10 Trick Castings That Totally Fooled You

Actors hate being typecast, though they can use it to their advantage. Bruce Willis will often pay the bills by sleepwalking through blockbusters like A Good Day To Die Hard or Red 2, which allows him to go do juicer work with Moonrise Kingdom or Looper.

Typecasting is also a way for audiences to know what they’re getting when they buy a ticket. If the film stars Jason Statham, there’s a fair chance he’ll be punching people in the face throughout. Occasionally a movie can use the audience’s knowledge of an actor against them, either by subverting their image or outright destroying it.

An actor known for playing a good guy might be playing a secret villain, or they could be set up as the lead character, only to die halfway through. When used correctly this can be a good way to twist expectations; when it’s done wrong, it’s just a cheap gimmick used to mislead the viewing public.

It’s always nice to see a film using your assumptions against you though, and here are ten movies that did a good job of it.

In an alternate universe, Frank Grillo would have made an awesome Punisher, but he was snapped up to play Brock Rumlow instead. Grillo’s one of the few actors who could be a convincing threat to Captain America despite his character having no superpowers, and after Rumlow is badly scarred by the events of The Winter Soldier, the stage was set for epic revenge.

He then becomes the villainous Crossbones, who helped assassinate Steve Rogers in the comic. This led to fans believing Cap might die when he faces off against Rumlow, but they needn’t have worried; Crossbones is dead within the first ten minutes.

He gets a great fight scene before trying to kill Cap in a suicide bombing. Thanks to Scarlet Witch’s quick reflexes she contains the explosion and tosses him away, although this doesn’t work well for the people around him when the bomb does go off.

Crossbones was kind of a red herring character here, though his death does play a part in fracturing the Avengers.