Actors in unexpected roles

One of my all time favorite actors is Gene Hackman
The 1st time I saw Mel Brooks's film'Young Frankenstein' Hackman played the blind hermit, I recognized the voice but couldn't remember his name. After seeing it again,I was surprised to see him in this brief role,he was funny
In another movie'The Birdcage' to watch him walk down the runway in drag was unexpected so funny
 

"Unexpected roles"? Have you ever seen in a movie James Stewart playing a murderer? I don't know, perhaps I missed it. But director Alfred Hitchcock once said in an interview with the French director François Truffaut, that Stewart never would play a murderer because of his reputation. Since that time I disliked Stewart. How much better is Joseph Cotton in Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943) as "Uncle Charlie".

A quote of him:
"The cities are full of women, middle-aged widows, husbands dead, husbands who've spent their lives making fortunes, working and working. And then they die and leave their money to their wives, their silly wives. And what do the wives do, these useless women? You see them in the hotels, the best hotels, every day by the thousands, drinking their money, eating their money, losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money, proud of their jewelry but of nothing else, horrible, faded, fat, greedy women."

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036342/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_cdt_t_127
 
George1959 said:
"Unexpected roles"? Have you ever seen in a movie James Stewart playing a murderer? I don't know, perhaps I missed it. But director Alfred Hitchcock once said in an interview with the French director François Truffaut, that Stewart never would play a murderer because of his reputation. Since that time I disliked Stewart. How much better is Joseph Cotton in Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943) as "Uncle Charlie".

A quote of him:
"The cities are full of women, middle-aged widows, husbands dead, husbands who've spent their lives making fortunes, working and working. And then they die and leave their money to their wives, their silly wives. And what do the wives do, these useless women? You see them in the hotels, the best hotels, every day by the thousands, drinking their money, eating their money, losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money, proud of their jewelry but of nothing else, horrible, faded, fat, greedy women."

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036342/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_cdt_t_127
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James Stewart plays a murderer in After The Thin Man (1936)

after the thin man.jpg
 

I wasn't aware of this actor before seeing him in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. It probably took me the entire first season to get used to Ethan Peck as Spock. Of course there was the iconic Leonard Nimoy portrayal in the original. I even accepted Zachary Quinto as Spock in the spin off movies. Ethan Peck is Gregory Peck's grandson. Pictured in this link: Ethan Peck - Wikipedia
 
moviequeen1 said:
One of my all time favorite actors is Gene Hackman
The 1st time I saw Mel Brooks's film'Young Frankenstein' Hackman played the blind hermit, I recognized the voice but couldn't remember his name. After seeing it again,I was surprised to see him in this brief role,he was funny
In another movie'The Birdcage' to watch him walk down the runway in drag was unexpected so funny
Click to expand...
Agreed. Hackman was one of the greats. I think my favorite role of his was in Coppola's haunting film, The Conversation (1974), where he played Harry Caul-- a surveillance expert who gets in a little over his head.
 
jujube said:
I like Joe Pesci as a "comic" crook or bad guy, but the role he played in Goodfellows was over the top. I've never seen the movie in its entirety, just bits and pieces, including the scene where he stabs someone with a ballpoint pen. I wish I hadn't seen that scene because I think of it every time I see him in a movie.
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Well, you're right about the gore. Goodfellows (1990) was a great movie based on Nicholas Pileggi's popular book, Wiseguy. But there were several scenes that were over the top gore-wise, I suppose to illustrate what psychopathic lunatics some of the mob guys were.

But some directors love to feature gore. Brian De Palma comes to mind, along with Scorsese, and also in several of Tarantino's pictures. That's why I skipped a few of his films-- to spare myself the gore, even though the films were overall very good.
 
ChiroDoc said:
Well, you're right about the gore. Goodfellows (1990) was a great movie based on Nicholas Pileggi's popular book, Wiseguy. But there were several scenes that were over the top gore-wise, I suppose to illustrate what psychopathic lunatics some of the mob guys were.

But some directors love to feature gore. Brian De Palma comes to mind, along with Scorsese, and also in several of Tarantino's pictures. That's why I skipped a few of his films-- to spare myself the gore, even though the films were overall very good.
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I agree. good films but maybe too much gore, reality, what ever you want to call it. Good direction, good acting but painful to watch since it touched close to something that was better left unsaid or something that I did not want to hear.
 

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