Did you see the show? He brought a certain quirky charm to the role that made it much more than an emotionless killer robot. His forced half-smile in particular was classic. Then later in the show, his robot body became the mouthpiece of a curious budding A.I. program, and he nailed that too. I’d never actually seen him in anything before and he made me an instant fan.
You’re missing out. It’s rapidly become a favorite of my wife and I.
I watched The Sarah Connor Chronicles from beginning to end when it aired. I was already familiar with Dillahunt, whom I generally enjoy. I liked that he was allowed to breathe personality into John Henry, but I stand by my statement prior to the introduction of John Henry.
In the same vein as Hugh Laurie going from Blackadder to House:
Gina Bellman; the uber-ditzy Jane Christie on Coupling and the calculating con artist Sophie Devereaux on Leverage.
Darren Boyd; dumb as a bag of hammers on Kiss Me Kate, then was on the short-lived Watching Ellie where, from the dimly-remembered few seconds I saw of it, he wasn’t.
OK then, we’ll have to agree to disagree, but even so, the OP didn’t mention anything about the quality or difficulty of the acting, just whether the characters are 180 apart or not.
Not only did Jerry Orbach sing and dance on 42nd Street, he also maintained Law & Order on it!
Howard Hessman went from drugged out hippie deejay on WKRP in Cinncinati to a high school teacher of esceptionally bright students on Head of the Class.
Speaking of WKRP, Gordon Jump was the naive station manager whose motherr owned the station. Quite a difference from his one time child molester on Diff’rent Strokes.
This is what I came into this thread to post.
I never fancied the guy in Midnight Caller. I really, really fancied the guy in American Gothic. When I realised it was the same guy I was quite perturbed by what that probably said about my taste in men…
Cole also played the good-natured but not-too-bright VP and presidential candidate in the last season or so of The West Wing.
Robert Guillaume played Benson on TV and the Phantom of the Opera on stage.
Richard Dean Anderson played the gun-shy MacGyver and SG-1’s Colonel Jack O’Neill who’s never happier than when he’s blasting aliens with a P90.
He also did Mike Brady in most of the Brady Bunch remakes (as well as Mike Brady on Family Guy) and a skeevy guy (someone’s bio dad I think) on Desperate Housewives.
He seems to have made a career in recent years of portraying dickish characters - he played the asshole boss in “Office Space,” played another asshole boss in “One Hour Photo” and played an asshole cop, who also happened to be a wife beater, on “Desperate Housewives.”
I was going to compare Peter Davison as Tristan – always chasing girls and enjoying his drinks down at t’pub with his very straight-laced, big brotherish turn on Doctor Who, which was smack in the middle of John-Nathan Turner’s ‘No hanky-panky in the Tardis’ tenure.
David Tennant played his affable, lively version of the Doctor for a few series, and also did a turn as an uber-creepy stalker-rapist in Secret Smile.
Richard Thomas went from playing John-Boy Walton to another creepy, wannabe rapist stalking Brooke Shields in I Can Make You Love Me.
I know you’re not comparing actors’ TV and movie roles (as that would make for a very long list!), but the current Doctor, Matt Smith, goofy and lovable as the Doctor, plays a cold-blooded killer in In Bruges (there’s a deleted scene from which floating around on youtube where he walks into a police station and casually decapitates one of the cops.)
Billie Piper went from Rose the Doctor Who companion to Belle, a call-girl.
I was going to mention Spiner as Data and Lore (yeah, and the guy who made them both). I know the OP implied roles on different series, but I was always impressed at how the actor could “sell” these polar opposite characters. Better than Lisa Kudrow’s double-take any day.
Lee Majors - always played handsome, heroic leading man roles in Big Valley and Six Million Dollar Man.
he played totally opposite in Raven as Herman “Ski” Jablonski. Over weight, slob, ugly print, shirts
Lee as Ski
after Raven he cleaned up and became the leading man again.
I always thought they copied Ski Jablonski years later in Burn Notice. Same deal, former leading man Bruce Campbell became slob, loud shirt Sam Axe. Especially in Season 1. He’s slimmed down recently.
Sam in s3. slimmer but still similar to Ski
http://static.tvguide.com/MediaBin/Galleries/Shows/A_F/Bq_Bz/Burn_Notice/season3/burn-notice105.jpg
Last season Gary Cole played a conservative gun expert on The Good Wife.
I always think of Rob Morrow playing a wimpy nerd doctor in Northern Exposure, and then a kickass F.B.I. agent in Numb3rs.
But my original experience with this phenomenon was Gavin MacLeod, who played the witty intellectual writer Murray on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and then the clueless Captain Stubing on The Love Boat. He also had a history of playing greasy villains in various westerns prior to MTM.
DeForrest Kelly played heavies on several TV Westerns before playing the good ol’ boy Dr. McCoy on Star Trek.
Bradley Whitford was Josh Lyman in The West Wing - a sort of educated urban liberal guy. Check him out in his new show The Good Guys - he’s a dopey old school horn-dog cop, always peeling out in his late model muscle car and having shoot-outs with the bad guys.
Robin Williams owns this catagory. He’s either playing manic or depressive characters. He’s totally binary–on or off. Damn good at it too.
David Soul played the ice cold, killing, vigilante policeman in one of the Dirty Harry movies (I think Magnum Force) and also the smaltchy, soppy , teary eyed copper in Starsky and Hutch.
Matt Smith wasn’t in In Bruges; Brendan Gleeson (better known as Mad-Eye Moody from the Harry Potter movies) was one of the killers and Colin Farrell was the other. Their boss was played by Ralph Finnes.