There are many times where I see an actor trying to take on a role in some kind of desperate attempt to break free from the restraints of their signature role and more often than not this seems to fail.
What is it about some actors that can escape a character or type of role without issue, while some only try and try again, only to fail time and time again?
Actors like John Travolta and Will Smith started out playing roles that became cultural icons. But, these two guys moved onward to a successful career continuously reshaping what public opinion might have always been about their skills to bring characters to life and make you believe them.
Jim Carrey built a lifetime upon making weird faces and voices and fart noises and making people laugh uncontrollably, only to branch off into unknown territory and turn out several stellar performances of various dramatic degree in films such as Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind and Man on the moon.
The holy trinity of acting royalty and greatness. . . Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and Robert De Niro have all three broadened their horizons by appearing in intense dramatic roles as well as comedic ones.
But, then you have all of these other actors who just seem to be typecast into playing certain roles and there seems to be no hope coming for them to ever break free.
I dig Eliza Dushku. She was great as Faith on one of my favorite television shows, Buffy the vampire slayer. She had two more of my favorite television roles as Echo on Dollhouse and the brilliant and highly underappreciated show Tru calling.
Dushku was actually an acting veteran long before becoming a TV queen. She was appearing in films since early childhood. She acted alongside Arnold and Jamie Lee in True lies and with greats De Niro, Ellen Barkin, and another, at the time up and comer, Leonardo De Caprio in This boys life.
She has lately been rocking the scream queen thing and I am totally digging on that as she has been in some great movies. But Dushku, like so many other actors, has a hard time playing a role outside of her realm. She is always the tough chick. But hey, I guess if you're good at something why not stick with it?
Still, there are many other actors whose experimentation and performances have been far less appealing.
Judd Nelson has a hard time registering with me outside of the role of being a teenage burnout or yuppie scumbag thanks to his 80's fare.
I can't look at Bruce Campbell without seeing the wise cracking Ash from the Evil dead trilogy.
William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy probably have a hard time being accepted as anything other than Kirk and Spock to people that watch that Star trek bullshit.
Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry seemed to have a hard time getting people to take them seriously as anything other than Chandler and Joey from Friends.
Gary Coleman probably never set foot on a movie lot without somebody asking what Willis was talking about. I would say he is still living that down were it not for the fact that he is dead.
Anthony Perkins spent the rest of his life trying to make people forget that he was Norman Bates. Didn't work though.
Keanu Reeves has tried over and over to reinvent himself and he was even cast as some action hero in those crappy Matrix movies. But, I can not ever see this guy without expecting him to pull back his bangs and go "Dude!"
Every time I would ever see Ralph Macchio I would expect him to start going "wax on wax off", so thank god he doesn't make movies anymore.
I’m sure that pissed him off that he was a grown ass man and people still called him the karate kid. Well, at least they did a remake of that movie and he can leave that behind him now.
Some people embrace their one dimensional talents.
Vince Vaughn has made a nice career out of playing himself in every single movie he has ever been in.
These days we have the dumpier version of that whole thing in Seth Rogan.
Hey, John Wayne became a screen legend referred to as the Duke from basically playing the same role over and over.
I was truthfully never much of a Duke fan. Is it just me or does that guy sound like he is going to take a shit every time he clears his throat and yammers some dialogue?
But some actors just cannot live their roles down. Just ask Urkel.
The idea of not being able to escape a character role is something that I like to refer to as the Al Bundy syndrome.
I mean, this guy was a bench warmer for the Pittsburgh Steelers and played Popeye Doyle. He has a new hit show on television called. . . . Umm. . . Something. I have no idea. You know why? Two words. . . . Al Bundy. Seriously, this guy is always going to be Al Bundy to me no matter who or what he plays for the rest of his life.
I have never been an actor before, but I guess this has got to suck ass. I got two more words. . . .
Stiffler
And Mclovin.
Okay, I’m done. But what does this have to do with horror, you might ask? I just watched this new movie called Bitten. Vampire movie.
Heard some good things about it. It’s actually more of a horror comedy. But, it’s pretty damn good and quite entertaining. Much better than another vampire themed horror comedy that I had seen recently, Blood on the Highway.
Bitten tells the story of a paramedic who finds a bloodied and lifeless girl in an alley and takes her home. He is recovering from a break up and his male curiosity gets the better of his judgment.
The paramedic was played by the actor Jason Mewes.
Who is none other than- bonggggggggg! Jay from the Jay and silent Bob movies made by Kevin Smith.
Yep, no silent Bob. . . . Just Jay . . . Battling undead bloodsuckers. As soon as I recognized him I thought to myself how annoying this will be trying to picture Jay being in a serious role. Thankfully, I didn't have to.
Jason Mewes realizes what people have come to expect from his talents and he plays the character in this film very similar to that of his more popular role. Every other word out of his mouth is a swear word. He doesn't even try to suspend belief and make the viewer believe that he is another character. The whole thing works pretty well and adds to the enjoyment of the movie.
When he finds out that his house guest is a vampire, this being because she ate his ex-girlfriend, he exclaims "Holy shit! You ate my ex-girlfriend! I don't know whether to call the police or buy you flowers."
So begins their relationship. Of course they both realize what is coming and shall be deemed necessary, so Jay . . . Err. . . Umm. . . The paramedic dude. . . . Brings her home an alley cat, which makes her sick. Next he pockets a bag of blood from the fridge at work. Despite the care he exudes by putting it in a clean glass, it’s too cold. So, we all know what is next.
Things get bloody as he feeds her some annoying neighborhood drug dealers, and then she eats his landlady. This is all just the beginning of his troubles.
The film uses relationship metaphors mixed with vampire comedy. She greets him through the door from a hard nights work by jumping on his back and scaring the crap out of him. After a while she begs to be taken out and when he refuses she asks "Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?"
Before long the vampires they do not dispose of properly begin to come back. There is a great scene where his ex-girlfriend attacks him screaming "I want my shirt! I want my cds!" This is all very entertaining.
His partner and best friend, who literally spends half of the movie taking a shit or talking about taking a shit, begins to suspect something is wrong with this strange girl he has taken in from the streets and things go even more haywire from there. The whole movie is a lot of fun and extremely enjoyable.
How can you not enjoy a movie that has several scenes of the devoted boyfriend cleaning up his undead girlfriends messes to a tune called Tidy up your mess that sounds like a Barney the dinosaur song?
Be sure to keep watching the movie all the way until after the credits as there is several blooper moments in the actual credits before a final scene afterwards. This was a very cool movie and a whole lot of fun.
It’s always nice to see an actor branch out and take on an entirely new type of role from which they are used to playing and pull it off. But, as I said before . . . . If you're good at something why not keep at it? So, in that aspect its equally as pleasing to see an actor embrace their type casted characters and have some fun with it. This film is totally a case of an actor doing just that and it’s a lot of fun for everybody. If the idea of Jay from the Kevin Smith movies battling bloodsuckers is something that sounds entertaining to you than you are certainly in for a trip because your ship has arrived.
***Original blog post date 6/27/2010***
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