"Playing against type" is when an actor performs in a role or style different from the types of roles that they are known for. •
Christian Bale's role as
Patrick Bateman in
American Psycho (2000) was different from his earlier performances and he was warned against the film. Similarly, when he was offered the role of
Batman in
Christopher Nolan's
Batman Begins (2005), he was warned that he would be forever known as only Batman and would have trouble getting roles.
The Dark Knight trilogy turned out to be a blockbuster and Bale's performance was appreciated. Bale has since performed in a range of award-winning roles. •
Jackie Chan was originally known for playing heroic and
physically comedic roles in action and adventure films across over three decades. He was cast against type for a serious role as a Chinese immigrant opposite
Pierce Brosnan as a corrupted Irish politician in the 2017
thriller The Foreigner, for which Chan garnered critical acclaim. •
Sacha Baron Cohen was known for his creation and portrayal of the fictional satirical characters
Ali G,
Borat Sagdiyev,
Brüno Gehard, and
Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen, before portraying Israeli spy
Eli Cohen in the
Netflix miniseries
The Spy (2019). •
Bryan Cranston had played the immature, childish character
Hal on
Malcolm in the Middle. When
Vince Gilligan approached
AMC about his plan to cast Cranston as the morally dubious
Walter White in
Breaking Bad, the network was opposed to his casting in light of his previous comedic work. •
Tom Cruise was typically known for playing heroes before director
Michael Mann cast him as an amoral hitman in
Collateral (2004). Film critic
Roger Ebert argued that much of the principal cast in
Once Upon a Time in the West were cast against type: "Fonda is the bad guy for once in his career;
Charles Bronson is impressively inscrutable as the mysterious good guy; and
Jason Robards is a tough guy, believe it or not." •
Ice-T, who achieved fame as a
gangsta rap artist early in his career, garnered critical acclaim for his subsequent acting roles as police detectives in
New Jack City (1991) and
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. •
Gordon Jump, often typecast as milquetoast characters such as
Arthur Carlson on
WKRP in Cincinnati, took on the role of a child molester in the
very special episode "
The Bicycle Man" on ''
Diff'rent Strokes''. Jump considered the role "one of my most painful but rewarding parts," and the casting against type was noted as a standout moment in Jump's career. •
Michael Keaton had previously starred primarily in successful feel-good comedies before director
Tim Burton cast him as
Bruce Wayne / Batman in the dark action-drama
Batman (1989). •
Matthew McConaughey, who, after making several romantic comedies, sought other, more dramatic film roles. He appeared in a supporting role in
The Wolf of Wall Street and starred in
Interstellar and
Dallas Buyers Club, receiving critical acclaim in all three films and winning the
Academy Award for Best Actor for the latter. This change in the direction of his career has been dubbed the "McConaissance", and is considered a remarkable career turnaround. • Glenn Milstead performed mostly as a woman under his
drag queen persona,
Divine, performing mostly in the works of
John Waters. In 1985, he appeared in what would his be his only male role in
Trouble in Mind, a role written for him but against his usual drag type. A second male role in
Married... with Children was never filmed, as Milstead died after rehearsals but before taping. •
Leslie Nielsen had an established career as a dramatic actor since the 1950s before appearing in the successful comedy film
Airplane! (1980), specifically due to the
gravitas he was able to bring to the satire. This prompted a career reinvention that saw Nielsen go on to helm the
Police Squad! series and
The Naked Gun trilogy. •
George Peppard was typecast in "tough-guy" film roles following his portrayal of a young playboy and megalomaniacal tycoon in the 1964 film
The Carpetbaggers. His career as a traditional leading man had been fading at the time by 1983, when he accepted the lead role in the TV series
The A-Team, as the wisecracking, cigar-smoking head of a team of wanted commandos. Peppard stated he had wanted to transition into character actor roles but had never been given the opportunity until
The A-Team. •
Tyler Perry came to prominence for comedic roles but in the crime drama in
Gone Girl (2014) played a lawyer who specializes in defending men accused of killing their wives. •
Bob Saget began his career as a particularly vulgar stand-up comic. In the late 1980s, he was cast against type on television as the squeaky-clean Danny Tanner on
Full House, which led to him also hosting the
