50 Most Specific Examples Of Movie Typecasting

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.

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.

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.