10 Comic Actors Who Excelled In Serious Roles

By Anthony Blankenship / January 5, 2013

Most of the time, when we turn on a movie with an actor famously known for being foolish, we expect to get a good laugh or two out of them. There are plenty of actors we can rely on to give us that comedic relief we crave in a movie, and those guys usually don't let us down. There is no better stress reliever than a really well done comedy movie that goes beyond the toilet humor with the jokes, but one thing that may be even better than that is watching an actor successfully make the transition from comedy to drama. There are a lot of times where it is done unsuccessfully, so when we do finally get a heartbreaking performance from the most unlikely of candidates, it makes us feel even more fulfilled than it would've if a classic serious actor had taken the role. Trusting an actor known for comedy roles to tackle serious roles is really a make or break situation, though: either it's done well done or it doesn't work at all. Often audiences will find them themselves disappointed in the actor for trying to make this transition. So here are 10 actors who were able to pull off this feat in ways we never dreamed... some even were able to establish a new stage of their career out of it.

10. Tom Hanks

Some may think Tom Hanks is a weird choice for this list because most of us know him for all of the serious roles he has done, but he actually got his start in comedy. Before becoming the well known, well respected actor he is now, he was in comedies such as Turner and Hooch and Punchline. Since those though, he has gone on to star in Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, and Saving Private Ryan. All of those are very good movies that Hanks has been in, and it was his comedy career that was able to establish him as an actor that allowed him to eventually be in those movies and become a living legend today.