Actors/actresses who always play 'themselves'

I was just watching this movie with John Krasinski and realized every single thing I've ever seem him in, he plays this same character. Want some more examples. Vince Vaughn is another one.

Josh Duhamel

Steve Buscemi has roles in a bunch of different types of films, but he's always identifiably Buscemi.

Same for Jeff Goldblum.

Wanda Sykes is Wanda Sykes 100% of the time.

Christopher Walken obv

Bruce Willis

One could argue Tom Cruise with a couple exceptions.

"Playing the same character" /= "playing yourself"

I was gonna say Cruise but then I thought of Rock of Ages and Eyes Wide Shut

Lawrence Tierney

Fred Willard

Stan Lee

woody allen / woody strode

I guess other question is, can you play one character your whole career and still be considered a 'good' actor

there's a local actor in our town who is in his 60s who has been doing just that for 40 years. though generally when people ask how he was in a show the answer is typically not 'he was good' or 'he was bad' but 'he was himself'

I'd say being a good actor just means being interesting to watch. It doesn't necessarily have to do with persuading the audience that you're someone different. And if you're really being yourself, then you're going to have a lot of intrinsic range anyway, since people have lots of contradictory parts that don't fit together. Buscemi might always be playing himself, but he can go from creepy-aggressive to gentle or timid.

I do agree with that. Plus it's often much harder to decouple the actor from his/her own persona in Hollywood, just because they're so well known, their likenesses and mannerisms are iconic and embedded into our brains. Theatre doesn't run into that problem as much, as even the biggest names there don't quite reach the stature of film actors.

I think you can be a star, though, like an obviously compelling presence, without being a good actor, and maybe a good test of that is whether a performer can adapt to the role, or if the role just gets steamrolled back into the shape of the performer.

like anthony hopkins can turn into hannibal lecter, but stone cold steve austin is always stone cold steve austin.

John Wayne played more or less the same character in every one of his movies. It is not really possible to know if that character was "himself".

Then again, most of the movie stars during the studio system days of Hollywood didn't play against type once they were established as stars, and whatever movie established their stardom usually established whatever their continuing persona would be. There are some exceptions to this rule, but they were rare.

I think of Seth Rogen as the epitome of this

Steve Buscemi has roles in a bunch of different types of films, but he's always identifiably Buscemi.

Miller's Crossing

what about his cable-show gangster?

disagree on Wayne; James Stewart too, plenty of dark roles against his image

I think of Seth Rogen as the epitome of this

This might be the most otm answer in the whole thread, present and/or future.

Jimmy Stewart was much more versatile than John Wayne. Stewart fell more among the rarities, in that he broke free of the studios later in his career and branched out rather daringly.

It is hard to say under the studio system who might have been a better actor than their life's work ever captured on film, since scripts and roles were generally assigned, rather than chosen back then. Plus, when you have a good thing going, you're working regularly and making bushels of money, it takes gumption to rock that boat very strenuously and risk falling from glory among your fans. For example, Groucho would have been pretty daring to play dramatic roles, even if he was another Olivier under that comedy moustache.

i've been acting my whole life

"Playing the same character" /= "playing yourself"

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, July 2, 2014 9:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how dare you suggest i don't know exactly what every actor is like in real life!

Jerry Seinfeld

William Shatner? although i'm sure he once played massively against type (some kind of psycho?) but maybe i imagined it.

Boston Legal iirc

James Kirk and Denny Crane are not at all the same character. I have no detailed recollection, but I don't think TJ Hooker was either of them

xpost, but Crane was on that other lawyer David E Kelley show first (and more interesting)

they're different characters but they all seem more like, 'well, this is what shatner is like at this stage of his life, now'
james spader seems to be a weasel with unctuous charm in everything, though.

except as dfw in stargate

you're right! well, he's an actor after all.

they're different characters but they all seem more like, 'well, this is what shatner is like at this stage of his life, now'

they don't seem anything like what Shatner's ghostwriter described him as being like in the 90s, or Rollins describes him as being like today

wait did you mean james spader was doing an impression of david foster wallace in stargate?

James Spader played Daniel Ellsberg in the tv movie The Pentagon Papers and did a very good job at "noble dogooder" -- not something he's known for.

Also, he was the good guy in True Colors with John Cusack playing a slimeball.

Arnold.

Arnold always plays himself, yes, but he has done a really broad array of characters imo.

Tarantino?

