History Typecasting / Actors

** Creator/UlrichTukur, if you need honorable officers or officers with a conscience who do (or try to do) something against the Nazi regime. They usually end up [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished paying it]] [[ChronicallyKilledActor with their life]]. At least three officers he played [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled chose to commit suicide instead of being executed]] -- Kurt Gerstein in ''Film/{{Amen}}'' (hangs himself), Henning von Tresckow in 2004's ''Stauffenberg'' (blows himself up with a grenade) and UsefulNotes/ErwinRommel in ''Film/{{Rommel}}'' (ingests a cyanide pill).

* It seems as though Kevin James is turning to filling the "sweet natured, but slightly clumsy obese guy" void left by Chris Farley.

** Creator/ThomasKretschmann seems to be hopelessly typecast in such roles. He has played a German officer or soldier in over 10 works so far: ''Film/ThePianist'', ''Film/{{Valkyrie}}'', ''Film/{{Downfall}}'', ''Eichmann'', the 1993 German film ''Film/{{Stalingrad|1993}}'', ''{{Film/U571}}'', the Norwegian film ''Warrior's Heart'', ''Head in the Clouds'', ''In Enemy Hands'', ''Series/TheSinkingOfTheLaconia'', and the Russian 2013 film ''Film/{{Stalingrad|2013}}''. Oh, and, he's been cast as Baron Wolfgang von Strucker in ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron''. On the plus side, he usually plays sympathetic World War II German characters. This is further added by the fact that after being known for playing the role of Hermann Fegelein in ''Downfall'', Platform/YouTube users would sometimes make references to his character ("[[WebVideo/HitlerRants FEGELEIN FEGELEIN FEGELEIN!!!]]") on almost every video that he appeared in.

** Creator/UlrichMatthes, usually as leading Nazi figures (Joseph Goebbels in ''Film/{{Downfall|2004}}'' and Hitler in ''Film/MunichTheEdgeOfWar'' for instance), though he's also played an imprisoned priest at the Dachau concentration camp in ''The Ninth Day'' and Creator/ErnstJunger in ''Calm at Sea''. Oh, and... he's dubbed ''Film/{{Conspiracy|2001}}'''s UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich in German, while we're at it.

** Götz Otto (Stamper in ''Film/TomorrowNeverDies'') has played a good bunch of officers, be they SS or Wehrmacht.

* Creator/SeanBean often plays characters [[ChronicallyKilledActor that get killed]] or never get what they want. Most enter villain or TokenEvilTeammate territory. The general rule of thumb is that if the film is in a historical, medieval or fantasy setting, he'll play one of the good guys... who dies (''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'', ''Film/BlackDeath'', and ''Series/GameOfThrones''). If it's set in modern times, he'll generally play one of the bad guys... and usually die. When he survives, it's typically as a regular badass, such as his StarMakingRole in the ''Series/{{Sharpe}}'' series (where he's practically a Napoleonic War's Franchise/JamesBond), [[Literature/TheIliad Odys]][[Literature/TheOdyssey seus]] in ''Film/{{Troy}}'', and a general in ''Film/{{Pixels}}''. Except ''Film/Flightplan2005'', where he's just a pilot, or ''Film/{{Ronin}}'', where he's a fraud.

* Creator/RichardBurton was often cast as a troubled priest struggling with his faith and with morality, e.g. ''Film/{{Becket}}'', ''Film/NightOfTheIguana'', ''Film/ExorcistIITheHeretic'', and ''Film/{{Absolution}}''. His role in ''Theatre/{{Equus}}'', while a psychiatrist rather than a priest, is of a similar nature, since his character makes an analogy between his role as a child psychiatrist today and the roles of holy men in ancient times.

* Creator/RichardBurton was often cast as a troubled priest struggling with his faith and with morality, e.g. ''Film/{{Becket}}'', ''Theatre/NightOfTheIguana'', ''Film/ExorcistIITheHeretic'', and ''Film/{{Absolution}}''. His role in ''Theatre/{{Equus}}'', while a psychiatrist rather than a priest, is of a similar nature, since his character makes an analogy between his role as a child psychiatrist today and the roles of holy men in ancient times.

** Considering the huge amount of movies that Willis has been in, playing the villain eventually stoped being a rare exception for him, with numerous examples such as: ''Film/TheJackal'', ''Film/TheSiege'', ''Film/Grindhouse'', ''Film/ThePrince'' and many more. However, these are mostly (though not all) cases of NonActionBigBad roles with relatively little screentime that are nowhere near as memorable as his protagonist roles.
** Unfortunately, due to his deteriorating health, Willis’s last roles mostly boiled down to ContractualObligation AdvertisedExtra, which actually subverted any typecasting by having him just awkwardly shoehorned as any random minor character, oftentimes in nonsensical low-budget movies. Even in the rare cases when he was supposed to play a big role or the protagonist, the script had to be modified and his screentime had to be limited as much as possible because his failing health didn’t allow him to do any demanding scenes.

* Creator/BruceWillis tends to play [[BruiserWithASoftCenter soft-spoken tough guys]] - usually some sort of law enforcement, government agent, soldier or a hitman. This is due to the influence of ''Film/DieHard''. Before that film, Willis was strictly a comedic actor. Apart from that he is always the badass [[BadassNormal everyman]], and is known for being the king of the heroic comeback, getting [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beaten to shit]] by the bad guys and then coming back to win out. Unless we are talking about ''Film/TheSixthSense.'' Or ''Film/TheSiege'' where he plays a rare villainous part. Or ''In Country'' (embittered Vietnam veteran), or ''Film/DeathBecomesHer'' (a nebbishy doctor), or ''Mortal Thoughts'', or ''Film/{{Unbreakable}}'', or...
** ''Film/SinCity'' put on a small spin: [[spoiler:he killed himself]], despite winning in the end.