Actors Playing Recurring Roles

John Cusack always seems to play the exact same character, who I happen to love so all is well

Chow Yun Fat usually plays a bad ass with a gun who has a soft side, particularly when it comes to male bonding.

As for reoccuring roles... Chevy Chase played Irwin Fletcher in two movies... I love that suave dressing character

HA! Characters actors are not the ones who get typecasted. Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C Reilly, Philip Baker Hall, William H Macy are the pinnacle of character actors. And they've never, well rarely ever, played the same character twice.

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I'm not saying these characters play the exact same characters every film. Look at Tom Sizemore. Three war films (Pearl Harbor, Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down). I would put his name on this thread, even if he was in a romantic comedy or played another role. No actor plays the same character in absolutely every film (except maybe Brosnan )

Oh...but I just love 7th Heaven! I think you're missing the point. Bigval was saying that Julia Roberts did something special in Erin Brockovitch, just because she dawned revealing clothes and had a potty mouth "They're called boobs, Ed." I'm saying that she has done it before, she wore naughty clothes and cussed a few times in Pretty Woman, too. Big whoppin' deal.
She never changes. You take Julia out of the roles she plays...and you've got nothin. It's all Julia, just with a different set, different leading men, and a different plot. You take Kevin Spacey out Lester Burnham...and guess what? You still have Lester Burnham. Get it?

They have, only I think they didn't appear as Jay and Silent Bob. I can't think of the movie they were in, but I do remember it was a non-view askew production. They had a cameo.

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

Schwarzenegger always plays the same roles. Pissed off action dude. In my opinion his career is over.

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The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath.

Say that a year and a half from now, when Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is released.

Alright alright...we'll see

I completely agree with whoever mentioned Meg Ryan.

Im soooooo sick and tired of seeing Meg Ryan, an obviously somewhat attractive lady, in a cute way, ALWAYS playing the roll, of some lovesick middleage woman, whos struggle to find the "right man". Her looks alone defy the basis of her character, and shows no reason why she isnt already married. it just drives me mad


another person who plays recurring roles is Sir Ian McKellen. Disregarding LoTR, he has played a LOT of skaespearean roles in his time, but when you have such an natural talent for what you do, its acceptable to have him play that role over and over again.

Strummer made me think of this thread with this post in the ‘What was the Last Movie you’ve seen’ thread. I thought it would be a great topic to try and resurrect.

After reading through the previous posts, I’m getting a little confused on the difference between a character actor and an actor whose being typecast. I think Bette Davis has done alot of similar roles...their was the good vulenrable Bette and the evil manipulating Bette...but I dunno...I never saw her as being typecast like Marjorie Main who usually payed a certain type of woman...but isn’t that what makes a good character actor?

Any thoughts?

In my opinion, the actors who play the exact same role in every film aren't character actors. The key word here is character, meaning that the man or woman inhabits each role in such a unique and creative way that you can almost forget about the actor and accept who them for who they are in the world of the film. To me it seems that people like Spacey are just playing exaggerated versions of themselves. These actors have a persona, which a character actor probably shouldn't have (though a leading man/woman probably needs it) and undermines the believability factor.

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"Like all dreamers, Steven mistook disenchantment for truth."

Mel Gibson not only plays the same character in virtually every film, almost everything he's in has exactly the same plot arc.

Yup, but there are plenty of good character actors who are typecast and they don't have the Hollywood clout to demand different roles...

Anyway...leaving out generic action heroes like Arnie and Chuck I've got:

Chow Yun-Fat - Hitman

Big Neeson - Tragic mentor

Michael Douglas - WASP in peril

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

"Character actor" is a distinction that has to do with how the character they're playing fits into the cast of characters in the story. The "lead" is the person who interacts with the others, who experiences the main events of the story and who changes the most, due to those interactions and events. A lead needs to be three-dimensional and relatable, for people to be drawn into their story.

The character actors play those characters with whom the lead interacts, and those characters usually are not as fully drawn, detailed, and relatable as the lead. The supporting characters need to be more immediately recogniseable, because they nearly always have less screen time than the lead characters, and we need to know who they are without delving into a lot of detail. A really good character actor can make a character who meets all those criteria, and also underlay that with some depth.

Typecasting is something that happens to actors, in relation to the sorts of roles they are considered for. It can happen to good actors and bad, and to lead actors and character actors. It simply means that the people making decisions on casting believe that the public has a strong concept of a certain actor, and they will only accept that actor when they fit the preconcieved concept. The more forward-thinking are willing to go counter to that, when actors have the ability to do something outside their established range. Those people have a special place in Heaven.

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