What are some actors that can only play themselves?
4d 15h ago by lemmy.zip/u/Maven in asklemmy
Jeff Goldblum
This is one of the few that's correct but also completely fine, IMO.
The Rock
hes too lazy to act in anything else. he just wants to be a movie star. bautista and cena is trying to become an actor. apparently DWAYNE behind the scences thats his contracts and it rubbed people the wrong way.
I honestly really enjoy cena in the stuff he’s in
Peacemaker had no right to be as good as it was.
Cena's been surprisingly skilled. From psych to peacemaker he's been bringing it.
one of his first roles was in psych, he played the part. but he probably got better since then.
yeah what I have seen has been fun.
His hands are hilariously huge. I watched that forest firefighter movie he was in and laughed every time he used a cellphone.
He was great in Pluribus
"I dislike that you enjoy someone else's work" - Somebody else on Lemmy
Everyone sleeping on Vacation Friends. A fun movie
... who's contract? You just mentioned 3 people.
Less than a year ago, he starred in a Safdie-directed, A24-produced biopic which earned him a couple of acting award noms, including a Golden Globe. Granted, it was the biggest flop of his career (so far), but from what I understand his acting chops were not the movie's problem.
Counterexample:
Pain & Gain
I feel like he was himself but dumber in that movie lol
Yeah, but he took steroids in that movie, and The Rock says he is natty 🤡
I have a love hate relationship with that movie for an interesting reason (IMO). There is not a sympathetic or likeable character in the whole thing.
The only person who isnt actively dislikeable is Ed Harris and he barely qualifies as a character.
I liked Rebel Wilson's character.
Sean Connery is not an actor, he's a movie star.
Yesh, I am a British shecret agent. Bond, Jamesh Bond.
Yesh, I am a Shoviet Shubmarine captain. my name is Ramiush. Marco Ramiush.
I mustache you a question but I'm shaving it for later
I'm not shpanish i'm egyptian
Don't forget Zardoc!
One of my favorite fan theory's is that Sean was 007 left to rot by MI6 in The Rock.
Jamesh Bond sounds like a bollywood version. Would watch
How do we even tell between actors that only get casted for one type of role, actors who only apply for one type of role, and actors who just can't play anything else well?
Thats kinda hard to say tbh...
I think Adam Sandler is a good example of an actor who CAN play more than one role (Uncut Gems as an example) but mostly only does movies that are all the same role.
Yeah, that's the other-side-of-the-coin of your question but much more interesting. For instance, there's a list of examples on the wiki page for typecast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typecasting#Playing_against_type
Sandler does whatever he likes and has turned moviemaking into a system to finance people in need and even though i think his movies are dogshit i respect the hell outta him for that
I read an interview where he was talking about giving all his friends jobs and getting paid to travel and make movies with them and it made me like him as a person quite a bit.
Still not a fan of his movies but I can't fault his logic.
He's also known for hiring people so they can keep their SAG insurance (especially a key grip or similar who was dying of cancer) and ...well, read up on the jack and jill escape theory
Everyone pisses on Sandler, but he's got range and variety in his roles. Studios pay him to be silly so he can take chances on other roles.
When you see them as themselves, then you know.
Tom cruise for example, he isn't any superhero at all but he always wants to play that role (and probably always wanted ever since he was that kid who was always much smaller than the others).
But Tom Cruise does have some range as well.
People hate on him but he hasn't been an A-list celebrity since he was 18 because he's talentless.
Not even a fan of his but he's got some chops when he can use it.
And he absolutely CAN act! As soon as you hide his "Tom Cruise"-ness behind enough makeup or preferably a mask he can let loose of his "must be that specific cool guy"-syndrome and becomes a decent actor.
But when it's his own face, he has 3 expressions and MUST be that specific cool guy.
casted
cast
This is why I'm hesitant to say Adam Baldwin. He's always the same basic character, but I think there are enough subtle differences between them to not count.
Jack Black.
I didn't know, he did a really good job as playing a teenage girl in Jumanji.
And as a nervous high school student in Northern Exposure. Or in high fidelity.
I think his problem is that overwhelmingly people cast him because they want the bombastic hairball. It's not lack of skill, it's typecasting
Jack Black is a teenage girl IRL
No, he was a different guy in "the big year" and also different in that movie where he's a funeral home director or something? He was southern? Based on a true story I think?
Also a gunsmith in the jackal.
Owen "Wow" Wilson
First one who came to my mind. Not sure Luke Wilson is very much better.
Against type in the big year imo
The rock "the rock" the rock johnson
But you must admit that he's hilarious at it.
His whole deal was pretty funny for a few weeks in the early 2000s.
He used to do this eyebrow thing that killed it back in the second week of March, 2001.
Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?!
Not even a little
Christopher Walken. The exception would be maybe Sleepy Hollow, but only because he didn't have any lines.
Watch Severance. He's a very different Christopher Walken.
Thats the same Christopher Walken as in Catch Me if you Can. Maybe Seven Psychopaths?
Watch "Deer Hunter". Young Christopher Walken will blow you away.
He did a good job with the (admittedly small) part of the emperor in Dune.
Seth Rogan. Worst Donkey Kong possible.
hyukhyuhkyuhk
Is it? I mean who even would be a good donkey kong?
Ryan Reynolds. There were some other movies but once he was in Deadpool, I feel like his whole personality was sarcastic mean funny guy
He was him even back in Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place.
And waiting
He was already kind of heading that way before Deadpool. I rewatched Buried and he was still doing that, just with less references so he didn't sound like Gex.
Waiting (2005) was him as himself as a waiter
he was in wolverine the 2009 one as wade. hes pretty much the same thing as in deadpool just slighty less loudmouth. he did play that wierd schizophrenic character in the one movie that nobody remembers.
The Voices. And that movie is fantastic.
It is, but he's still him, just with more mental health issues.
Van Wilder?
He did a weird indie film called "The Nines" he can turn the chops on when he wants to. I find it hard to criticise those people because "Hey, want to earn millions of dollars doing this the easy way? Or you can go do some passion projects to prove a point and make less." Is a damn awkward spot to be in.
Im sure we all like to think we would take the route of Sandler doing Uncut Gems, I love to think that was him just telling his haters to go fuck themselves. "Just because I dont, doesnt mean I cant"
Has Steve Buscemi ever not been Steve Buscemi? Even as a hitman, he's Steve Buscemi.
Watch The Death of Stalin and then Fargo and then The Big Lebowski. Dude has range.
Fargo was the hitman role I was thinking of!
Oh, he absolutely has range! But, he's like a guitar, it's great and has all sorts of range but it's never going to be a piano.
Like, in Fargo I see him as Buscemi with nervousness lower authority high. As Donny, nervousness high, authority low. In Russia, nervousness high, authority high.
ya know, just kinda funny lookin’
nobody mentioned, but Chris pratt, originally he was being casted in EVERYTHING. after parks and recs he has no range, hes just a sad moody pos irl too, supporting a alt-right church, and his sudden switch to evangelicalism. anne farris in an interview said he changed to a gymbo the moment he got buff for marvel/JP movies.
The past participle of "cast" is "cast".
Whomstedestesteries'
What about actors who can't play themselves like Peter Sellers.
I see your Peter Sellers and I raise with Gary Oldman.
I feel like nowadays Jackson Lamb is probably pretty close
I love that show because of him. If greasy competence had a patron saint, it would be Lamb. If he could be arsed to take the job.
The writers on Slow Horses aren't too shabby either, but the delivery, man. Remember the "call this number" scene? I was in stitches.
I think Sellers said that Chauncey Gardiner was the closest he ever came to being himself.
Ryan Reynolds.
Will Ferrell. Adam Sandler. Kevin James.
Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems and Will Farrell in Everything Must Go+Stranger Than Fiction were different performances than their usual and really well acted.
Kevin James... I don't think I've yet to see him in any different role
Nope. Definitely absolutely nope. Maybe.
Dont really like WF but he has branched and has chops
Jennifer Coolidge, and I love her for it.
Kevin Hart.
He's not an actor. He just wanders onto movie sets and they record him being himself.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Go watch Maggie.
I scrolled through the entire thread down and back up, it's a bit of a shock that John Wayne was not mentioned even once... until now.
"Howdy, partner, I'm Genghis Khan."
I think that’s because he’s essentially irrelevant in pop culture these days
Tom Cruise
Tropic Thunder is an exception
What a show that was. Even the dance at the end... too funny.
Eva Green's range includes smoking fags or not and getting up to sexual misadventures or not
Ricky Gervais is only ever Ricky Gervais
Eva Green
Sexual misadventures
Yeah I'm okay with this
of course. it works
Don’t forget the propensity for violence before/during/after said sexual misadventures and doing it all while goth coded. She’s made of a career of characters you can “fix” but also want to ruin your life.
TIL I need to watch more movies Eva Green has been in
i'd start with womb (2010) if i were you
the first two are 300 and dark shadows but don't recognise the third. penny dreadful maybe?
Was there a sequel to 300 I'm not aware of or do I just not remember that movie at all?
yeah i was just being lazy it's 300: rise of an empire from 2014
A two-part French remake of The Three Musketeers that came out a couple of years ago. Never got a wide release in the States but if you’re a fan of the story and period pieces it’s one of the best interpretations IMO.
cheers. if i'm a fan of cigarettes and smut what's the expected return?
