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  1. Entertainment
  2. Movies

50 Most Specific Examples Of Movie Typecasting

Features
By George Wales published 27 July 2012

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Glenn Morshower

The Typecasting: Inscrutable government lackey. Can broadly be described as "shadowy".

Examples: 24, Alias, The X Files, Transformers, The Crazies, The Men Who Stare At Goats, CSI, Good Night And Good Luck

Strangest Specific Detail: In any one film, Morshower will deliver at least fifty per cent of his dialogue while touching an official-looking earpiece.

Tom Cruise

The Typecasting: The cocky show-off who eventually learns to dampen his ego for the sake of true love.

Examples:
Top Gun, Jerry Maguire, Days Of Thunder, Vanilla Sky

Strangest Specific Detail: Their lives always seem pretty sorted before the personality change. Why try harder?

Jon Favreau

The Typecasting: Bumbling, good-natured, everyman buddy to a Marvel superhero.

Examples:
Daredevil, Iron Man, Iron Man 2

Strangest Specific Detail: Said buddy must have a ludicrously daft moniker. Foggy, meet Happy Hogan.

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Mary Steenburgen

The Typecasting: The irritable beau of a time travelling lothario.

Examples:
Time After Time, Back To The Future Part 3

Strangest Specific Detail: When both characters discover their respective boyfriends are time travellers, they react in the exact same way, pitching a fit before eventually coming around to the notion. You could be watching the same film...

Cameron Bright

The Typecasting: A mutant child whose blood can be synthesised into a "cure" for superpowers, provoking much fighting.

Examples: X-Men: The Last Stand, Ultraviolet

Strangest Specific Detail:
Both those two films came out in 2006. He played the exact same character / plot device in both, in the same year?

William Atherton

The Typecasting: Mildly irritating jobsworth whose raison d'etre is to make the hero's life that much harder.

Examples:
Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Ghostbusters

Strangest Specific Detail: The character is a secondary sort-of-villain that threatens to delay or divert proceedings, but never really gets much further than that. Window dressing for the hero to rail against, basically.

Will Ferrell

The Typecasting: Self-aggrandising, egomaniac celebrity.

Examples:
Anchorman, Blades Of Glory, Semi-Pro, Talladega Nights, The Campaign

Strangest Specific Detail:
Ferrell's hype-believing loons are always famous within fairly obscure spheres. No movie stars or pop singers here. It's ice-skating and news-reading all the way.

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Olga Kurylenko

The Typecasting: A gorgeous Soviet temptress whose sexual advances are rebuffed by videogame characters.

Examples:
Hitman, Max Payne

Strangest Specific Detail: It would be merely coincidence were Kurylenko just to crop up in two videogame adaptations, but having her knocked back twice? That's strange.

Kelsey Grammer

The Typecasting: An urbane, preening intellectual, who likes nothing better than the sound of his own voice.

Examples: Wings, Cheers, Frasier, The Simpsons, X-Men: The Last Stand

Strangest Specific Detail: Not only is Grammer typecast, he's typecast as one very specific character: Dr. Frasier Crane!

Alan Arkin

The Typecasting: Gruff but sage grandfather, fond of dispensing life lessons to his dysfunctional grandchildren.

Examples: Little Miss Sunshine, Sunshine Cleaning

Strangest Specific Detail: Take your pick from the titular recurrence of the word "sunshine", the fact that both characters live in Albuquerque, or the prominence of a grubby old van in the characters' respective grandchildren's lives.

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George Wales
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George was once GamesRadar's resident movie news person, based out of London. He understands that all men must die, but he'd rather not think about it. But now he's working at Stylist Magazine.

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