A few days ago I watched "The Devil Bat" and now I'm watching "The Ape Man" and..cuopled with the list last weeek about100 best actors, it had me wondering about the best actors who ended up being typecast or whatever to the point that they could never get roles fitting their talent.
Bela Lugosi being one obvious example...
Here are a few actors who deserve better roles than they get (or got):
* Eric Roberts - watch him in stuff like THE POPE OF GREENWICH VILLAGE, STAR 80, and RUNAWAY TRAIN and then try to figure out why he makes so many bad TV, cable, and direct-to-video movies.
* Ray Milland - from stuff like THE LOST WEEKEND and DIAL M FOR MURDER to stuff like THE THING WITH TWO HEADS and THE ATTIC.
* Rod Steiger - from stunning performances in movies like THE PAWNBROKER and IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT to a bunch of direct-to-video movies.
Here's two that come to my mind:
Peter Lorre. "M" kind of sealed his fate.
Anthony Perkins. If you don't know what he's best remebered for, I'm not gonna mention it... but it typecast him for the rest of his life.
Actors who got horribly typecasted:
-Christopher Lee as the dark, imposing evil villain
-Leonard Nimoy as anything that resembles Spock
-Viggo Mortensen as anything that resembles Aragorn
-Patrick Stewart, who's stuck playing Professor X and Captain Picard for all of eternity
-Lindsay Lohan, who always act in s**tty children movies instead of a good mature comedy
-all the kids from the Harry Potter movies, who can only get parts as the Harry Potter kids
-Woody Allen, who always plays the exact same character in movie he himself directs (because no one else will give him an acting job)
-Adam Sandler, who always plays a stupid nerd
-the MTV Movie Awards actors (Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Jamie Kennedy, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Jimmy Fallon, Cheri Oteri, Kal Penn and John Cho), that only get parts in s**tty comedies
-Kurt Russell, who's suck in wussy roles despite having played both Snake Plissken and Jack Burton
-The Rock and Vin Diesel, that only get parts in action movies (obviously to fill the void Schwarzenegger and Stallone left)
-Tobey Maguire, who's stuck being Spider-Man for all of eternity
-Anna Paquin, James Mardsen, Aaron Standford, Shawn Ashmore, Daniel Cudmoreand Kea Wong, who can only get roles playing the X-Men
-Morgan Freeman, who always plays the wise, old black man
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I am so completely looking forward to Sidney Lumet's 'Find Me Guilty', even if it ends up sucking.
Find Me Guilty should be a hoot. Who could imagine Sidney Lumet casting Vin when Joe Pesci couldn't do the part. I've seen pics from the movie and damned if Vin don't look like an Italian wise guy.
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This is exactly the type of part Vin should be playing, though. If you have seen his self-directed/written short 'Multi-facial' (done over a decade ago) you know what I'm talking about.