family-friendly ''
America's Funniest Home Videos''. Despite his new reputation as "America's Dad" from these roles, Saget maintained his vulgar stand-up routine for the rest of his life and played the contrast between the two types for laughs, which is credited with keeping his appeal fresh among the young adults (millennials) who watched him as children. •
Adam Sandler is best known for his comedy roles, in which he typically plays an "aggressive man-child" and an "extreme character surrounded by regular people." Director
Paul Thomas Anderson cast Sandler in a dramatic role in
Punch-Drunk Love (2002), as a man facing psychosis who goes "from understated sorrow to rage and back again." For his leading role in
Uncut Gems (2019), Sandler received critical acclaim, with some commentators calling it the best of his career. •
Gailard Sartain was typecast as a "country bumpkin" comic actor based on his work in the Ernest P. Worrell series and on
Hee Haw. He took on a villainous role based on real-life sheriff
Lawrence Rainey in
Mississippi Burning, a role that few actors were willing to take and one that Sartain reflected upon as a "turning point" in his career. • While
James Stewart was known for his "affable"
everyman roles, such as a businessman and father in ''
It's a Wonderful Life'', in
Alfred Hitchcock's
Vertigo (1958), he was cast against type as a "troubling or unsettling" character whose "mind unravels" until he attains a "cold, chilling air of sexual paranoia and control." •
John Wayne, known for playing heroic cowboys and lawmen, played antihero
Rooster Cogburn in
True Grit (1969). Wayne was cast against type several times in his career, including as
Genghis Khan in
The Conqueror (1956). •
Betty White, known for playing the sexually liberated
Sue Ann Nivens on
The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and
Rue McClanahan, who had been known for playing scatterbrained characters such as Vivian Harmon in
Maude and
Fran Crowley in ''
Mama's Family, were cast in opposite types in The Golden Girls'': White played the naïve
Rose Nylund, and McClanahan played sultry Southern belle
Blanche Devereaux. •
Robin Williams, a successful comedian and situation comedy actor, was cast against type in
Insomnia and
One Hour Photo (both 2002), two films in which he depicted "spine-chilling psychosis" and insanity. He also played the role of a therapist in
Good Will Hunting. After fulfilling a seven-picture contract with
Marvel Studios to play the character, which ended with
Avengers: Endgame (2019), Evans returned to playing villainous characters in films such as
Knives Out (2019),
The Gray Man (2022), and
Pain Hustlers (2023). •
Emma Watson, notable for playing
Hermione Granger in
Harry Potter series, went against type in
The Bling Ring (2013), where she played Nicki Moore, a brash and a self-obsessed fame-seeker, for which she received critical acclaim. •
Jet Li, notable for mainly portraying heroic roles in martial arts and adventure movies, played as a terminally ill single father who struggles to look up for his autistic 21-year-old son and work to make ends meet in his first drama movie
Ocean Heaven (2010). •
Heath Ledger was known for his lighthearted or romantic roles in films such as
10 Things I Hate About You (1999), ''
A Knight's Tale (2001), and Brokeback Mountain'' (2005). However, after the movie released, Ledger's performance received widespread critical acclaim, to the point that it has been termed as one of the greatest performances ever. Ledger
posthumously received the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in the
81st Academy Awards for his role as the Joker. • At the start of his career,
Brad Pitt was playing a "cowboy-hatted hunk" or a traditional leading man characters in movies like
Thelma and Louise (1991),
A River Runs Through It (1992),
Legends of the Fall (1994) and
Interview with the Vampire (1994). His portrayal of Jeffrey Goines, a mentally unstable, hyperactive patient in a psychiatric ward in
12 Monkeys (1995) proved to be a career-defining pivot, earning him his first
Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a
Golden Globe win. •
The Rock aka Dwayne Johnson, is mostly known for playing muscular, invincible and larger than life heroes in movies, especially in jungle-themed adventure movies like
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012),
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017),
Jungle Cruise (2021) etc. He was then cast against type in
Benny Safdie’s directorial
The Smashing Machine (2025), where he played the role of
Mark Kerr, a character more vulnerable than any of his previous roles. He garnered widespread critical acclaim for his performance, termed as his career best till date. ==See also==