10 Remarkable Movie Performances By The Last Actor You'd Expect

Sometimes actors are at their best outside their comfort zones.

21 Jump Street Channing Tatum
Columbia Pictures

A lot of actors are very good at playing a certain type of role. You want a ditzy lead for your romantic comedy? Jennifer Aniston is your girl. Awkard teen? Michael Cera. Or maybe you want a wise old man to dole out life lessons? No problem. That's probably what Morgan Freeman was doing today anyway.

Actors like these are a safe bet for directors and an easy way to let audiences know what kind of character their seeing without the need for exposition.

The downside though is that it can lead to these kinds of actors getting typecast into specific roles, hindering their ability to show the range of their acting skills. It can also lead to a sense of boring predictability for audiences. After all, it's a well known joke that it's only a surprise if a Sean Bean character doesn't heroically sacrifice themselves.

That's why it's so refreshing to see actors step out of their comfort zone and play a role that's against their type. It can showcase a whole new layer of talent that they don't usually get to demonstrate and can hit audiences with an unexpected twist when a film subverts the expectation of who that actor is playing.

10. Liam Neeson In Taken

21 Jump Street Channing Tatum
20th Century Fox

Before 2008, you would never expect to see "Liam Neeson" and "action hero" together in the same sentence. Sure he'd dabbled in action movies before with Phantom Menace and Batman Begins, but, like a lot of respected British actors, that was strictly in the role of a wise mentor figure. Certainly, no-one ever expected to see him jumping onto boats and knifing bad guys in the throat.

Even Taken itself didn't seem likely to succeed when first announced, just another by the numbers action film destined for the DVD bargain bins. And yet, thanks to a combination of some incredibly well shot action sequences and a stellar performance from Neeson, it ended up being one of the best action films of the past two decades.

Neeson managed to make the character of Bryan Mills work, giving him a sense world-weariness and likeability that's undercut with a sense of brutality that absolutely makes you believe he's the kind of guy who would strap a car battery to a man's nipples. It's become a signature role for Neeson and his gravelly delivery of "I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you" has become an iconic line.

The sequels were pretty pants though, as were a lot of the "over-the-hill action star gives it another shot" films that it inspired, but let's not hold that against him.

Contributor

I was just a mild-mannered NCTJ accredited journalist until one day I found out the truth... that I could share my nerdy ramblings with people on the internet! It's just like mumbling to myself on the train, but without all the strange looks.