Guys dreamland put themselves in quotation marks so we don't have to waste time pedantically pointing out that Russell Brand might not act like Russell Brand in the privacy of his living room

Ray Winstone
Bob Hoskins
Timothy Spall

peter north

every role, damn near every scene, spurting huge loads for the glory of the county, but he never rly lets us know what's going on underneath

Bart the Bear

sid james
terry-thomas

Natalie Portman

keanu? most of his roles are characters with a "i don't understand this role i've been given in life but i'll pretend anyway" slant but that's great because that's also his technique so he's actually great.

i was just kidding philip but the glasses and the hair and the hypereducated-softie manner always make me think of him; makes the movie unintentionally eerie, which only helps.

too may "roles" and "greats" but drnk; sorry

Burton and Taylor did this, if only for one film? I've never see Who is Afraid...

Swimming With Sharks vs Usual Suspects

Spacey rules. Never heard of Swimming With Sharks, I just looked up the plotline....so wait.. he plays a tied-up hostage in two movies from 1994 (this and The Ref)?

That is a weird career move. And then The Negotiator in '98 where he's trying to get a hostage free.

spacey and malkovich, regardless of makeup and bad accents, are always exactly the same IMO. I've no idea why speaking slowly and sarcastically codes as great acting to so many ppl.

Marilyn Monroe
Humphrey Bogart
Rick Mayall

Humphrey Bogart

Not sure about this one, I watched African Queen for the first time relatively recently and was surprised by how goofy his performance was compared to the more noirish stuff he's generally known for.

When was it that he said "Tennis, anyone?"

has no one said Michael Cera yet

always exactly the same IMO.

again, including Sharks and Suspects?

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/01/magazine/on-language-drop-the-gun-louie.html

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/02/14/tennis-anyone/

Maybe some overlap with actors who are best known for a type - and maybe inhibit those roles better than anything else they do - desp
ite a diverse filmography (Cagney, Mitchum perhaps)

Inhabit even

funnily enough Michael Cera totally went against type when he literally played himself

not in Clark & Michael

how could I forget

Diane Keaton?

My standard is actors and actresses that wear the same tinted sunglasses in the movie and irl. Keaton, Depp ...

Nah deep plays a pretty wide variety of wacky one note loons.

deep morelike shallow

Nah deep plays a pretty wide variety of wacky one note loons.
Right, like two well-known biopics. Or fictional characters Edward Scissorhands and Don Juan DeMarco.

Christian bale takes a lot of roles where he's Christian bale doing a bad impression of acting and others where he disappears into it and it's weird in that he doesn't seem to be phoning it in on either type.

dicaprio is always dicaprio doing a bad impression of acting so i guess he counts

don't think it's fair to include comedians in this as their characters are usually expected to be extensions/variations of their stand-up personas (before they enter their playing-against-type-in-sad-dramas-wau-what-range phase at least)

Is James Corden a comedian?

idk who that is

Zoe Deschanel

Danny McBride

dude who played Earnest

Ben stiller seems guilty of this in a really excruciating way

i watched his heroin addict movie, i dunno, he wasn't himself

Julianne Moore

janeane garofalo

Saw m cera on stage recently. Both very much michael cera & also not just.

I don't think that George Clooney always plays himself, but he's such an iconic human being that I struggle to see him on the screen as anything but George Clooney

Drew Barrymore a v good answer.

Not that good.

http://www.utaot.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/et.jpg

Weeeellll, she was what, 4?

George Clooney answer otm.

http://www.scene-stealers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/OBrotherWhereArtThou.jpg

Wiseguy answer: Marshall McLuhan.
Real answer: every time I think of someone (Gene Hackman, Bill Murray), I immediately think of at least one role where it's clearly not true (The Conversation, Broken Flowers).
Anti-answer: Harvey Keitel. The couple of times I saw him on a talk show, he was this weighty, ponderous guy who took himself and his profession way too seriously. Maybe he plays someone other than himself on talk shows.

Haha otm. The only time I saw him play that talk show character in a film was in the weighty, ponderous Ulysses Gaze.

tbf he gives the impression of a talented guy somewhat lacking in formal education and overcompensating for the latter. Not uncommon in his line of work, almost an occupational hazard, some might say.

Plus his main rival played a calculus teacher in a movie, a real smart guy.

First couple of minutes here couldn't be more relevant to your comments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewtrj4bTGh4

Ha, I knew what that would be before I even saw it load. He talks about Joseph Campbell a lot doesn't he? Always a red flag.

Who is Keietel's main rival?

Guy who played the boss on original Miami Vice

Although perhaps they are over it now

What about in Taxi Driver? He plays the pimp.

Honestly though I've only ever seen like maybe three movies he's in, so I couldn't say if that's his main persona.