I don’t recall any smoking. Not nearly as crazy violent as 300 (are we fighting, fucking, or both) and not nearly as crazy ex-gf who spent the last few hundred years plotting her revenge as she was in Dark Shadows. I’d put it squarely in an average outing with Eva- capable woman stuck in a period/system that doesn’t actually appreciate her capability even if it can’t deny it, she’s aware she’s smart and attractive and uses that to her advantage as she can, but she’s also more broken inside than she lets on.
This has made me realize it would be hilarious to watch her invert her typical characters and be the small town girl who moved the the big city where she got overworked and broken hearted only to come home for a Hallmark Christmas and find she always had what she needed waiting for her in a flannel clad handyman with a beat-up pick-up truck and slice of pie at the diner. The twist ending is that she’s actually nuts and this was all a ruse to burn her town to the ground.
i sincerely hope this is read by someone who can grant you your wish
Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas II: Home for the Holidays
It’s not like he’s do anything better, or anything other than sequels these days.
thy will be done
TIM PAY ATTENTION
thy sequel come
BURTON PULL YOUR FINGER OUT
on release as it is on video
Steven Seagal
OP's question was about actors though
He's become a walrus with a ponytail
I'm pretty sure he's sometimes a cop now too. I heard of someone getting pulled over by him a while back.
Michael Cera
Richard Ayoade, his entire role in IT crowd was just him being him in whatever scenario he's in.
Not true, he didn't use his real voice in that role
His real voice is actually a deep, Barry White-like baritone
Its boring too
For the most part, Jason Momoa
that is true, he was the same person in SGA atlantis, in aquaman(atlantis), dune, and GOT. he was more entertaining when he started out in SGA.
He did do something different for the minecraft movie though.
Aziz Ansari
Fining out Joe Pesci plays Joe Pesci in real life because he was originally a tough guy, not the usual NY Juliard alumni, made his movies pretty annoying for me. Highlight: him hosting SNL and threatening to smack Sinead O'Connor for her anti-pope statement made that obvious
Sucks that it's too late to stop quoting My Cousin Vinny
He seems like a try hard to me, someone who couldnt be - so just pretends
SEEMS PEOPLE who went to "mit version of music and theather" sure love to be boastful about going there. glenn is another juliard alumini, but i think he only fits in as an ISAIP comedy actor, and almost anything else he doesnt have range outside of that.(i remember mac is the one whos been wierdly promoting his juilard education as if it makes him a good actor). i think the school made him too rigid.
Glenn was good in Blackberry but it wasnt a million miles from home.
Tbh I love IASIP but with the exception of Charlie Day they all seem a bit egotistical and one note.
Charlie is a good VA and seems down to earth for the most part. Mac has a high opinion of himself and Gleen seems like he cant get past not being bigger. Kaitlyn is samey across things, IASIP, The Mick and High Potential.
The show is huge, they should be proud but I get the impression they love the success, hate having to keep doing it but know there isnt much more for them.
It sucks IASIP is groundbreaking but they are overly hollywood now for the show to be as good. Looking forward to thebnew season, hope to be proved wrong.
yea charlie is the best actor outside of them, besides danny devito. kinda like how supernatural went on too long, and jensen is trying to seperate himself from the "DEAN", thats why he had all this drama with jared, misha. hollywood might not be interested in thier "type of looks, despite thier large amounts of plastic surgeries and botox" plus the type of comedy they do probably rubs the "traditional hollywood peeps" the wrong way. isaip was big early pre-12, but after 13 it kinda became cringey, as they got older and cant relate anymore to younger age groups.
The cast looks bad for sure Mac has become a try hard, changing his name apeing Ryan Reynolds. Glenn is strange looking though some of that is makeup and filming style of the show. Kaitlyn is weird, they all say she is the besr actress but I cant see her in a serious role, a romantic role, a horrer. Literally nothing except one of the guys girl.
Charlie should have gone farther, the movie knocked him hard when he should have kept pushing.
Keanu.
The Roc
Kevin bacon
Nick cage.
Ted Dansen.
The Roc shouldn't be on your list. The Roc has massive range. Mostly due to their enormous wings.
The Roc sounds terrifying.
Nic cage is versatile, he is just unique. I actually think he is in a lane similar to hugo weaving or willem dafoe.
i think some on those list are decent or good at least in that role, but some people who are stuck in thier role seems to be terrible too.
Tom Cruise
Disagree.
E.g. Eyes wide shut vs Minority report?
I hate that I love his work.
Name another A lister that regularly takes high concept standalone Sci-Fi roles and crushes them.
John Malkovich, unless you're John Cusack.
