Type-casting is a double-edged sword for any actor; it can result in tremendous success, as it proves that they have convinced audiences - and more importantly, studio executives - that they can play a certain kind of role, be it a romantic lead, a dramatic character, or maybe an action hero. Normally after one big hit, actors will get offers to play the same type of role in the future, though the danger is that without diversifying or demonstrating that they have more to offer, audiences will get tired of them - call it Michael Cera syndrome. These 10 roles, however, allowed actors to break their previously established mould, and though they took advantage of it to varying degrees, it's clear that each role demonstrated another facet of their talents, and that they have a lot more to offer than most will reasonably expect. Here are 10 amazing roles that saved typecast actors...
10. Elizabeth Shue - Leaving Las Vegas
So strong was Elizabeth Shue's transformative performance in Leaving Las Vegas that she ended up earning an Oscar nomination. Playing prostitute Sera, Shue sheds the good girl-type image that she had made for herself in a glut of films throughout the 1980s, including The Karate Kid, Adventures in Babysitting, Cocktail, and most famously, Back to the Future Parts II and III. Playing a hooker after playing a wholesome, likeable young woman in all those films is to make quite the statement indeed, then; Shue paints herself as sexually confident, and more to the point, not just fresh-faced as she was perceived before, but downright sexy. Though it's fair to say that Shue hasn't exactly continued along that trajectory since the film's release, it has allowed her to take occasional departures into more divisive cinematic territory (Mysterious Skin, as Joseph Gordon-Levitt's neglectful mother) and prove it wasn't a one-hit wonder.