Typecasting/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: An actor seems to always play the same type of character.

  • Straight: Andy Bigstar always plays The Cape (trope) in his movies.
  • Exaggerated: Andy Bigstar always plays an incredibly specific variant of The Cape (trope) (red costume, blond hair, tragic origin story).
  • Justified: He does a good job at playing that role, and everyone's used to seeing him in those types of movies.
  • Inverted: Andy makes it a point to never play the same type of character twice.
  • Subverted: The trailer for a new movie comes out, featuring Andy as an Anti-Hero.
  • Double Subverted: But you can Never Trust a Trailer, and the movie turns out to play out like his other ones.
  • Parodied: Andy is typecast, but as a ridiculously broad role like "guy wearing a hat" or "businessman". He still complains about it though.
  • Deconstructed: Eventually, he gets tired of playing the same role all the time, which either leads him to quit entirely, or to try - and fail - to reinvent himself.
  • Reconstructed: He fails to reinvent himself, so he charges a higher rate in return for playing the typecast role.
  • Zig Zagged: So it seems like Andy is Playing Against Type, but the marketing for that movie was misleading. But in the sequel, his character really does become an Anti-Hero... But only temporally, on a strange case of Super Dickery. Then the third part rolls out, and he has turned into a Villain Protagonist... Or has he?!
  • Averted: He plays the same roles occasionally, but has some broadness as an actor.
  • Enforced: "That new superhero movie is about to start production. Who's playing the lead?" "Who else? Andy Bigstar!"
  • Lampshaded: During one of his many superhero movies, the Big Bad quips to Andy that "You Look Familiar".
  • Invoked: Meta Casting, Adam Westing
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied: Playing Against Type
  • Discussed: "Remember Andy Bigstar?" "Oh, the guy who's always playing the same goody-two-shoes?"
  • Conversed: ???

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