I thought of another one. No matter how many commercials he does for life insurance or oatmeal, Wilford Brimley will always be the evil head of security at the FIRM.
“What do I look like to you? The fucking night watchman?”
Jeff Daniels will always be The Dude, and Mark Hamill will always be Luke Skywalker. Alas, they’ll never be those characters in the same place.
Luke: I have a very bad feeling about this.
The Dude: Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
Hamill will, indeed, always be Luke Skywalker - but only in live action rolls. No images of the Joker busting out a lightsaber here. (Until now.)
John Ritter will always be Jack Tripper.
A slightly less unfair one - Harry Anderson will always be Judge Harry Stone, but that’s mostly because about the only time that I’ve seen him ever come out from behind the ‘Harry the Hat’ persona that Harry Stone was based around was as Dave Barry (who will always be Harry Anderson in my head, no matter how many times I see real pictures of him).
James Marsters will always be Spike.
John Cleese has done many things, but he will always be Basil Fawlty for me. In fact, he’ll always be Basil Fawlty saying to some Germans, ‘Well you started it!’.
Despite his many film roles, I can’t see Steve Martin as anything or anyone but the stand-up guy in a white suit, bunny ears, being ‘a wiiiild and craaaazy guy’.
David Jason is one of Britain’s most versatile TV actors. I’ve seen him in many different roles, but he will always, always be Del Trotter.
Tom Cruise will always be the kid from Risky Business.
James Gandolfini will always be Tony Soprano.
Willem Dafoe will always be the sargent from Platoon.
Everyone who was in *Band of Brothers * will always be “that guy from Band of Brothers.” Except Jimmy Fallon who didn’t belong in BoB anyway.
William Daniels will always be Mr. Feeny for me. And Dan Hedaya will always be Cher’s dad from “Clueless.”
David Hasselhoff will always be Michael Knight from Knight Rider.
And even though William Daniels was KITT’s voice on that show, he’ll always be Dr. Mark Craig from St. Elsewhere.
Me, too.
“Hey! It’s Nixon working in cubicle hell!”
“Hey! It’s Major Winters solving crimes!”
And Bruce Campbell is Brisco County Jr. He didn’t “play” Brisco. He is Brisco. Nothing can convince me otherwise, not even the Evil Dead movies.
And Ron Livingston, who will always be the aforementioned guy from Office Space.
Also David Schwimmer, who’ll always be Ross from Friends. Come to think of it, the whole cast of Friends will always be their character from that show.
And Ron Livingston
[Terribly geeky Disney Channel answer, especially for a 51-year old man]Raven Synome will always be Galleria, from The Cheeta Girls. In fact, given what I read of the Cheetah Girl Code in the book, I’m quite annoyed with her for thinking it’s okay for her to go off and have a solo career.
Michaela gets a bit annoyed with me, in turn, when I insist upon this.[/TgDCa,efa5-yom]
Heck, CSI: NY even names Gary Sinease’s character Taylor, fer crying out loud. The fanwank at the Warner Water Tower is that Liutenant Dan is Detective Mac’s weird uncle on his dad’s side that tells the coolest stories.
Speaking of Band of Brothers, I think most of the cast of “The Sopranos” will be remembered for their roles on that show. Though Lorraine Bracco might be equally remembered for her role as Karen in “Goodfellas.” It’ll be hard seeing Gandolfini, or Michael Imperioli or Edie Falco as anyone else, though.
Matthew Broderick will always be Ferris Bueller.
Macaulay Culkin will always be the kid from Home Alone.
Sarah Michelle Gellar will always be Buffy.
For me, Gary Sinise will always be Stu Redman from** The Stand.
**
All the Star Trek actors, natch, will be their characters.
I fear Elijah Wood will always be Frodo to me.
And the entire crew from Friends, for that matter. They will always be Ross, Joey, Chandler, Monica, Phoebe and Rachel.
Agreed, any actor playing a recurring role on Trek will always be seen as their Trek persona, John DeLancie will always be “Q”, LeVar Burton will always be Geordi, Wesley will always be a self-important little weenie that should be introduced to the Airlock ASAP, or at the very least, beamed into space as energy-only, Jeri Ryan will always be “The Comfy Borg” (Seven of Nine), even when her Borg implants are removed and she has a set of fangs instead, I was somewhat dissapointed that she didn’t manage to work one single “Resistance is Futile” into any of her scenes in the otherwise worthless film “Dracula 2000”
Claudia Black will always be Aeryn Sun, whether she’s playing Varla on Stargate, or Purina Bird Chow in Pitch Black
Ben Browder will always be John Crichton, can I get a Frell Yeah!
It’s nice that Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) was able to shed his Scarran physiology and end up as Vader’s handler