Archived Discussion Main / PlayingAgainstType

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

From YKTTW

Richard_W: What counts as "typecasting"? Some of the Anthony Hopkins examples are annoying me - he's had many roles across a wide range of characters, some better known than others, and listing all of them that aren't Hannibal Lector would take up too much space. Personally I still think of him more as the butler in The Remains Of The Day, for example. Has he even been cast as a cannibalistic serial killer apart from in Silence Of The Lambs and sequels? Is that his "type" simply because it's his best-known role?

Am I just being snobby here, or would removing the Shadowlands and Beowulf examples be justified? The alternative seems to be to add The Remains Of The Day too - but that would then mean basically just listing all his other roles too, as far as I can see.

(added) Given the precedent below, I removed the following from the Film examples:

• The film Beowulf has Anthony Hopkins playing King Hrothgar. Enough said...
  • That's nothing. This troper challenges you to watch Shadowlands where Hopkins plays C.S. Lewis and try to think of Narnia in the same way again.

(I left the joke about him not eating the pie in Titus because it works as a character reference.)

• Stephen Blum, Badass gravelly-voiced actor of Spike Seigel and Mugen playing Camp Gay Leeron of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Whadd'ya know?

While Steven Blum is best known for playing Badass character, he actually has quite a wide range. This isn't even the first effeminate voice he's done; before this he was also Orochimaru and was actually perfectly imitating the mannerism of the female body that Orochimaru previously inhabited.

Andrew: Deleted the Hugh Jackman entry because the example itself acknowledges that it doesn't fit.

Off Side 7: Michelle Pfieffer was Catwoman. How is playing an evil witch against type? I'm sure she's played good guys, too, but... Well, I associate that face and voice with bad girls.

• Collateral. Just... Collateral. Where else would you find Tom Cruise playing the bad guy and Jamie Foxx playing a nerdy taxi driver?
  • Tom Cruise also played against type in Tropic Thunder (as fat, balding, foul-mouthed producer Les Grossman (pictured above), Austin Powers In Goldmember (a cameo as Austin himself in a brief film-within-the-film), and Interview With The Vampire (as Lestat, causing a great deal of controversy at the time among fans who had long preferred either Sting or Rutger Hauer for the role, based on Anne Rice's description of the character).
  • And a nasty pick-up artist in Magnolia.

And I think the article needs a different picture, because Tom Cruise is a terrible example for playing against type. He always plays powerful, self-assure characters with varying degrees of cockiness and Jerk Ass. His role in Collateral was just a villainous version of this. He'd played a villain before in Lestat. Les Grossman is just the same old Cruise character in a fat suit with the Jerk Ass ratcheted up. He was uglied up before in half of Vanilla Sky as well. Even in a movie like Minority Report, where Cruise plays a miserable divorced man, he's still a hotshot badass.

Erm...Tom Cruise is a notably serious actor, so seeing him in a comedy of all places like in Tropic Thunder is something we don't see everyday. Then again, we have yet to see him play a wimpy, timid, or nerdy character, so the Les Grossman example is the best example so far.

Chris X: Just a suggestion, but I suggest that the trope picture is changed into Heath Ledger's The Joker. The text can be said "Brought to you from the guy who played the gay uke from Brokeback Mountain."

Thanks, I just replaced the trope picture with the Joker.

And after listening to the explanation from Trogga, it's now the Joker and the gay cowboy from Brokeback Mountain. Now you compare the two, they are totally different. Now that's the page image.

• In contrast, in Flightplan Sean Bean had NOTHING to do with the evil plot. This troper dares you to come up with a non-villainous Sean Bean role other than Sharpe and Boromir off the top of your head.
  • The character in Ronin was also a play against type for Sean Bean. Since he's mainly known for playing manly man BadAsses like Sharpe and Alec Trevelyan, it was a departure to see him play the panicky n00b of the group.
  • Equilibrium.
  • Silent Hill.
  • The Elder Scrolls: Martin Septim.
  • It probably would be more difficult to come up with a character that isn't horribly killed off somewhere during the story.
    • Even in Equilibrium and Lord Of The Rings, he turns on the protagonist, despite dying heroically.
    • Odysseus in Troy. Also the father in Silent Hill, although that barely counts given that his role there is, to say the least, minimal.
    • This reputation of his is the main reason this troper thinks casting him as Ned Stark was a bad idea...

because it's self-contradictory natter. Ultimately, Sean Bean doesn't have an easily defined type. He often plays villains, but also often plays sympathetic characters and conflicted manly men.

• Bumbling, and tighty gym employee Chad Feldheimer played by Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading.

Pitt's played a number of goodfballs and comedic roles. He was nominated for an Oscar for his goofy weirdo in 12 Monkeys, played a bumbling goober in The Mexican, a vacant stoner in True Romance, and a daffy pikey in Snatch. Pitt seems to have three modes: goofy, hard-ass, and playboy.

It is, it's there and it should be in the article. We replaced Les Grossman with the Joker recently.

Captain Crawdad: Alrighty, someone was trying to remove it recently so I just wanted to open up a discussion.

I just pasted the picture back, and added a warning for those who tried to remove it. I don't want it to end up like the Deadpan Snarker and Twilight pages, victims of constant page caption changing. The latter is banned getting a caption, the former banned from editing.

Trogga, stop, please stop deleting the page caption, because Heath Ledger did the impossible and won himself a posthumous Oscar. If that didn't demonstrate the trope, nothing else does.

Another guy deleted it because it can cause Edit Wars. Dude, only Trogga hated the picture, and wanted it down. And the said war ended recently. So I pasted the picture back and it's here to stay.

Trogga: Listen, without the caption and one's knowledge of Ledger's role in The Dark Knight, it's just a picture of a scary clown. At least the Tropic Thunder image had Cruise's name on it.

Chris X: Apologies, but unless it's on the top, I think you're missing. The Tropic Thunder image had '(Ben) Stiller', '(Jack) Black', '(Robert) Downey Jr.'. No '(Tom) Cruise'. Unless the one you spoke to represent this trope is not Tom Cruise.

I think he meant the Les Grossman image. That image was shifted to the main Tom Cruise page, after realising that The Joker image fits perfectly.

Trogga, you're acting as if the image needs 'proof'. Just like The Other Wiki. I suggest that you stop being uptight. But if you stay unconvinced, then whoever posts that Joker picture should edit it and add a side picture which had Heath Ledger being that 'gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain'. And the caption should be like "They're both played by the same person."

Done. Thanks for the suggestion anyway!