Ripley, of Alien fame. Sure, she was played by Sigourney Weaver the four times - but she was very different each time.
How about Judas?
Ambiguous, challenging characterizations worthy of highlight, and the works containing the specific, nuanced portrayal (in cases warranted, where there character in question has been portrayed multiple times, in multiple mediums, varying in iteration):
Villains: Captain Ahab (Moby-Dick), God (Blood Meridian, as “The Judge”), Moriarty (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), Alex Forrest (Fatal Attraction).
Heroes: The McManus family (Boondock Saints), Al Swearengen (Deadwood), Batman (Detective Comics), Satan (Paradise Lost), Eli (Let the Right One in).
Supporting characters: Walter Sobchak (The Big Lebowski), John Falstaff (Henry IV, Parts I & II).
The ones that qualify for me are the iconic characters, ones that aren’t owned by any particular actor or even by any particular story. Robin Hood, The Joker, King Arthur, etc. Jesus kinda qualifies, I guess, as does the Devil. I was thinking of asking this exact question just last week.
Edward Hyde. If the same actor is playing Jekyll, bonus points.
The character I’d have the most fun playing is Sweeney Todd, hands down, but I’d want to play him as well as I could.
I didn’t really like Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Todd. He was just phoning it in. That character just called for someone totally over the top with crazy eyes. Johnny Depp doesn’t really do crazy eyes very well. He’s just too damned cool and laid back.
How about another Batman villain: Catwoman.
Even while camping it up, Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, and Eartha Kitt each put her own unique spin on the role.
I liked a lot of what Michelle Pfeiffer did with it, especially the transformation scenes. And I thought the sexual tension between her and Keaton was terrific. But overall (and I can’t quite define why) her portrayal seemed ultimately unfulfilling.
Halle Berry was an inspired casting choice – and looked amazing – but was hampered by an awful, awful script. I think she could have been great under different circumstances.
So I think Catwoman is just waiting to be “Ledgerized,” but I’m not sure who I’d like to see try it in the Nolan universe. Please don’t say Megan Fox.
Another perfect one from Shakespeare is Iago: a villain whose actual motivation is almost never spoken of, and may in fact might be nonexistent. Dude’s just evil, and likes to screw with the people on stage, but what makes it compelling is that at the same time, everybody on stage loves and trusts him. So an actor gets to find that balance: the ability to be totally likable to everyone in the play, and then turn out to the audience when he’s alone and let us know that 1) he plans to ruin them all and 2) there’s nothing we can do to stop him. Can be very chilling.
An English teacher of mine told me a (probably apocryphal) story about a production of Othello out West in the 19th Century where, halfway through the performance, an audience member stood up and shot the guy playing Iago dead because he didn’t want Iago to get away with it. They buried the actor under a headstone reading “The Greatest Actor Who Ever Lived.” Again, probably false, but it’s just believable enough that it makes for a good story.
King of the who?
Portrayal of who? Ledger was showing some great acting, but whatever character he was portraying, it wasn’t the Joker.
If Ledger wasn’t playing The Joker, I have to say he was a really terrible Penguin. They should take his Oscar back.
Nor was he playing the Penguin, of course. He was playing a sociopathic crazy person, but not the Joker nor any other iconic Batman villain. Ledger did such a great job that few have noticed the the part written for him does not really resemble the Joker.
The Joker isn’t a sociopathic crazy person?
Of course he is. But that’s not all he is, he also is a joker. The weird humor is a necessary part of the Joker, otherwise you can just use the dude from the Shining, etc.
Carl Spackler
Seems to me that that describes the Ledger Joker perfectly. I saw a lot of ( absolutely disturbed ) humor in the performance.
Ta-da!
It says “The Joker” in the credits. He was The Joker. Sorry you didn’t like it, but if you want The Joker played differently, make your own movie.
The Joker has, in his traditional depictions, been a brilliant criminal who sports a clown motif. In the 70s, they decided he was also nuts, progressively moreso by the time The Killing Joke came out. Burning a cubic hectare of money is inconsistent with every prior depiction. He’s not a philosopher of evil; he’s ultimately in it for the money.
And that’s why every time he has Batman at his mercy, he shoots him in the head, pulls off the caper, and retires to a life of luxury in Costa Rica.
Well, you just mentioned The Killing Joke there, so let’s go with that for a moment: was he “in it for the money” that time?
“Why are you doing this?”
“To prove a point. Here’s to crime.”
He kidnaps someone, but he’s not gunning for a big ransom; he cheerfully kills a man first, and cripples a young woman, but it’s all just a waste of bullets and poison as far as profits are concerned; that’s not the point. “You see, it doesn’t matter if you catch me and send me back to the asylum … I’ve proved my point. I’ve demonstrated that there’s no difference between me and everyone else. All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.”
Why would he want money? “Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for – it’s all a monstrous, demented gag!”
(For bonus points, didn’t he once sell his soul – for a box of cigars?)