Danny Trejo
Isn’t that intentional though?
He specifically requests to be a bad guy and to lose in the end because of his experience with crime and prison in his youth and wanting to be an example of crime not winning.
Rob Zombie’s Halloween. Instead of grizzled badass he’s the kindly janitor that still gets brutally murdered by Michael. He’s still playing a version of Danny Trejo, the director just reframed how the audience viewed him.
Spy Kids
Jason Statham, Gwneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston.
Samuel L. Jackson is the first name to pop into my head upon reading the thread title.
Jennifer Lopez.
I'm not sure if it's himself but John Spencer had an oddly specific career type cast as "guy who is smarter than the people around him and is totally exasperated with having to deal with their nonsense."
From WarGames to The Rock to The West Wing, he's that guy. So consistent.
Fred Rogers.
I recently learned that they made an official youtube channel where they plan to keep a rotating 10 full episodes of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood up at all times.
https://www.youtube.com/@MisterRogersNeighborhood/videos
Right now it still has the very first episode up. Interesting to see how little the 'formula' has changed over the years.
Agreed! He should have kept to the genre he was most famous for: action movies from Cannon films
Untrue. Mister Rogers, Daniel Tiger, Henrietta Pussycat, X the Owl, King Friday XIII, and Lady Elaine Fairchild were all pretty distinct characters from one another.
Marc Alaimo, because he is every bit as creepy as his character Gul Dukat.
I get he had to buy into dukat "being the hero" to portray that in his works but it's been nearly three decades, dude drank the koolaid
Lightning McQueen
;-)
Will Smith
Nah, Will does have range. Theres alot of reasons he is terrible but thats not one of them.
Timothy Dalton, but he’s T Dalt, so spread it on.
Robert de Niro
Johnny Sins
I'm not sure Jack Nicholson can only play themselves but he does seem to get cast as the unhinged character quite a lot.
Nicholas cage
Idk. Watch The Weather Man, Lord of War and Spider-Noir, all wildly different performances. I'm no stan but Nic has range.
Edit: Although I do agree he hasn't historically used it. I think related to money trouble and having to do a lot of ridiculous mostly trash movies.
Raising Arizona is another good example.
Leaving Las Vegas and Adaptation. He's just absolute shit as a "cool guy". He's great at being a dork playing a cool guy.
Moonstruck worked, strangely. It’s a movie that’s more like a theatre production.
> Son, you got a panty on your head. absolutely not. this guy has range as hell
I was about to say that ironically.
Truth is you couldn't be further from it. But it's a little magical to pretend and hope that, yes, Nick Cage is irl all of that.
You NEED to watch "Pig"
It's great, but it's also the least Nic Cage role being played perfectly by Nic Cage.
David Duchovny.
John Wayne.
Keanu Reeves.
I was all the great robot actors. Actingbot 0.8! Thesb-O-mat! David Duchovny!
disagree about keanu reeves. have you seen a scanner darkly?
I feel like The Conqueror (1956) is infamous for being a movie where Wayne does not play a character like himself.
ISAIP cast, besides danny devito. they can never get out of being that isaip characther, hence thier ability to branch out of that show is nill, yes they did have other shows but they do anything remarkable different from what they did with isaip. mac saying glenn is from juilhart doesnt make him a good actor.
gal gadot, terrible acttress, i suspect shes only where she is at because they need to have IDF/zionist cheerleader in hollywood.
Its Sunny always in Philadelphia
Nah. Charlie Day can bring it
Kevin hart
this woman from new girl. Ryan Reynolds
Zoey Deschanel was different to herself (or her manic pixie dream girl character at least) in Elf.
Keanu Reeves
H Jon Benjamin
George Clooney
Never watched Syriana?
ITT Technical Institute? The place where you can learn anything and be successful for cheap no scam??
Gary Busey
Pedro pascal
Anthony Hopkins. I love him, but he's always Anthony Hopkins
I stand corrected. I was only thinking about dramas where hes plays basically the same old man character. Thats a casting thing, not a hopkins thing.
I’m sorry but that’s absolutely not true
Dafuq.
Go watch thor and then westworld
Even in "Meet Joe Black"?
I can't believe no one has said Michael Caine yet.
Nobody has said it yet because that's absolute nonsense.
I get what you're saying, there's an enigmatic quality about his characters, but watch some of his older movies then watch him as Austin Power's father - he can play different, he's just played a similar character a lot.
Please watch Children of Men. There are many reasons to watch (it's one of my fav movies), but Caine's portrayal of Jasper is memorable, and completely different to anything else I've seen him do.
Cider house rules, kingsmen, dirty rotten scoundrels. That is your homework.
If you think he is the same man in all three....