10 Classic Film Characters Who Didn't Have As Much Screen-Time As You Thought

Some actors need only a matter of seconds to spark into life and turn a movie on its head.

Some actors need a while to find their feet. Give the movie half an hour, and they should have eased into their part; most films are guaranteed a sequel these days, after all. But some actors need only a matter of seconds to spark into life and turn a movie on its head. These are the characters that are so iconic, you don't even need to have seen the movie to picture them in their costume, with a choice quote, and a look in their eyes. Would it shock you though to realise how little screen time some of these characters have had? It takes incredible dedication to train for a big role, maybe lose weight or change appearance, and generally just immerse yourself in the mind of a character; imagine how much more it must take knowing that you won't appear in the movie for longer than half an hour. Here are ten classic movie characters that had hardly any screen-time...

10. Darth Vader - Star Wars IV

Darth Vader is easily one of the most famous baddies in movie history; his presence in the first Star Wars film would not only form the crux of the following two, but prompt George Lucas to give us three prequels, documenting the rise of this super-villain. The rest, as they say, is history. But in the original film, Darth Vader only actually appears on screen for 12 minutes. This is a character that even from the very start, embodied the Dark Side that the very franchise, and yet he's only in 10% of the entire movie. And if that's not hugely surprising, remember also that Obi Wan Kenobi died in that movie. Alec Guinness's version of Kenobi is another massively iconic movie character, and yet he appeared as a hologram for most of the original trilogy.
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Mark White hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.