Playing Against Type/Film/Film Acting: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]] in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
* ''[[The Good Girl]]'' features [[Jennifer Aniston]] soon after ''[[Friends]]'', taking the lead role as a young woman trapped in a dreary, depressing life in a small Texas town. Her attempts to escape the crushing tedium result in terrible consequences with which she must live. Critics refer to it as Aniston's finest hour.
* In ''[[A Few Good Men]]'', doing this revived Kevin Bacon's career.
* Macaulay Culkin was ''so'' sick of being associated with [[Home Alone|Kevin]] and that goddamn cheek-slapping "AAAUGH!!!" that he decided to play a psychopathic boy who murdered his brother, [[Kick the Dog|shoots a dog for no reason]], and tries to murder his cousin in ''[[The Good Son]]''.
** It didn't quite work. As an adult he played a [[Hollywood Atheist]] in ''[[Saved]]'' as well as Michael Alig, the controversial Club Kids founder who was ''convicted of murder'' in ''Party Monster''
* While Christopher Lloyd is known for playing villains, he also plays Dr. Emmett Brown from the ''[[Back to the Future]]'' movies, a scientist who while can be considered crazy is one of the heroes of the films.
* This is a plot point in ''S.O.B.'', in which an actress with a sugary-sweet reputation is asked to show her breasts in a soft-core film. The best part? The actress was played by [[Julie Andrews]], whose actual film career had suffered after the one-two punch of ''[[Mary Poppins]]'' and ''[[The Sound of Music]]'' typecast her. This was one of several films her husband Blake Edwards directed her in that broke her out of this mold in various ways. (Others included ''10'' and ''[[Victor Victoria]]''.)
** A different example of this is in the live-action Eloise movies, where she plays Nanny, a [[Badly-Battered Babysitter|high-strung]] and over tired old woman who can't sing or dance. Rather a change from [[The Sound of Music|Maria]] and [[Mary Poppins]].
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* Compare [[Allison Janney]]'s role as the press secretary on ''[[The West Wing]]'' with her role as a nail stylist in ''[[Juno]]''. It makes it about 20 times funnier. ''[[The West Wing]]'' would probably be the time she's playing against type, as she's been in many comedies like ''[[Drop Dead Gorgeous (film)|Drop Dead Gorgeous]]'' and ''Private Parts''.
* [[Seth Rogen]] got known playing wise-cracking characters who are often stoners. In ''[[Donnie Darko]]'', however, he plays the school bully (though this was before his type was established), and in ''[[Observe and Report]]'' he plays a darkly unbalanced, bi-polar security guard. He is also ''[[The Green Hornet (film)|The Green Hornet]]''.
** And in ''[[Pineapple Express]]'', while Rogen still plays a stoner, [[James Franco]] winds up as a bigger stoner than him.
* Pretty much the career of Anthony Perkins. Prior to ''[[Psycho]]'' he was known for playing sensitive young men and was an almost teen idol. After ''Psycho'', him ''not'' playing a creepy psychopath was considered him playing against type.
** Like a nerdy scientist in Disney's ''[[The Black Hole]]''. He gets eviscerated in a surprisingly horrific scene.
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* [[Tom Cruise]] has a fairly tight niche playing powerful, self-confident men with varying levels of [[Jerkass]]. He surprised some audiences by playing a straight villain in ''[[Collateral]]'', though he had already played a villain in ''[[Interview with the Vampire]]''. Cruise's role as the fat villain Les Grossman in ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'' also surprised people, as it was a rare venture into comedy. Also, there's his role in ''[[Magnolia]]'', which, depending how you see him, could be seen as a form of [[Adam Westing]].
* ''Precious'', based on the novel ''[[Push (novel)|Push]]'', has Mo'Nique as the title character's abusive mother, which is very much against type for her. She's usually a [[Sassy Black Woman]] in comedies.
** Mariah Carey also plays against type in the film. See [http://socialitelife.celebuzz.com/bfm_gallery/2009/09/mariah_carey_precious_screening_toronto/gallery_main/gallery_main-mariah-carey-precious-screening-toronto-00.jpg the glamorous diva]{{Dead link}} play an ''unglamorous'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20120308052522/http://www.hollywoodbackwash.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/mariah-carey-precious.jpg social worker].
* The thriller ''[[The Watcher (film)|The Watcher]]'' criss-crossed actor types by casting James Spader as the cop and [[Keanu Reeves]] as the serial killer. In the same year, Reeves also played an abusive redneck boyfriend in ''[[The Gift]]''. Spader has played a number of sympathetic characters, though he was known for his creep roles at the time.
** Spader also had this back in 1990 when ''Bad Influence'' cast the normally (even then) [[Jerkass]] Spader as a nice guy and Rob Lowe (!) as the villain.
* Andy Griffith, best known as either kindly small-town sheriff [[The Andy Griffith Show|Andy Taylor]] or no-nonsense defense attorney [[Matlock|Ben Matlock]], got his first big acting break as Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, a superficially charming con man drunk with power in Elia Kazan's ''[[A Face in the Crowd]]''. Griffith became so engrossed in the role that he started incorporating his character's mannerisms into his everyday life, and became so disgusted with himself that he refused to play villains ever again. He broke this streak in the late 1980s, playing a heartless judge who sentences an adolescent girl to hard time in federal prison in a TV movie made at the height of his ''Matlock'' fame.
* ''[[Southland Tales]]'' features a few intentional invocations of the trope. Schlubby comic Jon Lovitz plays a murderous corrupt cop. Comedienne Cheri Oteri plays an anarchist.
** He also played a pretty sleazy money launderer in ''[[3000 Miles to Graceland|Three Thousand Miles to Graceland]]''.
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* When the first ''[[Tremors]]'' movie was beginning production, the studio was pushing for Michael Gross as Burt Gummer. Gross was then coming off the successful ''[[Family Ties]]'' (where he played Steven Keaton, an ex-flower child and the calm patriarch) and the studio was hoping his fame would be an asset. Of course, Burt was characterized as a conspiracy theorist with an itchy trigger finger. Casting was hesitant to say the least, but Gross wowed them at the audition (and he wound up being the only actor to be in every part of the ensuing franchise).
* [[Chris Evans]] is best known for playing characters who are smart alecs and/or pretty boys such as [[Fantastic Four (film)|Johnny Storm]]. So it came as quite a shock to see him play the serious, strait-laced [[Captain America (comics)]] in ''[[Captain America: The First Avenger]]'' and ''[[The Avengers (film)|The Avengers]]''. Surprisingly, he made it work.
* British actor [[John Hurt]] is known for playing Winston Smith in the film version of ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''. He also played fascist leader and main antagonist Adam Sutler in 2005's ''[[V for Vendetta]]''. That's about as "against the type" as you can get.
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