10 Actors Who Just Played Against Type (And KILLED It)

10. Mark Ruffalo - Poor Things

Mark Ruffalo's career is largely defined by playing good-natured and heroic characters, from Bruce Banner aka The Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to the intrepid, integrity-filled journalist Michael Rezendes in Spotlight.

But for Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things, Ruffalo was cast in a role so flagrantly against type that he even tried to talk the filmmaker out of casting him, to which Lanthimos simply - and sensibly - laughed.

In the movie, Ruffalo portrays Duncan Wedderburn, a seemingly highfalutin lawyer whose fancy accent and fancier clothes belie the fact that he's actually both intensely debauched and totally pathetic.

Ruffalo's typically clipped, reserved affect is switched out for an intentionally over-the-top rendition of a foppish tosspot whose monstrous attempts to stall the maturity of his love interest, Bella Baxter (a phenomenal Emma Stone) quickly become both nauseating and hilarious.

Ruffalo, who was anxious about playing such a darkly comedic character, nevertheless spoke about his desire to "break all the perceptions" of him as an actor, and that he certainly did, enough that he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his work.