Actors who never played the villain/never played the hero
 

It occured to me that I don't think Clint Eastwood has ever really played a truly bad character. I mean, Walt Kowalski is grumpy, but once he found a bunch of people he liked, it turned out he's not that bad at all. Just scarred. He had two popular film series (The "Dollars" trilogy, the Dirty Harry pentalogy) where he played two of the greatest heroes in film history. Well, technically he plays three different characters in the Dollars trilogy, but spiritually they are the same. He even wears the same clothing in all of them!

Still, even though he sometimes played some personalities with more questionable morality, they evoked some empathy from you.

Any other ones you can think of?

Re: Actors who never played the villain/never played the hero
 

I can't remember Paul Newman playing an evil character, and as you said about Clint, he may have played rebels con men and/or lost anti heroes, but not really evil.

As far as the opposite, I haven t seen a lot of his films, but John Malkovich played such a disgusting. Psychopath in In The Line If Fire, I can t think of him any other way.

Classic good guys (and gals) in my memory include Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. I think Jack Lemmon was usually a good guy and as far as I remember- good gals were Sally Field, Doris Day and Julia Roberts - you cinephiles can correct me if I missed something.
Alas poor Harrison did What Lies Beneath but I think it was the one exception.

Oh and wasn't James Mason usually evil?

Re: Actors who never played the villain/never played the hero
 

P s I m pretty sure John Wayne was always a hero, even if he was a bedraggled one in True Grit.

Re: Actors who never played the villain/never played the hero
 

Harrison Ford has most likely always been the hero as well.

Re: Actors who never played the villain/never played the hero
 

Christoph Waltz has played the villain in every movie I have seen of his. I dont think he would be that great of a good guy.

Re: Actors who never played the villain/never played the hero
 

Tom Cruise was great in Collateral as the villain, perhaps the only time I can think where he has crossed that hero/villain line.

He's an excellent good guy in Django Unchained, even more enjoyable than any of his villain roles.

As for Tom Cruise, he's truly menacing in Interview With A Vampire. I think he's played the villain a few more times, even though he's usually the good guy.

He was great in Road to Perdition as a mob boss.

Peck plays an older version of Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele in “The Boys from Brazil”.

Re: Actors who never played the villain/never played the hero
 

I think the only time Tom Hanks ever played a villain was in Road to Perdition, but I can't exactly remember.

Perpetual likeable good guy Jimmy Stewart was the villain in one of his earliest roles (but it was only revealed at the end).

The movie was...

Re: Actors who never played the villain/never played the hero
 

Harrison Ford was bad in What Lies Beneath.

Paul Newman was bad in Road to Perdition.

Re: Actors who never played the villain/never played the hero
 

Yes. that s been pointed out but I surmise these actors wanted to take one part to challenge themselves and break out of type Mostly they played good guys. . I m not a student of old Hollywood but I know earlier stars tended to be typecast, so maybe there s some older stars who never broke type.

I still can t remember John Wayne being a bad guy, tho , can you? And I cannot imagine Doris Day being anything but a sweetie. Or Vincent Price or Victor Buono being anything but menacing. And hey, surely Dick Van Dyke has always been a nice guy (except in an episode of Columbo but I say it doesn't t count b/c it s tv.- right?) What about John Candy or for that matter Richard Pryor or Gene Wilder- are comics always basically good eggs?

he wasn t the villain in django unchained...

As mentioned above, his character in What Lies Beneath was no hero.

Re: Actors who never played the villain/never played the hero
 

While they're still horror movies, Vincent has played sympathetic characters sometimes. For instance there's The Fly and The Last Man On Earth.

How about Mosquito Coast? I read the movie flopped because viewers couldnt cope with him not being the hero so his minders went back for the vanilla roles (I have no idea if this is true - cant remember any talk of this bck then)

I remember really liking that movie! Yet, it's been so long, I can't remember anything about it - not even the plot! (Time for a rewatch.)

I cant remember if he gets malaria and goes troppo or he was always a megalomaniac and it only got released when he was away from civilisation and pushing his weight around as a missionary. I have it to watch here now.

The Lady Killers. That Thing you do, kinda unlikable.