When an actor becomes a big enough star, they can get pigeonholed by a type. Liam Neeson has been stuck playing revenge-seeking action heroes since the unexpected success of Taken. Jennifer Aniston has been playing Rachel Greene-esque romcom leads throughout her whole career, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would never dare to play an unlikeable role.
Getting typecast can prevent actors from exploring other genres and roles. However, that doesn't mean it's impossible. Several actors have had the opportunity to break away from that type and surprise audiences with a radically different kind of character. After all, Tom Cruise did this in Collateral when he played a cold-hearted hitman, and he's certainly not the only one who pushed themselves.
10 Tom Cruise In Collateral (2004)
Tom Cruise had made a career out of playing clear-cut heroes in action movies like Mission: Impossible and Top Gun. However, he ended up surprising everyone by taking on the role of a callous contract killer alongside Jamie Foxx’s flustered cabbie in Collateral.
Cruise also played against type a couple of years later in Ben Stiller’s Hollywood satire Tropic Thunder, in which he plays the ruthless, balding, foul-mouthed, giant-handed studio executive Les Grossman.
9 Robin Williams In One Hour Photo (2002)
Due to his background in standup, Robin Williams’ first roles were in comedies. However, he ended up proving himself as a dramatic actor in movies like Good Will Hunting and Dead Poets Society.
Until 2002, Williams’ dramatic roles had a healthy dose of warmth. However, this soon changed when ended up taking the role of a serial killer in Christopher Nolan’s English-language remake of Insomnia and an obsessive stalker in Mark Romanek’s One Hour Photo.
8 Albert Brooks In Drive (2011)
With directorial efforts like Real Life and Lost in America, Albert Brooks created a neurotic comedic style that led to him become a notorious name in Hollywood. He brought his warm comic persona to a wider audience in Pixar’s Finding Nemo.
However, Brooks did a complete 180-degree turn on this on-screen persona when he was cast to play a sadistic crime boss in Nicolas Winding Refn’s slick neo-noir Drive.
7 Wesley Snipes In To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, and John Leguizamo changed everyone’s perceptions of them when they became drag queens in the road trip comedy To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.
After Snipes had made a name for himself throughout the early ‘90s as an action hero in movies like Passenger 57 and Demolition Man, the movie marked a radical departure from his usual type. The movie also showed that manhood isn't inherently tied to constant displays of force and brutality, offering a new type of positive masculinity by beautifully embodying the art of drag.
6 Vince Vaughn In Brawl In Cell Block 99 (2017)
Throughout the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, Vince Vaughn became one of the biggest comedy movie stars in the world, rounding out a laidback on-screen persona with likable turns in raunchy hits, such as Swingers, Old School, and Wedding Crashers.
However, he, too, ended up breaking out of the type in 2017. In S. Craig Zahler’s ultraviolent neo-noir actioner Brawl in Cell Block 99, Vaughn plays a tough-as-nails convict who’s forced to beat and gouge his way through an underground prison to save the life of his unborn child.
5 Heath Ledger In The Dark Knight (2008)
Much like when Michael Keaton was cast as Batman, there were a ton of complaints from fans when Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, because the character was a major departure from his usual type.
Where Keaton was, primarily, a comedic actor before being cast as Bruce Wayne, Ledger was a beloved teen heartthrob before playing the Clown Prince of Crime. Taking influence from Sid Vicious and Alex DeLarge, Ledger gave an unforgettable performance in The Dark Knight that earned him a posthumous Oscar.
4 Denzel Washington In Training Day (2001)
Denzel Washington had made a career out of playing heroes like fictional journalist Gray Grantham and real-life civil rights leader Malcolm X. However, Washington decided to accept the challenge of playing a villain in the police thriller Training Day.
Washington won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his turn in Training Day. He plays the crooked Detective Alonzo Harris, who takes rookie Ethan Hawke out on his first day and introduces him to the widespread corruption in the LAPD.
3 Samuel L. Jackson In Unbreakable (2000)
After his Oscar-nominated performance as a confident hitman in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Samuel L. Jackson was often given a bunch of roles that saw him play gangsters and mobsters.
However, in M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable, Jackson played against type as a comic book nerd, who was obsessed with finding the next superhero. He would later reprise this role in 2019.
2 Charlize Theron In Monster (2003)
Long before she directed Gal Gadot in the Wonder Woman movies, Patty Jenkins created a very different kind of female icon in Monster, her biopic of serial killer Aileen Wuornos.
Charlize Theron, one of the film’s producers, underwent a massive physical transformation to star in Monster. She went to darker places than ever before in capturing Wuornos’ curious personality and ended up winning an Oscar for it.
1 Henry Fonda In Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)
Henry Fonda made a name for himself playing straight-laced, clear-cut heroes. Sergio Leone made a creative decision to cast him against type in his spaghetti western epic Once Upon a Time in the West. Far from the heroes he usually plays, his Once Upon a Time character is a gunslinging sociopath who had no moral compass.
When Leone was pitching the movie, he said, “Picture this: the camera shows a gunman from the waist down pulling his gun and shooting a running child. The camera tilts up to the gunman’s face and... it’s Henry Fonda.”
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