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The Hollywood star system is built on familiarity. Since Hollywood’s golden age, studios have been using popular actors and actresses to lure audiences into a theater for films they might otherwise have no interest in seeing. The rigidity of the old star system gave viewers the reassurance that they were always going to get the same thing from the same actors, with few exceptions.

Cary Grant, for example, kept the same debonair onscreen persona throughout his illustrious career. Movie stars still exist today, but the biggest of them tend to actively avoid typecasting by taking disparate roles in both big-budget and independent fare. Even today, however, there are actors who rest on their laurels and embrace their onscreen persona in a big way — by playing the same role again and again, no matter the film. Here are 7 such actors.

 

Paul Giamatti

Seeming desperate and sad just seems to come naturally to Paul Giamatti, best known as the wine-swilling schlub Miles in Sideways.

In that film, he’s a deeply flawed yet sympathetic loser who’s mad at the whole world but mostly just at himself. The pudgy balding actor hasn’t strayed too far from the role since, though he often goes for unsympathetic or even outright villainous roles.

But whether he’s playing a stuttering building manager (Lady in the Water) or a parasitic faux-psychiatrist (Love & Mercy); a predatory record producer (Straight Outta Compton) or even Santa Claus himself (Fred Claus), Giamatti always seems to bring his signature blend of self-pity and barely-contained rage along with him.

 

Adam Sandler

Adam Sandler began his film career as the titular alcoholic man-child sent back to elementary school of Billy Madison. In the 20 years since, Sandler has adopted plenty of different accents to lazily play the same immature slob who somehow gets the girl again and again, never really dropping familiar affectations like his angry outbursts, soft-spoken tone, condescending one liners and mush-mouthed drunk-acting.

Give him credit for trying, at least a couple times — films like Punch Drunk Love, Reign Over Me and Funny People found the actor attempting to tap into his dramatic side, finding emotional depth in those sad eyes of his, with varying degrees of success.

Despite moderate acclaim (particularly for Punch Drunk Love), Sandler keeps returning to his old formula of crass childishness, creating an endless string of bottom-tier comedies that seem to always come out once a year and then immediately disappear from memory.

 

Kevin Hart

In transitioning from popular standup specials to A-list Hollywood comedies, Kevin Hart has kept his comedic persona as a motor-mouthed, humorously short dude remarkably in tact.

The Hollywood studios are partially to blame, as they have a habit of sticking Hart in lazily scripted comedies like Get Hard and The Wedding Ringer, which don’t give him anything to do beyond what he’s already done before.

Hart is often hilarious with his bug-eyed physicality and inspired rambles, even when the movie he’s in isn’t. His film career is still relatively young, so here’s hoping Hart can find a project that pushes him beyond what we’ve already seen, or at least manages to be half as funny as his best standup bits.

 

Jason Statham

Like most bulked-up action stars, Jason Statham’s most defining character trait is his toughness and competence. He’s always the best at what he does, which usually involves some combination of cars and guns.

A little down-and-dirtier than your typical action hero, Statham excels at playing stone-faced tough guys you don’t want to cross in stunt-heavy action films, wherein he often does his own stunts. Even his distinct British accent and shaved head feel like a part of his perpetually typecast characters in films like Crank, Snatch and the Transporter series. Statham got the chance to turn his persona on its head in the 2015 comedy Spy, wherein he played a hilariously delusional version of his usual top agent character.

 

Michael Cera

Like most others on this list, Michael Cera is still in some way defined by his first role of note —that of awkward teen George Michael in Fox’s cult comedy series Arrested Development. He spends the whole series wandering into awkward situations and nervously mumbling his way through them, a talent he brought to film with the twin successes of Juno and Superbad in 2007.

In the years following, the world become oversaturated with Cera’s tongue-tied charms, which extend even to a film like Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, wherein he was supposed to play an immature jerk but still comes across like his usual self. There’s a reason why Cera has so consistently been cast as an awkward teen — he’s great at it, using his puppy dog eyes and subtle physicality to really sell every uncertain movement or conversational misstep. He’s just best taken in small doses.

 

John Wayne

He may not be contemporary, but John Wayne still stands out through all of film history for his remarkably limited range. In classics like Stagecoach, Rio Bravo, Red River and The Searchers, his stern expression and measured way of speaking helped to cement Wayne as the ultimate Western star — a fiercely independent, strong-but-silent-type cowboy who demanded respect even when he was unreasonable or even overtly racist.

Wayne deviated from his usual role only on occasion — as in 1956’s The Conqueror, where he hilariously took on the role of Genghis Khan — but otherwise stuck so rigidly to established persona, it hardly seems right to call him an actor. He was more an icon.

 

Vince Vaughn

Vince Vaughn always plays Vince Vaughn. The habit started off early with 1996’s Swingers, where he actually was playing a version of himself as Jon Favreau’s fast-talking, slang-spewing wingman who wants nothing more than to bond with his buddies and score with some chicks. It’s a hilarious, instantly iconic role that Vaughn has never quite equaled, especially since his later roles seem so deflated of energy.

He flirted with dramatic roles briefly in the late ‘90s before returning to his cocky, dully-condescending frat bro persona in Old School, and then again for Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and again and again with increasingly diminished returns.

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