtered a roomful of puppies, baby seals and cute li’l duckies.
“Mr. MOM is going to play BATMAN?? NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
John Goodman in Red State. During a firefight, he picks up a fallen cop’s MP5 and takes out a couple of snipers with it. He also awesomely refuses first aid treatment. “Go on, get the fuck out of here, go get a rifle!” There is much awesomeness to be found in how he deals with the local sheriff as well.
Uma Thurman doesn’t really strike me as being a badass killer but she plays one well in the Kill Bill movies.
How about action hero Patrick Stewart in the Star Trek: TNG movies? In the first episode he surrenders. In the last movie he rams his ship into the enemy ship and beams over so he can bust his phaser rifle over someone’s head.
Um, you do realise that 2 meters is nearly 6ft 7, and that would disqualify every actress in Hollywood?
i do now. more reason she’s well suited for the role!
Yes, it might have been a bit of unlikely casting at the time, so it meets the OP in that sense, but I don’t think anyone could claim she was ill-suited to the role.
Neeson is an oddity. Has anyone else suddenly become an action star in their 50’s?
It beats me how a person with the charisma of a wet blanket, read Chuck Norris, could ever be an action star.
Leaving aside the height issue, consider this; Sigourney Weaver has an Oscar nomination for an action role. How many other action stars can say that? Not many.
Sammo Hung. Overweight Chinese action movie star (and director). If you know his background you understand why he’s so good at his job but otherwise you’d think “Hey look, it’s Ron Jeremy’s Chinese cousin!”